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  Despite the horror of what they had witnessed, and the danger that encroached upon them with every passing second. each and every member of the rebel soldiers stopped upon that moment and slowly saluted facing the cloud and their companions. Time seemed to hold still in that moment and a quiet enveloped all that witnessed this moment. Then as one the former prisoners turned and mimicked the gesture, not mockingly but with a solemn and compassionate solidarity with those that had brought them to this place but now fought with them and led them in this hopeless defence.

  “Back.” A single syllable from Lieutenant Gratius, at almost whisper level, brought the madness of the flight from the gas back to the rebels.

  Each man ran until their lungs burned, not from the gas but from the exertion of the flight from certain and agonising death. They did not pause even to glance backward at the advancing cloud until they could run no more. When they did they saw that the green wall of death had finally dissipated.

  “Wind changed a few miles back,” gasped Sergeant Curtius.

  “Didn’t think to tell me?” retorted Lieutenant Gratius.

  “It’d take a while to dissipate the gas. Besides, in every horror film I’ve seen the girl looks back and she trips. That shit ain’t gunna happen to me!”

  “This place is indefensible! We’ve got to get back to where we were. Form up.”

  “What? Are you crazy? We’ll be back in range of the gas again.”

  “We outran it once. They won’t try that again. They lost more of their men than we did.”

  Returning to their positions the troops remained noticeably agitated. Guns were no longer held steady, but shook visibly as the men glanced around their surroundings, fearful of what new horror would emerge from cover or fall from the sky. Each small noise drew a sudden turn as each soldier turned to assess the threat level associated with it. Vice-Corporal Balbus, nevertheless, seemed relatively calm, glancing around more to assess the terrain and the tactical advantages and disadvantages each feature offered. To the Senior Officers it seemed as though Balbus had been affected in an otherworldly fashion. Instead of the combat unsettling him, as they would have expected in a newer recruit, he was starting to look born to the role. The prisoners seemed more settled than even the more experienced soldiers under his leadership, as they looked to him for strength. Perhaps this was because they had no expectations of what a battle would involve and how far removed the rules of engagement the Empire were currently using was from those the soldiers expected. They had expected horror and had thus been more prepared for that which had ensued than troops used to the rules of engagement.

  Lieutenant Gratius took the decision to allow Balbus’ troops the first watch. They were less visibly shaken and the remainder of the soldiers would benefit from immediate rest. Normally he would have taken the first and last half hour of each watch to act as a bolster to the men, but he was so shaken by the new Imperial tactics that he realised that he needed a substantive rest in order to think clearly when the next attack came. He hated being on the reactive side once again. He was always at his best when he had control of the situation or could predict with at least some degree of accuracy the next move of his enemy. Now he was at a disadvantage. He tried to think back to the tactics of the pre-Imperial powers, to gain some measure of inspiration as to what may follow. The Imperial machine had, unfortunately, removed most of the references to such tactics and the true state of life before the Empire. All that remained were vague references to almost biblical plagues of war, disease and famine. Vast wars of attrition that decimated entire generations and periods of fear generated both from without and within. A time when governments could not tell friend from foe as their own subjects turned against them. As sleep claimed him his mind wandered through the green gas seeing tortured faces of all that had died under his command, questioning eyes all asking him the same question, “Why?” He had no answer to give them, save that he thought he was doing the right thing, even though the loss of life would not achieve anything. The old cliché of being able to sleep soundly at night sounding both shallow and ironic given the setting and content of the nightmare. Vast shadows of men long past rushed across the dreamscape re-enacting battles long lost yards of ground proclaimed as victories despite the thousands of lives lost to gain them. Again and again the men fell each in a myriad of different ways as they attempted to act in a way that would let them reach their unobtainable objectives.

  Vice-Corporal Balbus glanced back at the prone Lieutenant shifting restlessly in his sleep and idly wondered what nightmares could be tormenting the noble spirit that resided within him. Balbus had his own daemons, yet he could live with them for he had affected a simple premise. He would expunge the sins of his intolerance by washing the blood away with toil and atonement. His life had become an irrelevance that could be gladly given for the greater good, to apologise for his support of the Empire, which had so failed to live up to that which he had imagined it was. He had never been under the impression that it was perfect, but the imperfections had at least been based, in his mind, on the greater perfection of Sol Invictus. Now if there was a supreme being then it was evident that it was either evil or had nothing to do with the Empire. To Balbus the existence, indifference or evilness of Sol Invictus was immaterial for whatever the outcome he was damned in the eyes of that deity. He could, at least do what he could to salve his conscience. This detachment had lead to his ability to navigate the corridors of war in calm serenity for he cared not what became of him. It was a freedom, a freedom he had never experienced before, akin to that he had expected upon reaching citizenship. Citizenship, he realised, was a dream; an image that would not have lived to his expectations for it would be but a gilded cage made of his won fear of being outcast from the Empire as his ancestors had been.

