The Last Mission Of The Seventh Cavalry: Book Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

The Seventh Fleet sailed from the mouth of the Tiber, in Rome, on a sunny September morning in the year 215 BCE.

With a fresh westerly wind, the rowers had time for arms training on deck.

Obolus, riding on the deck of one of the Roman Fives, was not happy to be at sea again. But with Liada and Tin Tin paying him lots of attention and feeding him food bricks and tree branches, he soon calmed down.

The two huge Five ships and twelve smaller Threes made a grand sight as they sailed into the Tyrrhenian Sea.

Soon, they would turn south toward the Strait of Messina, separating Sicily from mainland Italy.

If the good weather held and no pirates or renegade Roman ships barred the way, they’d round the toe and heel of Italy, cross the Adriatic, and land on the coast of Dalnatia, to be known as Croatia in the distance future. That part of the voyage would take about ten days.

There they would leave half the rowers, a thousand men, to guard the ships and supplies. The men would be happy to do this duty, since they were earning a gold “7” each for every day of their service, to be paid upon their return to Rome.

Twenty-seven horses were stabled below deck on the smaller ships, along with cows, chickens, pigs, goats, and donkeys. The donkeys would be used as pack animals for the trek from Dalnatia to Treskavica Mountain, where the three astronauts came down. The other animals would be butchered by the cooks to feed the crews and soldiers, except for the chickens that would be spared for their eggs.

The trebuchet, Little Boy, was tied down on the deck of the second Five, the Palatine.

With Obolus on the other Five, the loading and c*****g of the machine would have to be done with manpower instead of using his tremendous strength to load the weapon.

* * * * *

After passing through the Strait of Messina and rounding the “toe” of Italy, the Seventh Fleet anchored off what would someday be the village of Spropolo, on the coast of the Ionian Sea. There they spent two days cutting firewood for the cook stoves. The area was uninhabited, except for a few wild goats.

While the ships were at anchor, Liada and Apache wrote messages for Hannibal, describing their current location, how the journey had progressed so far, and their plans to set sail toward the northeast and into the Adriatic Sea.

As they were reading over the notes, a loud thump came from one of the other ships.

The two women looked toward the Roman Five, where the sound seemed to come from.

“That is Obolus,” Liada said.

“Is he mad about being on the ship?” Apache asked.

“Maybe, but this is his way of talking to other elephants.”

“What is he saying?

“It is just ‘Hello. Anyone there?” Liada said.

“Ah, I see. He won’t get an answer from this place. Just a bunch of goats, and they’re not talking to anybody.”

Two pigeons, a mated pair, were removed from their coop, and special leather cylinders with the messages inside were attached to their legs. The second message was a copy of the first one in case one of the birds didn’t make it home.

When they were released, the gray and white birds circled once above the ship, then turned toward the north, heading for Hannibal’s headquarters in Rome. There they would return to the loft on the roof where they had hatched months before. Their natural homing instinct would get them there in about two days.

The one-way door in the loft would allow them to enter, but not leave. The two boys who were assigned to care for the flock checked every morning and evening for newcomers that might have messages attached to their legs. If any were found, the messages were taken immediately to Hannibal.

After the two birds left on their mission, thirty-eight pigeons remained in the coop, awaiting their turns to participate in this primitive method of one-way communication.

* * * * *

“Well, Hotshot,” Apache said. “If you can’t get a date on this voyage, you might as well give up.”

The Apache, aka Autumn Eaglemoon, stood with Kady at the rail of Aventine, the second of the two big “Five” ships.

“Right,” Kady said. “Two thousand unwashed men. Gag me now.”

“You could pick a nice one and tip him over the side for a bath.”

“And if he can’t swim?”

“You dive in with a bar of soap and save his life.”

“Hmm. Maybe.”

“Hey, Boss,” Cowboy said over the comm in his helmet, from the other Roman quinquereme “Five” ship, the Palatine.

“Yeah, Kawalski,” Sarge said.

“Check out that sail on the northeast horizon.”

“Who has the binocs?” Sarge asked.

