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Chapter I: She Came, She Saw, I was Conquered

  Agrippina

  “Contact three minutes… Mark. Starboard unch tubes armed.” I inhaled sharply, my eyes closed tight. I tried to rex into the smooth curve of the piloting couch. Stupid fucking name for the ergonomic crescent shaped chairs but every name that the Romans gave things was stupid. I’m sure there was some esoteric cultural reason that they changed the names of nearly every object; the censors handed down procmations of what every little thing was to be called, no matter what it was called before the Romans took power. It is the Roman way Father used to say.

  Lightheaded, I steadied my breath; there were no commendations for passing out before the battle. No matter how many times the Legio I Graecia waded into combat, the wait beforehand was the absolute worst on me. “Contact two minutes… Mark.” Legate Primus Acinus’ voice grated against my skin as it filled the piloting nook that our eight-pilot century occupies. He was a petty, bigoted man with a love for regutions and the voice of a syphilitic rat. He was also the ugliest little man I’ve ever had the displeasure of ying eyes on. “Starboard bays uncmp.”

  I imagined the scaffold trembling as the swarm of drones detached and purred into the unch tubes. Each swarm— a “contubernium” in the ineffable nomencture of the legion— consisted of eight drones controlled by a single augmented pilot— an “immune”, meaning something like “engineer”. Each drone weighed five Terran tonnes and looked a little like an angry bck metal squid equipped with sixteen thermonuclear warheads, a psma flechette and an electromagnetic surge device we called an “arc”.

  “Steady, comrades.” Unlike Acinus’ wheezing tone, Centurion Maxima Thrax’s voice was melodious, a soft contralto as thick as honey and twice as sweet. The sound was calming and supple, belying the imposingly hardened physique of the enormous woman. She had limbs like ancient redwoods with ropes of thick muscles that could crush poly-carbonate body armor in her bare hands— even before she had been cybernetically enhanced. I could hear her magnetic boots echo through the cabin as she walked down the line of immunes in our piloting couches, pcing a steadying hand on each shoulder as she passed. My heart raced, anticipating the jolt of lightning that filled my body as she gently touches me. She lingered a few moments longer and my face flushed beneath the smooth bck visor. Before I could catch it, my mind wandered to those powerful hands peeling my suit back, caressing my breasts, snaking their way down my stomach—

  “Contact, sixty seconds… Mark. Launch!” As the swarm burst from their unch tubes, my ocur impnt flooded my vision with a torrent of data and drone feeds. Simir cybernetics at the base of my skull flood my system with a chemical cocktail of stimunts. Within moments, I had organized the chaos in front of me with subtle flicks of my eyes. The entire legion seethes out of the virtual cruiser overid onto my irides. Slightly less than five thousand points of green light, controlled by six hundred immunes like me, streaked across the void toward a hodgepodge of spacecraft of every css. Each grouping of ships bore the insignia of their home city-station and this ragtag fleet consisted of hundreds of different insignia. The whole of the combined Graecian Confederation— the Roman name for the loose and nameless defensive pact between the disparate stations that lie between Olympus and the Spartiad— was making its final stand.

  “Contact fifteen seconds… Mark. Pi salvo arming.” The Primus croaked as green ready indicators lit up across the cruiser’s hull. Firing solutions for each torpedo blinked onto my overys and I nudged my drones into a tighter formation to compensate. The other contubernia drifted into the space between the torpedo vectors as they closed on the wave of manned fighters pulling ahead of the Graecian fleet. Each squadron consisted of four fighters and a corvette command ship.

  “Contact… Mark. Pi away. All weapons free.” The cruiser shuddered through its inertial dampeners as hundreds of massive fusion torpedoes broke free and hurtled toward the enemy. The first squadron entered the range of my missiles just as the ordinance silently tore past my drones at a shocking velocity. I released my own wave of thermonuclear death, masking their signatures in the passing fusion wake. Two of the fighters melted in an instant and a third was crippled by a secondary explosion. The corvette managed to intercept several with a ser array, lighting the void with blue energy as I finished off the crippled fighter with a bst of searing psma.

  Down the line, corvettes and fighters managed to intercept a few of the torpedoes, but nowhere near enough to matter. Contact lights up on every rger vessel. Beautiful blooms of white psma erupted across their hulls. I would have found it breathtaking if I could shake the thoughts of the men and women dying inside. I can feel my system flooding with more chemicals, compensating my shame away like an afternoon shower.

  Smaller vessels, the frigates and destroyers, vaporized entirely and dispersed as clouds of hot gas and fsh-frozen viscera. All but one of the cruisers were listing wildly, atmosphere and bodies violently venting into the cold dark of space. One of the two carriers began to bubble and shudder, its main reactor going critical. I struggled not to imagine the melting faces of the engineers onboard. The other carrier limps back toward Pharis, the gleaming silver city-station that this fleet existed to protect.