  Sergeant Curtius wandered around the camp unable to sleep; not tormented by his dreams as Gratius was, nor serene as he had noticed Balbus to be. He randomly swore under his breath, unable to comprehend how his loyalty to his commander had brought him here. He had never overly cared much for the concepts of right and wrong. What had possessed him to take them so much to himself now? Sure, the sight of the old being slaughtered for no apparent reason had sickened him and the deaths of the children had felt like the worst suckerpunch to the gut he had ever experienced but he felt he had been on the path to this long before those incidents. Were the priests right about the concept of a soul? Did everyone have some good in them that would rise at the appropriate moment if they let it? For the length of this mission he had been aware of some niggling voice in his head that he could not quite hear, yet pushing and urging quietly and persuasively along certain routes of action. For such questions and any answers that may ensue Curtius was singularly ill-equipped to answer or receive the answers he sought; so he swore and stomped around camp like a bear with a sore head.

  “Sir!” yelled a sentry. “Sir! Contact, we have movement ahead of the lines.”

  “How many men are we talking about, Halbadier?”

  “Doesn’t look like any man I’ve ever seen Sir. They look kind of box-like and they are moving very slowly.”

  “Box-like?” Lieutenant Gratius turned to Sergeant Curtius, “The only thing I can think of is a bomb disposal drone. Why would they use a bomb disposal drone here?”

  “They don’t deal with mines sir. That’s the only thing we would deploy that was explosive. IED’s are primitive and liable to blow up when the firing starts.”

  “That means they must be weapons of some sort. Perhaps they fitted them with something like that gas. Get snipers up top; tell them to aim for any circuitry or mechanics that aren’t shielded by armour!”

  Halbadier Laterensis clambered to the top of the nearest surviving building and drew his high velocity rifle. Halbadier Camillus, his spotter, squatted next to him.

  “Have we got a good arch on the approach?”

  “We sure do, I’m not so happy about the wind angle and speed, I’d say about 3 clicks left
and 4 high?”

  “Affirmative, perhaps 3.5 clicks left, it’s starting to pick up a bit.”

  “I’ll alter if we’re off. Let me know if it picks up any more and I’ll compensate then.”

  “Roger that.”

  Halbadier Laterensis peered down the scope after shifting his position to allow ease of shallow breathing. The crosshairs revealed a squat metallic object on rubber tracks slowly picking its way through the detritus of the battlefield.

  “Well, hitting it isn’t a problem. It’s just so damn slow.”

  “True, but remember we have to stop it. Can you see anything that might be a point of weakness?”

  “I can see the tracks, but our angle is all wrong. We’d have to be on top of it to sever those.”

  “What about that dish on top?”

  “Nah, most drones are self-guiding, fire and forget. We take that out and then it just completes the last mission it was given and stops. We can’t retreat any further, no cover.”

  “Shit! What about that box, to the left of the dish, it doesn’t look too well armoured?”

  “Put a pin in that one, anything not well armoured is either non-essential or movement based. That looks like it has circuits in. I.e. non-essential. If we get desperate we can give it a go.”

  “OK, what about that gear behind the left track? I can just make it out. If we take that out maybe it’ll just go in circles and then we can stop it when the other side comes into view.”

  “Worth a try.”

  Halbadier Laterensis hunkered down to draw sight on the tiny target. He slowed his breathing to eliminate body movement as he lines the crosshairs to the gear. If he hit, then the high velocity round should shred the offending mechanics to pieces destroying the means to distribute power to that side of the drones drive assembly.

  “Wind’s up.”

  “0.5 click added”

  Halbadier Laterensis exhaled and at the sweet point just after the point of exhalation gently caressed the trigger sending the round speeding on its way to the target. The drone rocked on its tracks when the bullet hit, and shuddered to a halt as a track lodged behind a rock.

  “Fuck! We nailed it!”

  “Wait, it could work its way free.”

  The drone sprayed a small cloud of pebbles as it gained purchase enough to climb the rock that had impeded its progress. Although it was driving in a circle the circumference meant that it could reach the rebel lines if it was impeded in the right way by another obstacle.

  “One more shot could damage it enough to strand it in the middle there…”

  “Wait, there’s two more of the bloody things coming over the ridge!”

  The sniper abandoned to luck the progress of the first drone. He just had to hope that its current course would stop it coming close enough to the lines to do what it had been sent there to do. He shifted his position so he could draw sight on the first of the additional drones.

  “Got sight?” asked the spotter.

  “Yup, same place as before.”

  “Wind’s picked up, adjust that extra half-click.”

  “Done, taking the shot.”

  “Hit.”

  “Moving to next target.”

  “No changes.”

  “Taking shot.”

  “Hit.”

  “Are the new ones moving?”

