Chapter 6

The Northern Road

They were a day out of town and making good progress, especially for this number of men on foot. He was far behind the progress he’d made on his last trip north, but that had been done in a panic and ended with several mounts being ridden to death.

Although most of the time riding at the head of the column of men had been spent going over the never ending flow of documents Sophus supplies him with covering history, inventions and tactics, he also spent time thinking about Lucilla and their last moment together before they’d left Devnum.

He’d decided that he wasn’t going to have his men set up a large command tent like they did when he traveled with the legions. That might have been standard among the Romans and seen as strange for their leader to somehow debase himself by sleeping as the common men. Among the Caledonii, the reverse was true.

Part of the goal of having all of these men travel south with him and bringing a portion of them back north was so they could spread the word about Rome, its people, and hopefully dispel some of the preconceived notions their countrymen might have. Ramirus, who was better at this kind of thing than Ky was, had said the hardest thing to getting disparate people to come together was getting them to see each other as actual people and not some kind of other that they could graft all of their fears onto. He’d also said that the best way to get around this was by getting the people to intermix as much as possible, since familiarity was the only true way to bridge that gap. It was hard to see someone as a faceless other once they’d met them face to face.

So instead of a large tent with a bed and carpets and braziers for fires to keep him warm at night, Ky was sleeping on the ground mixed in with the other leaders the Caledonii had selected for themselves. That, in and of itself, wouldn’t bother Ky. The nanobots in his system were capable of regulating his temperature to some degree and he’d slept in equally uncomfortable places over the years, so he wasn’t worried about his own comfort. The main problem was the Caledonii liked to drink and be social, staying late into the night singing songs and telling stories of their bravest deeds, which made it difficult for Ky to contact Lucilla for updates, and to just hear her voice, before it got too late.

Tonight, he made the excuse of making the rounds of the men, during which he could spend some time circling the camps and not interacting directly, allowing him to focus on a conversation with her. He knew as time wore on, especially once they were with larger groups of the north men, he’d have to come up with better excuses to carve out time for these calls. Of course, he had to wait until it was late enough that she would be free to talk since, unlike him, she needed to speak out loud to communicate.

He pinged her communicator. A few seconds later she connected, giving him an oddly pleased sensation at how quickly she’d responded.

“Hi,” she said, her voice sounding almost wistful.

“Hi. Is everything going okay?”

“We’ve had some issues. It appears we missed some of my brothers supporters. One of the executioners was found murdered, his body hung up in front of the Colosseum in a not too subtle message.”

“Should I come back?”

“No. Ramirus has it in hand and you are needed in the North more. We need this alliance finalized and we need it now, if we’re to start merging our resources and having access to the additional labor and materials for the war effort. We’ve increased guards on the most sensitive operations to deter sabotage and Ramirus has people out gathering information, but he thinks it is unlikely we’ll find them until they make more moves.”

“You’re keeping your guards with you at all times, correct?”

“Yes. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

“The last time you said that, you were kidnapped.”

“And look how well that turned out for us,” she said, her voice unhappy.

Ky made a mental note to control how often he mentioned those events. He thought it was important for her to remember what happened when she let her guard down, but he was probably doing it too much and she was clearly displeased with it.

“Sorry,” he apologized.

“Good. Beyond that, I’ve met with the Legion commanders and they are, as a whole, on board with your directives. The Picts are still being an issue and have made it clear they are not pleased with taking orders from a woman.”

“Llassar said something?”

“No. He’s been supportive and has kept them in line so far, but there’s only so much he can do on his own. I did make a breakthrough today though, I think.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I fought one of them to I guess a draw, and it seemed to have a positive effect on the rest.”

“What do you mean ‘you fought one of them?’”

“Just that. They were having these wrestling matches and when one of them made a comment at me, I challenged him.”

“Are you okay?”

“Scraped up, but I made my point and he was left on the floor. You know I’ve been training with my guardsman. I wasn’t completely unprepared.”