“I bring now,” Cateri said on the comm. All of the Seventh’s soldiers, plus their partners, had helmets with the communications system.

She ran barefoot along the tilting deck from amidships, where she had been helping Apache trim the sail.

She looked up at Sarge with a grin when she handed him the binoculars.

He winked at her, then took the glasses.

Sarge tilted his helmet up, and with the binocs to his eyes, he adjusted the focus ring. “Karina,” he said on the comm. “I need a ship ID.”

“Be there in two,” Karina replied.

She hurried to the bow with her iPad.

Sarge took the computer as she took the glasses.

Binocular view of unknown vessel

“Hmm,” Karina said. “blue and white striped sail, rudder on the port side of the boat. Looks to be about ten meters long. Approximately twenty-five kilometers away.”

She traded Sarge the glasses for her iPad.

Sarge watched the boat sail toward them as Karina flipped through pictures of ancient Mediterranean shipping.

“Here it is, Sarge,” she said. “It’s a Greek fishing boat.”

“Yeah, looks like two people on board.”

“Hey, Sparks,” Cowboy said on the comm.

“Hey,” Sparks said.

“Liada’s helmet comm is dead. You have any fresh batteries?”

“Yes, we just charged a batch yesterday with the solar panels. Anyone else on your boat need some?”

“Send six, then we’ll have spares.”

“Copy. Coming by airmail in ten.”

* * * * *

When Sparks got the stern, Jai Li already had the Dragonfly ready to go, with its small cargo net holding six quarter-sized NiCad batteries.

She held the controller out to him.

He smiled and nodded to her.

“Really, Sparky? You to allow Jai Li pilot Dragonfly?”

Private Yao Jai Li, Seventh Cavalry

Born into a wealthy family near Zhongguancun, sometimes called China’s Silicon Valley, in Beijing, Yao Jai Li was twenty-two years old.

Zhongguancun was built over an ancient graveyard where rulers of the Qing Dynasty buried their eunuchs. There were said to be thousands of unmarked graves in the area before it was bulldozed for construction of the new tech campuses.

Upon graduating from Peking University, Jai Li joined the Communist Party and enlisted in the People’s Liberation Army. Planning to spend two years in learning the ways of the military, she would then continue her education, studying to become a software engineer. And perhaps, one day, work at Zhongguancun.

After basic training, she was assigned to the Air Force Airborne Corps in the Peoples Liberation Army.

Showing an eagerness for rigorous physical training and aptitude for leadership, she rose quickly through the ranks to Kong Jun Zhong Shi, Staff Sergeant, in just two years.

Just before her discharge from the army, she was sent on a training mission over Yunnan Provence. Her unit was preparing to bail out of their Xian Y-20 transport aircraft when it was hit by the same global disaster that destroyed the Seventh Cavalry’s plane.

The polar shift not only wiped out every man-made structure on Earth and all the aircraft flying below two thousand meters, the powerful forces also shifted time backward by two thousand years.

With the Earth instantly rotating fifteen degrees, Jai Li’s plane was torn apart over the Adriatic Sea. She, along with the other twenty-three paratroopers, bailed out, popped their chutes, and drifted down toward the azure-blue waters. For a time, she could see some of her platoon as they descended, but the wind scattered them many kilometers apart.

She hit the water, released her parachute, and was dragged under by the weight of her backpack and gear. She let go of her rifle and shucked off her pack and ammo belt, but still she sank toward the bottom of the sea.

Struggling to hold her breath, she untied her boots, pulled them off, and stroked upward with all her strength.

She broke the surface, gasping for air. Feeling her water-soaked uniform pulling her down, she unzipped it and pushed it off, down her legs and over her feet, leaving her in just a tee shirt and briefs.

Riding up on the two-meter waves, she scanned the horizon but saw nothing. No debris, no parachutes, none of her fellow soldiers—and most frightening of all, not a hint of land in any direction.

She treaded water, trying to think of what to do.

The water wasn’t freezing, but it was below seventy degrees. Cold enough that she would eventually suffer hypothermia.