  One of my drones exploded as it careened into the fighter that had disabled it, killing the st pilot in a bze of white. I squeeze the swarm around the now defenseless corvette. Coated in jet bck, it bore a crimson shield and golden spear, emblem of one of the great spartan city-stations. As my swarm silently churned around it, I unleashed a salvo of missiles from every direction, cleaving faithfully to the legion’s dictum of overwhelming force.

  The corvette suddenly ceased to exist a second too early. It reappeared outside of a nearby swarm and sprays several drones with its sers. I gasped unbidden as my missiles detonated harmlessly in now-empty space. Maxima’s hand was upon my shoulder in an instant— with none of the steadying tenderness from before. “Disabled and retrieve that corvette intact. Six and Eight, sve your swarms to One immediately.” My swarm swelled as my comrades complied with the veteran’s orders, tying their drones into my command systems. I could feel the strain on my body as more and more data flowed through the connection between me and the ship.

  I tightened the noose around the corvette as it raced toward a gap in the swarm. I nudge more drones into its path, anticipating its final push; at least three connected arcs would disabled the vehicle. A warning trilled in my skull to alert me to the energy readings building within the corvette, no doubt charging the capacitors that power its blink technology.

  “You need to stop that ship!” Maxima hissed in my ear as her grip slightly tightened; I stifled a moan at the pressure. Blue charged psma streaked between the five drones in range and then forked to connect with the corvette’s hull a moment before it blinked from view. It reappeared half a kilometer away, drifting aimlessly in the void as energy crackled across its surface. Unless its control cabin is properly shielded, the crew has been cooked. I whispered thanks to Minerva that I cannot see the ruin of their bodies; my swarm writhed and descended onto the hull of the corvette to drag it back to their hive.

  Our sister ship, the Legio IV Graecia, had closed the distance to the limping carrier and finished off its crippled propulsion. Shortly, it will disgorge a legion of marines to sughter the entire crew in the name of Mars Invictus. The corpses will be piled into the streets of Pharis, joined by the bodies of their loved ones, as an example to those who would dare to resist Roma Aeternus.

  The halls of Orcus will overflow tonight.

  ***

  “Shower, 41°, Agrippina Domitilus Tertia, Immunes Second Css.”

  I let a tense sigh escape my lips as I tore the pilot suit off of my body. The shower cubicle was austere— somewhat ironic considering it was such a coveted commendation— but it included a full-sized mirror for me to inspect myself in. Standing there, hands on my hairless, plump hips, I carefully studied the gorgeous young body reflected back at me.

  My light tan skin glowed. Small patches of pale ivory marked an irregur trail from my chin, between my breasts, ending where my thighs meet; there were a smattering of smaller splotches dotting the rest of my body like a leopard’s spots in negative. Father had considered the coloration— “hypopigmentation from a benign birth defect”— to be a shameful curse. One of many shameful curses that I brought to his family legacy. I thought the vitiligious skin added to my unique beauty, as did my other shameful traits. Since his death a decade before, both women and men had moved mountains to prove him wrong.

  The shower chimed gently to let me know that the water was hot and my timer had begun. I passed one st time over my reflection, relishing the supple curve of my hips, the perfect tits, my thighs like marble columns framing the glory of my goddess’ mound. A smile burst out on my face as I silently prayed to Venus Aphroditos, thanking her for the bounty of my body.

  “You would think you would get tired of doing that,” purred Maxima from the cubicle’s entryway as I stepped into the searing water. The heat quickly melted away any lingering tension from twelve hours of couch duty. “Not to mention wasting precious moments of you coveted shower time.” The mountainous woman fshed a smirk and crossed her arms under her bare breasts as I gnced back at her. Her pilot suit was peeled down to her waist, revealing a tidal wave of rippling muscuture covered in darkened bronze skin. “Well done, by the way. The Primus promoted us to Second century thanks to you.”

  “If only he’d known how you pn to celebrate, perhaps he would have hesitated.” It was a crime against the gods to waste pleasure without procreation, doubly so for women, but there was at least an unspoken understanding that the ranks of the navy were exempt as long as both parties exercised some… discretion. I grinned wickedly and turned back into the water, leaning forward and spreading my thighs slightly to reveal a hint of my lips. I couldn’t help teasing her, my barbarian pirate-turned-centurion. She could crush me with those enormous hands without a second thought and it was exhirating, like flirting with a tiger. What can I say? Danger excited me.

