Chapter 36

Carthage

Ky walked through the ruined halls of the Carthaginian Emperor’s palace, amazed by its sheer opulence. After a lifetime growing up in the spartan and utilitarian barracks and space stations, he’d always considered the Roman palaces and temples to be the most extravagant places in all of existence. Seeing this, he realized he was very wrong.

Thanks to the Carthaginian Emperor’s decision to conscript nearly every adult male in the city and across the countryside, they’d managed to take Carthage itself without a fight, sparing it from the devastation that the rest of the Western world experienced from this war.

“How is it?” Lucilla asked him as he entered the emperor’s massive personal rooms, which they had begun to turn into a headquarters for the legions.

“So far so good. After what happened in Sicilia, I’m still having squads go door to door, spiraling out from here to the rest of the city, just in case. I’ve cordoned off several blocks in all directions around this building as a safe zone for our men to operate out of until reinforcements begin to arrive. The priests are outraged about being ousted, but they were the only ones who worked in this region. Or at least the only ones still living. Once we get more men, we’ll start pulling back the martial law and letting people operate a little more freely.”

“And the hospital?”

“Set up. I already sent a message back home requesting some of the Imperial physicians be sent with whatever chemicals Sorantius can spare to begin setting up something more proper, but the medics with the legions have enough for now.”

“Good,” Lucilla said, and then did a slow turn, looking around the room. “It’s hard to believe it’s really over.”

“I know. The cost was high, but we managed to end it once and for all. Britannia is safe.”

“The cost was high,” she said. “Two thousand dead. Twice that many injured. We’ve managed to kill a generation of our most loyal men. It’ll take us decades to recover.”

“I think you’ll be surprised by how fast we rebuild,” Ky said, thinking of some of the images from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Sophus had showed him when Ky had expressed a similar sentiment.

“I hope you’re right.”

“I’m not saying it will be easy. We’ll need to occupy this region for an extended period. The people here are still hostile. Even if they had no love for their emperor, there isn’t a person here that didn’t lose someone.”

“There is some good news, at least.”

“Yeah?” Ky asked.

“Yes. The last supply ship had messages from Medb. We’ve received reports from our allies, who are equally thrilled to learn the war is over. Most of the major regions have begun to coalesce into more stable political entities. She and Ramirus are already putting together a large meeting of all of our allies to begin discussing what things should look like now. From what they’re saying, I believe the alliances we have now, or at least partnerships, have a good chance of not only holding, but becoming something more in the future. The kind of alliance we can really build from, like what you described to me.”

“Those parallels weren’t exactly close. Most of those were nations with an inherent identity when they formed their alliance. I know Gaul, Germania and the like are starting to set up something like that, but they’re still not particularly centralized, which will make any kind of large scale, region or multi-region wide alliance difficult to maintain.”

“We can at least try,” Lucilla said. “We have the model we set up which, at least for now, is working.”

“That doesn’t even include Persia, Italia and Greece. Considering their proximity to Germania and Gaul and their position in the Middle Sea, we can keep men in Italia for some time, but Greece and Persia will both be in chaos for a long while, and I’m not sure how anyone would feel about us becoming involved in another large scale project like that, especially so far from home.”

“No. We’ll leave them to their own devices, aside from maybe having Ramirus make enough contacts to keep an eye on them and continuing to have Valdar’s ships patrolling the region. I think, eventually, they will stabilize. The only region that I’m really concerned about is Egypt. They got away more or less intact, and have made agreements for us to sell them equipment, but have been very cagey as to what they’re willing to agree to. Ramirus will have to keep an especially close eye on them. But ... I still think this all bodes well for the future. With so many allies and no major enemies outside of bandits and whatever warlords set up in Persia or Greece, it seems likely we’ll manage to have security and peace. Finally.”