There was nothing she could do but conserve her energy and try to stay afloat.

Drifting all that day and through the night, she was astonished the next morning to see the tide had carried her to within sight of a rocky promontory jutting into the Adriatic from the coast of Italy.

She didn’t know it at the time that she was in the Adriatic Sea or that she was seeing the beautiful hills of Italy. She really didn’t care about any of that. All she knew was, she was near dry land.

Stroking toward the beach, she used the last of her energy to swim through the surf and wade out onto the sandy beach. She fell and crawled to the high tide mark, where she collapsed into exhausted sleep.

It seemed only a moment had passed before she was prodded awake by someone poking her with a sharp stick.

She sat up, shading her eyes against the strong afternoon sun to see two women staring down at her.

They wore long tunics made of a coarse fabric woven with thick strands of gray and black. They carried leather buckets filled with clams.

Jai Li was overjoyed at being rescued, and she tried to communicate her thankfulness to the woman.

But they, upon hearing a foreign language, grabbed her roughly by the arms, hauling her to her feet.

They tied her hands behind her back, then looped another rope around her neck.

Punching her with the stick and holding the rope tight, they marched her back to their village, where she was turned over to the headman.

The man looked her over, and apparently repulsed by her Oriental features, he slapped the side of her head, sending her stumbling.

She tried to explain what had happened to her, and that she was exhausted and hungry, but the headman only motioned for the two women to take her away.

They shoved her into a low shed and bolted the door.

Around sundown, they brought her a bowl of thin broth.

The women didn’t bother to untie her. They only spat out a few invectives, left her in the dark, and locked the door.

With her hands tightly bound behind her back, she was forced to kneel in the dirt and eat her meager meal like a dog.

The foul soup was cold and not at all tasty, but she slurped it up and licked the bowl clean.

With her first sustenance in forty-eight hours in her stomach, she dropped to the dirt, rolled to her side and fell asleep.

When the door creaked open, bright sunlight blinded her for a moment.

She was pulled outside by a pair of rough hands. There she was closely inspected by a fat, dark man in a long caftan.

After looking her over, he mumbled a few words to the headman, gave him some coins, and motioned for the rough-handed man to take her away.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her toward a four-wheeled wagon, where she was shoved inside the cage-like vehicle with three other people, one woman and two men, all with their hands and feet bound in chains.

From the small fishing village, the fat man in the caftan, whom his men called “Kyros,” led his train of fifty wagons toward what she believed to be the west.

Six of the wagons were filled with captives, while the rest were empty, presumably to hold new prisoners to be picked up along the way.

At sundown, they stopped for Kyros and his men to cook a meal and get some rest.

A guard removed the chains from Jai Li’s wrists, gave her a poncho-like garment, which she gladly pulled over her head and slipped her arms through the two openings in the sides.

The man placed manacles on her wrists, in the front of her body this time.

The prisoners were given water, but no food.

They traveled for three days along a rocky track winding its way through low hills covered in juniper, green alder, and rhododendron.

With little food or water, they were weak and dejected when they came into a large camp of soldiers.

Jai Li watched the warriors passing by her wagon. In her weakened state of mind, she paid little attention except to notice they were armed with primitive weapons. Iron swords, bows, and spears were the most common. Many of the men had round shields swung to their backs.

In fact, everything seemed ancient: the crude wagons with solid wooden wheels pulled by pairs of oxen; the shapeless tunics worn by men and women; the small shelters that seemed to have been little more than collections of sticks, brush, and mud.

During the night, it began to rain. With no covering over the wagon, Jai Li was soon soaked to the skin. Wet, cold, and hungry, she felt closer to death than life.

The next morning, they were given water and a few crusts of bread.

Around midmorning, Jai Li was astounded to see a squad of soldiers—army soldiers wearing modern camo uniforms. But these were not Chinese men and women. She knew by their clothing and military insignia they were American.

She struggled to her feet and tried to draw their attention. Knowing no English, she tried to communicate by sign language, but they ignored her and turned to leave, except for one of the female soldiers who gave her a curious look.

