Muses of Roma (Codex Antonius Book 1) Read Online Free

in front of Ocella.”
    Once Scaurus positioned them correctly, he said, “Do you know what you need to do, sire?”
    Cordus shook his head. “I have never done this before.”
    “I know. But have the “gods” done it?”
    Cordus's eyes went blank. He stared past Ocella as if looking through the walls and at the horizon. He blinked, then nodded.
    “They have ideas on how to disable it.” He frowned. “They need to test some things first. It may hurt a bit.”
    Ocella swallowed. “Go ahead, Cordus. I trust you.”
    He smiled weakly, then his gaze turned blank again.
    Ocella’s scalp tickled as the device activated whatever energy Cordus's “gods” used. Someone whispered in her right ear. She half turned, but Scaurus stood on her left. The whispers grew louder, though not in a language she understood.
    Cordus's brow furrowed, and he blinked again.
    “That was not the right path,” he said. “They need to try another.”
    Ocella inhaled and nodded. Cordus stared at her head with that blank gaze.
    White light exploded before her eyes. She gasped and heaved backward in the chair.
    “It's all right, it's all right,” Scaurus said as he grabbed her arms.
    “I can't see anything,” Ocella yelled.
    “I think I have it,” Cordus said.
    The light exploded into millions of flashing images—her past sins and sins she had yet to commit.
    Ocella screamed.

2
    “Dariya,” Kaeso Aemilius said into his collar com, “why’s there no gravity on the command deck?”
    “We are in space, sir,” Dariya’s voice squawked from the com.
    “Dariya—”
    “We are fixing it, sir.”
    “Vallutus will be here in a half hour.”
    “I could be fixing it now if you stopped hounding me, sir.”
    “Just get it done.”
    Kaeso floated to the command couch in the ship’s cockpit and strapped himself in. He had been standing behind the couch checking the navigation systems when the gravity cut out. He was glad he finished his hot Arabian kaffa a few minutes before. He would've had to replace the systems in the entire command deck instead of his First Engineer.
    He glanced out the command deck window. His old freighter Caduceus was docked to a hollowed-out asteroid way station above the Lost World Reantium. Like most way stations, this one sat in geosynchronous orbit above a world the gods had blessed with an interstellar way line. Reantium was an impoverished world in an impoverished star system, populated with less than a hundred thousand Roman and Zhonguo political dissidents who were simply happy to be out of prison.
    The one valuable commodity Reantium did have was its single way line jump to Roman territory and the world that might hold Kaeso’s next job.
    “What happened to the gravity?”
    Lucia Marius Calida floated up through the ladder well in the command deck’s rear. Kaeso's pilot was dressed in the white uniform of a Liberti merchant officer. While Kaeso did not force his crew to wear the merchant uniforms, he did ask they put on their best jumpsuits when a client came aboard. He appreciated Lucia's attempts to bring some semblance of military discipline to the crew. She would never stop being a Legionnaire, despite the unpleasant circumstances of her departure.
    “Dariya's working on it,” Kaeso said. “And by that I mean Daryush is working on it.”
    Lucia scowled. “Bet Dariya kicked a switch, or something.”
    “Let’s hope it’s that simple. Gravity's gone on the command deck only, right?”
    “And Bay One. And the forward quarters.”
    Kaeso closed his eyes again. The Caduceus is an old ship, he reminded himself. Old ships have old problems.
    “Centuriae, it’s the third time this month Dariya has screwed up,” Lucia said, pulling herself into the pilot's couch next to Kaeso. “If she’s the reason we lose this contract—”
    “We don't know what happened,” Kaeso said. “Reserve judgment until you know the facts.”
    “I know. All I'm saying—”
    “I'm not having this discussion