  The speed with which we was upon me, roughly shoving me into the wall, elicited an unbidden gasp. I was never prepared for how swiftly she moves, like a ndslide crushing down on an unsuspecting community. A thigh like a boulder slid between my legs as two powerful hands hoisted me up against her body. I tried to steady myself against the shower wall as hot breath mixed with steam on the back of my neck.

  “I want to ride your knuckles on his bridge—” I gasped as her hands roamed my body, seeking pleasure like bloodhounds on a hunt, “—straddling you in his command throne in full view of the entire legion.” I gritted my teeth. Sweaty palms kneaded my chest and Maxima took a nipple between two fingers, tender but subtly firm in a way that cautioned raw power, like a lioness crouched in the tall grass.

  Lips roamed down the back of my neck onto my shoulder as one of her hands traced the trail of ivory toward my thighs. “You would rob me of exclusivity to my plunder?” I could feel her wolfish grin on my shoulder as her fingers caressed my clit, teasingly gentle. Despite the heat and the steam, my nipples were pebbled and firm, sending spikes of pleasure down my body with every brush of those thick fingers. “Aggie, that is bsphemy.”

  A soft whine escaped me as I pushed against her palm, the fingers still teasing my clit. “Don’t make me beg, Em…” I groaned as her free hand left my nipples and gently gripped my throat. She nibbled my ear, sending a shock through my body. A thumb and pinky slowly parted my petals as her middle finger flitted between them like a hummingbird seeking nectar, never alighting in one pce for too long.

  “But I want to hear you beg.” Her middle finger pressed gently against my cunt, patiently waiting to tear down my gates. I bucked wildly— desperately— helplessly trying to seize my pleasure from this torturous woman. My breath came in ragged bursts. Maxima had taken my on the first night of our tour and cimed my pleasure for herself. Still, I struggled; that is what she desires. We both savored the eventual surrender.

  That night, however, I was desperate and full of animal need. The hand of death hung thick around us and I yearned to feel alive. “Please, centurion. I beg of you, fuck m—” Gaxies exploded into my vision as both knuckles of her tremendous finger dove into me, finding my pleasure in mere moments. Waves of wet heat radiated out of me and rippled through my core as I crested into my first orgasm. I moaned, I purred, I stretched my arms over my head to grasp at her obsidian brains. For several long minutes, the pressure on my neck steadied me as I bore down onto her hand. A second finger slipped into me with no resistance, bringing with sweet suddenness the next orgasm. A moment of eternity passed as wave after wave battered against the rocks of my soul. My chest heaved and I fought to regain control of my body as she drew a soaked line out of me.

  “I want to taste you,” she whispered and before my brain could register the words, she hefted me into the air and spun me to face her. I yelped as she tossed my legs over her broad shoulders; I braced against the ceiling and lowered myself into the eager lips of a Demigod. She growled softly, breathed my scent deep into her lungs and locked eyes with me. The handsome barbarian smirked deviously and I couldn’t help the noises I made with the realization that I was practically cresting again.

  Her lips locked onto me, sucking and massaging and exploring every fold of me. An impossibly thick tongue filled me to bursting, carving a path through my ndscape, my orgasm crashing into me with the force of Jupiter; I gasped for air as her rough tongue shook the gates of Olympos. We both careened into an endless abyss of moaning and bliss as I rode wave after wave into Elysium, filling Maxima’s mouth as her divine tongue pped greedily at every st drop.

  The shower shut off long before Maxima relinquished me to the ground and dropped, her own chest pumping like Vulcan’s bellows. We grinned drunkenly at each other, heads swimming, covered in sweat and cum and the venereal psma of my body.

  ***

  Two weeks after our gloried victory, I walked silently with Father’s ghost down a corridor of the Legio I. I had the dream every night for weeks. We did not speak; stale air rattled in my lungs but no words emerged from my lips.

  We passed by beautiful paintings in the old style— the Roman way of depicting people as exaggerations of the human form; perfect but unreal. The fools and the devout called the practice ancient but that just meant before the Empire. Four hundred years before, Tiberius Augustus, First of his Name, wiped history clean and repced it with something immacute and unblemished by truth. Everything before he united Terra is mythcraft: beautiful to the ears but hardly history.

  The paintings showed my life rendered in beautiful exaggeration, each work a depiction of one of my sins. Sins against man and the Gods: my disobedience as a child who knew she was smarter and better than her father, my love of my mother, freeing myself from from his reach. I was proud of every one, I would dispy them in an honored pce if I could. This was how the dream had pyed out for years.

  Now, what once was the final piece is bckened over as if the entire piece had been bathed in fmes. Once, it showed my mother’s lover running a spear through Father’s heart as I ascend into the sky behind them, transformed into a vision of Venus Antheia. Father respected her the only way that Roman men seem able; a hollow respect, leering and resentful.