Jai Li tapped her shoulder where she would normally have three strips. She pantomimed pulling a necklace from her collar with dog tags attached, then pointed to the woman’s collar.

The female soldier said something to her fellow soldiers, calling them back to the wagon. A short discussion followed, then the woman tugged at her camo uniform and pointed to Jai Li as she raised her shoulders in a questioning gesture.

Jai Li nodded, then began to cry, feeling relief that she might finally be saved from her terrible ordeal. However, after the American soldiers had a discussion, apparently about her, then seeing Kyros the slave trader coming their way, they turned to leave.

The woman soldier smiled and made signs they would return, but why were they leaving? Why would they not get her out of her imprisonment?

Dropping back to the floor of the wagon, she felt more lost and alone than before.

She was given a clay bowl of soup, but her starvation had driven her past the point of hunger. She no longer cared if she lived or died. She pushed the bowl to the man at her side.

The next morning, she was awakened from a fitful sleep by a woman’s voice. It was the female soldier from the day before!

She spoke softly and made signs of encouragement.

When Kyros came toward them, one of the soldiers—a high-ranking sergeant Jai Li knew by his strips—stopped the slave-trader and pointed to one of the men in the wagon.

It seemed the soldiers wanted to purchase the man.

A young woman with the soldiers was apparently acting as translator.

After some haggling, the sergeant shook his head and turned as if to walk away. But then he turned back, pointed to Jai Li, and asked a question.

Kyros squinted at Jai Li, came closer to the bars of the wagon, and stared at her for a moment. He said something to the sergeant.

The soldier took a coin from his pocket and offered it to Kyros.

The fat man took the coin and held it close. He blinked and squinted, but apparently his eyesight was so poor, he couldn’t make it out.

A younger soldier—a man of about Jai Li’s age, twenty-two—took something from his jacket pocket and offered it to the slave trader.

Kyros took the object, which Jai Li saw was a magnifying glass, but he shrugged, not knowing what to do with it.

The young solder, whom Jai Li heard the others call “Sparks,” took the glass and coin, then held them so Kyros could see the coin through the magnifying glass.

Kyros’s eyes widened at the sight. The small coin was enlarged, so the nearsighted man could easily make it out. He laughed, then slapped the young soldier on the back.

The soldier said something and held his hand out for the magnifying glass.

Kyros seemed reluctant to let it go.

The translator repeated something the soldier said.

The slave trader handed over the glass.

The soldier knelt, scooped some dry leaves together, then after glancing at the sun’s position in the sky, held the glass, focusing the sun’s rays on the leaves. Soon a wisp of smoke appeared, then the leaves burst into flames.

Kyros was astounded. He laboriously got to his knees and took the glass, apparently wanting to do the magic himself.

It took several tries, but he finally got the hang of it.

After the soldier helped Kyros stand, the fat man pointed to the soldier and asked the sergeant a question.

When he heard the translation, the sergeant laughed and shook his head.

Jai Li almost laughed herself, realizing the slave trader wanted to buy the young soldier.

Kyros held up the magnifying glass and spoke to the sergeant through the translator.

The sergeant apparently agreed and reached to shake Kyros’s hand. Kyros then returned the coin and kept the magnifying glass.

Kyros said something to his guard and gestured toward Jai Li.

She wasn’t sure what was happening when the guard climbed into the wagon and yanked her to her feet.

Seeing the rough treatment of her, the woman soldier yelled at the guard.

The guard looked surprised and glanced at his boss.

Kyros nodded to him, then the guard removed Jai Li’s wrist manacles and pulled her toward the back of the wagon.

The female soldier yelled at him again.

The dumbfounded guard looked at Kyros, who pointed to Jai Li’s ankle chains.

The guard knelt to remove the chains.

Jai Li, rubbing her sore wrists, realized the sergeant had purchased her freedom with a magnifying glass.

She stepped to the edge of the wagon and, weakened by malnutrition and the excitement of being set free, collapsed and fell into the woman soldier’s arms.