  “Negative, targets clear.”

  “What about that first one?”

  “It’s moved past us, no line of sight.”

  “Fuck! How fast was it moving?”

  “Walking pace, no faster.”

  “Fuck that then! I’ll be buggered if it slips past us!”

  The sniper gathered up his rifle and with an ease borne of repeated training and practice stripped it down and stowed it in his backpack. Then, standing up, he sprinted to the rappelling ropes they had secured for a swift retreat. With a hiss he was over the parapet before his spotter could react. The spotter ran to the edge to see his partner reach the ground and sprint off after the crippled drone.

  Lieutenant Gratius held his place on watch, staring at the drone making its way slowly towards the lines. Ammunition was short and he knew that it would do no good with the armoured face of the drone towards the rebel lines. To the rear of the drone he spied the sniper running towards it waving desperately. The direction of the waves indicated a general retreat.

  “Form up, we’re moving back again.” Gratius ordered.

  As the men grouped together for a march back into the ruins of Rome a general lethargy seemed to overwhelm them for they knew that the dilapidated buildings behind them were ultimately indefensible. The prospect of street-to-street combat with a superior force meant only doom and death.

  The sniper reached the drone and halted in front of it yelling and gesticulating wildly at his own lines but he was too far away to be heard. Turning away from his friends and comrades he focussed instead on the drone, searching for a weakness that would enable him to halt its mission. His earlier shot had hit its target but only after passing through a piece of casing that meant the cog he had only slightly damaged was now completely inaccessible. With that slight hope now diminished he moved back to the front of the drone and placing his feet firmly in front of two protruding pieces of rubble that he hoped would anchor him he grasped the edges of the front facing and pushed, hoping it would give the rebels enough time to fall back. The pressure built as the drone reacted to this new obstacle with greater force created by shifting to a gear that would create greater torque. The sniper could feel his muscles slowly tear as he resisted the new onslaught of force.

  “He’s holding back the drone!” yelled Balbus as the rebels began to march back into the city.

  The sniper was oblivious to the increased speed in the rebels movements his desperate act had caused. He was only concerned with the new development that had raised new difficulties for him. A fine mist had begun to spray from the top of the drone and as some of the liquid drifted down it collected on the side of the drone making it difficult to hold fast. The liquid also irritated his throat as he could do nothing to stop himself breathing it in. He seemed to be producing more saliva than normal and he started coughing. Each spasm in his diaphragm caused his entire body to judder and he was slowly forced back by the drone. By now the jet of aerosol liquid could be clearly seen even from the rebel lines. A red mist descended upon the vision of the sniper as his bowels evacuated causing his stance to slip even further. The drone crushed his torso even as the vomiting began.

  In the ruins of Rome the rain began to fall covering all within, for the ceilings were either non-existent or so full of leaks and cracks that they may well have been. As night fell the coughing started.

  Scraps of paper were handed round the ruins to those who were still capable of rational thought. Many lay convulsing in the final throws of a disease that had started to work its way around the rebels. There was no doubt as to the cause, the drones had been tasked with unleashing the horrors of the pre-Imperial Age. Biological terror, unstoppable, implacable and deadly. The medics had been among the first to be afflicted after an initial few cases. With no effective care-givers the death toll had mounted inexorably. Those affected had developed flu-like symptoms to start but then when the diarrhoea had started blood began to seep from orifices and the convulsions began. Eventually the afflicted expunged their own intestines from their anuses with the sound of ripping wet cotton. Death followed soon after, mercifully ending the delirious suffering.

  As the paper passed a simple choice faced the surviving rebels. Depleted as they were they could not hope to hold out much longer but they had little choice for if they surrendered they would be vaporised to halt the spread of the disease. Yet even this seemed like mercy as the screams of their comrades ripped into the peace of the night. Lieutenant Gratius had made a brief speech pointing out that the choice would be made by majority and the outcome of surrender and continued resistance. The surprise had come from Balbus, who had entered into t
he debate:

  “Our suffering here will end swiftly should we surrender. We will be vaporised. Thus will end that which we endure, as will what we strove to achieve. We are dead already, our fate is sealed. What remains is what we can hope to achieve through our deaths. If we surrender then the Empire broke us. It won, as it always does. We will be forgotten, just another rebellion that was crushed. The horror of what the Empire hoped to achieve will be brushed away by our treachery and defeat. There is but one choice, to fight; to show those who would join against this type of horror and tyranny that the Empire can be defeated. We will lose the battle but the Empire will loose the war. They want us to surrender, why else would they use such weapons, risk infecting the Planet of Sol Invictus itself? Why else but to subjugate the spirit of freedom and justice, to make us give up so they can use us as examples of the futility of resisting them. The only way for us to effect a victory is to fight on, to persevere, and to steal their victory from them. We must give hope from where there is none; energise those who would be righteous.”