  He ushered me further into the endless gallery. The art depicted the doctor and I, scheming over bck market vials that will rewrite my DNA. In one piece, my tastefully censored form emerged from the Roman regeneration device. Their technology had been tricked by my new genetic code into fixing what Jupiter fucked up. Another showed me joining the Imperator’s legions using cybernetics purchased with my inheritance, escaping Etrus, the home that was stained with the blood of my Mother and her lover. In every painting is my Goddess, like a shadow behind me, looking approvingly down at her daughter. Every painting after these is of Maxima, from every angle, looks of ecstasy on her face.

  I would do all of it again.

  The walls grew bare and the light of the gallery was so low that I could only see with the night vision of my impnts. Father stood ahead of me next to a corpuscur Primus Acinus; his face was frozen, his eyes and tongue exploded outward, the the rest of his body moved as normal. He handed me the execution order that named my crimes. Only one offense the Legion would not overlook: tampering with the image of creation, as if it wasn’t the greatest honor a woman could bestow upon her goddess.

  I knew that I would die, Father’s ghost watching over me as it happened. He pointed a finger at me in grim accusation, towering over the broken body of the doctor who transformed me. His eyes burned with fury; it was a gdiator’s spear that had killed him, but I may as well have been holding the weapon. All sin is sin, but the greatest command of Jupiter is “Honor thy Father.”

  ***

  I woke from the dream covered in cold sweat and shot upright in bed. Maxima slept beside me with Marius on her chest, her enormous bellows pumping the tiny cat up and down in his sleep. I hid my face from her as I cried silently into my hands. If she were to wake, she would tell me to ignore my dreams and that my Gods are not real, but I knew better than that. I figured the Primus had been tipped off by the civilian authorities on Etrus after having tortured my doctor to death. She had the heart of a good woman, but she was only human; she could be broken.

  I sobbed heavily, unable to stop until Maxima’s nails were raking across my back, just hard enough to leave a mark for a few minutes. This was a form of witchcraft that she practiced on me with regurity, a mundane spell that calmed and focused my mind without fail. Tears covered my face and chest, mingling with my sweat, but I let out a mewl before regaining control of myself.

  “Was it him again?” She asked, as if the answer hadn’t been the same for weeks. The dream had once been a refreshing monument to the life I had achieved, only dimmed by the death of my mother. Now, the thing she had sacrificed to help me achieve would be destroyed as my father gloated over the ruin.

  “Acinus knows, somehow. He will come for me.” I look back at her bare chest stretched across the rge bed that we share. She’d won it before my time for an act of heroism she’d never elucidated on, chosen as her first commendation because she could barely fit into the standard bunk. Mine was across the room, untouched by anyone but Gaius Marius since the first night of our tour. As the only women in this legion— patriarchs rarely waste the money on cybernetics for their daughters— we were naturally assigned one cabin together. After our first battle, mere hours ter, she’d cimed by body and pledged herself to me. “You must act surprised and outraged when I am accused. He cannot know that you knew.”

  Marius stepped into my p and began purring as the tears threatened to return. Maxima’s voice was pyful. “If he comes in here and says you had a cock, I will be outraged at how someone could say such things about a beautiful nymph.” I gre back at her through puffy eyes. She took on a more serious tone. “Aggie, I will kill any man for dishonoring my century, you most of us. He knows this. I will be dead before he moves against you,” she winked at me as she brushed my check with a finger, “and luck for you, I cannot die.”

  “You cannot stand against an entire Legion, Max. You must sacrifice me.” I wheezed out the st words, my chest feeling like lead. Her hand is on the back of my neck, tightening with firm control. I melt into her fingers like a rabbit locked in the jaws of a predator. Her eyes fsh with mild annoyance, pierced by a deeper rage at the man who will be my doom.

  “Do not suggest that I dishonor you again, my starlight. This is not a negotiation. I would tear out my own tongue before I sing of anything but my goddess’ beauty.” She inhales steadily through her nostrils and loosens her grip with a shrug. “It is moot; this legion is full of men who respect me and will stand by me if I challenge him. If Acinus is half as smart as he looks, our century will be given commendations to pcate the troops and you and I will retire to one of Olympos’ moons to grow old, discreetly.”

  I smiled back at her to end the conversation. Despite serving in the legions for longer than I’ve been alive, she still did not understand the nature of a Roman man. Her Gods do not speak to her like mine do. I id my head back onto her chest, the rushing wind of her breath on my tear-streaked cheek, and bit my lip.

  I did not tell her that Father stands in the room with us, as he has all night long.

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