“True, and I don’t doubt the training has helped, but these people learn to fight from the time they’re small infants. You’ve been training for a few months. It seems a risky balance.”

“They continued to underestimate me, being a Roman woman and all. It allowed me to get some throws over him early on and catch him unprepared enough to put him down, although I think I broke the rules to do it.”

“I guess congratulations, then.”

“There was something odd, though. On my first throw, I managed to get him out of the ring a lot further than I would have though I’d been able to. He wasn’t as tall or as muscular as some of his fellows, but he was still a large man, and the last punch I gave him shouldn’t have stunned him like it did. All of the training has been building my strength, but not to this level.”

“I don’t know,” Ky said, not sure how to respond.

“I can explain that,” Sophus said, breaking in.

“You can?” Lucilla asked.

“It has been made clear to me that your continued survival is critical to Ky’s success due to your probably pair bonding, so I took steps to increase the likelihood of your survival.”

“What do you mean ‘steps?’” Ky asked.

“During your mating ritual, I passed a grouping of nanobots from your system into Lucilla’s system with specified tasks to increase muscle function, immune system, nervous system and to correct a possible genetic defect detected in the pancreas.”

“You gave me some of his powers?” Lucillia asked, sounding both surprised and excited.

“No. Most of Ky’s physical enhancements are either genetic manipulation done shortly after conception or post-pubescent surgical augmentation, neither of which you have access to. I reprogrammed your communicator to allow for a pulse burst signal similar to the method I use to control the nanobots Ky has. It doesn’t allow the same two way transfer and I do not have the ability to receive updates, so all commands are one directional. When you are in Ky’s presence, I can use some of his systems to follow their path, but not when you are not, they are uncontrolled, operating under stored parameters. There is a limit to the number of units I can control in this method, which is why the capabilities are less. Beyond the increased functions listed previously, there will be some accelerated healing, although not to the level that it would be easily noticeable, as well as balanced hormone production and nutritional processing.”

“I’m not sure I understand what all that meant,” Lucillia said.

“Most of what I can do was because of things physically altered when I was young. They cut me open and added in things that allowed me to do some of the things I can do,” Ky translated. “What it did for you is make your body more efficient, allowing your muscles to both operate and grow at peak levels, as well as make you extremely healthy. It won’t allow you to do things that seem supernatural, but it will allow you to maintain the same physical condition as someone who spent most of their time improving their strength and health, but without the actual work.”

“Ooh. Well that’s something. Thank you Sophus.”

“You’re welcome. I have come to enjoy having someone else to talk to besides the Commander, and I find your presence pleasing.”

“High praise,” Ky said sarcastically. “I thought the nano bots had a limited life span without the self replications they get from my enhancements?”

“They do. I have increased their lifespan from the days normally available in med-unit nanopacks through additional firmware alterations, but they still will only have a lifespan of months at best. However, the likelihood of additional opportunities to transfer newly created nanobots from your system to hers is very high and I am in the process of altering some of your production capabilities to produce a new design that will better operate independently. They will be less efficient that the ones you have, but more efficient than your current stock of nanobots when they are uncontrolled. When the pilot designated internal medical system was originally designed, it was found that the self-replication rate was higher than needed for one subject. Instead of altering the PDIMS to lower that rate, they programmed in a regulator to increase the time span in between replications. I have run numerous simulations to determine long range effects of permanently removing that regulator to increase the rate of self-replication in order to make up from the group of nanobots that will no longer work for you. All simulations indicate no adverse effects.”

“So I will continue to produce a set nanobots you’re designing for her?”

“Correct. They will store until a transfer window is available, at which point they will move into her system and start their programmed routines. This has not been done before, so this is a testing phase at the moment. When you are together more often, I will continue to update their programming and track it’s detectable physiological responses to make these altered nanobots more effective, although they will never reach the efficiency of yours.”