The Last Roman

by Pikdude

For how can a man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods?

"For how can man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?"

-Thomas B. Macaulay

An ancient legend of Rome. As the story told it, Lars Porsena, King of Clusium of the Etruscans, brought with him a massive army to sack the defenseless Rome. All he had to do was cross that bridge.

For how can a man die better

Three men stood in their way. Publius Horatius, Spurius Lartius and Titus Herminius. Three commanders of the ancient Roman Republic. On a cosmic scale of things, three nobodies. That's all that stood between the Etruscans and the ill-defended Rome.

Than facing fearful odds

Behind the three defenders, Romans worked to demolish the bridge. That bridge was the only way over while the Tiber river was swollen with the fresh waters of spring. If they succeeded, if they held the bridge, Rome was safe.

For the ashes of his fathers

Rome. One of the most glorious empires to ever rise on the earth. It went through several states of being, from a republic to an empire to an instrument of gods- one god or many, it was both. It was home to 88 million people at its height. It still lives on today, in architecture and old religious ideas- and a poem.

And the temples of his gods.

There had been three heroes of Rome. There was only one of me.

They defended a bridge. I hold this corridor.

Behind them, the Romans destroyed the bridge. Behind me, my crewmates work to weld shut the airlock.

They had faced Etruscans. I fought a faceless, mindless enemy, no longer even alive.

One thing, at least, we had in common.

Those three went into it knowing they were going to die. So did I.

All they have to do is cross that bridge, and all of us will die.

They'd told me not to do it. They'd told me we'd face this together.

And I'd told them that all of us would die.

So I face it alone.

What was it that man had said?

The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

I'd always thought those words rang hollow, but now they flow through me.

I can see them now. They're like the plague, taking us and making us like them. Marching on, always marching on. You can't stop them. They're a force of nature.

But you can hold them off.

My name is Horatius. I am the last Roman.

And how can a man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his Gods?

3 Days Ago- 72 Hours and Counting

"Horace, eh? That's a unique name." I winced as the young Bolian tried, once again, to start conversation. I'd made it very clear that I was just here for maintainence, and to keep it to business only. Sure enough, he'd completely ignored me. I had to hand it to him, though- the ensign was persistent.

"Maledicat," I muttered. He leaned in closer.

"Sorry?" He said, evidently expecting me to repeat myself.

"Nothing." I tightened one last bolt and tucked the retro-style wrench back in my waistband. The wrench looked like an old twentieth-century wrench, but the head automatically conforms to the bolt it encounters. It's saved my life more than once. I sat back on my knees, wiping the grease- at least, I liked to think it was grease- on my equally retro jeans. I'm a pretty retro guy. "There we go, now you shouldn't have any trouble with the port matter injector. Tell your Captain this one's half off." The ensign thanked me profusely, going on and on.

"Oh, heavens, we can't thank you enough, with the Chief Engineer out of commission and all the other engineers working to fix him and everyone all else is down on the planet working to contain the Deltan uprisi-"

"Wait!" I interrupted, throwing my hands up. "Go back, what was that about… fixing the Chief Engineer?" The Bolian abruptly shut up, color draining from his face. "What, say something you shouldn't have?" I winked. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone." I'll keep this little tidbit to myself. I waved goodbye to the stammering ensign and walked out of their engine room, leaving him to tidy up.

Ah, life on a starship. These classes of ships are huge and cramped at the same time- The corridors all feel so small, but if you were to walk every square foot of corridor in the entire ship it'd take you weeks. I'll take an open battlefield any day. But somehow, I never seem to get one. A pity, too. I haven't exercised in years. I walked through the bustling corridors filled with red-shirted security officers and yellow-shirted engineers, none of whom gave me a second glance but somehow made way for me. I was a bit of an oddity on board, it must be said- a peregrini, a foreigner. With my blue jeans and beaten button-up shirt, I stuck out like a sore thumb on this spit and polish Starfleet vessel.

I got flagged down by a redshirt on my way out the airlock. "Hold on, mate. Just a moment- could you show me your papers?" I sighed, fishing them out and handing them over as the redshirt's partner, some skinny ginger kid in a green medical and sciences shirt, eyed me warily and scanned me with a handheld device. The redshirt handed back the papers, bidding me good day. I watched them walk away, noticing as the greenie pulled the redshirt aside to whisper something. He nodded and glanced back at me. I shrugged and walked off the ship.

Once off, I turned back and looked at the vessel. It was really rather magnificent, truth be told- a Sabre-class warship, built to defend the Federation after they discovered there were things out there that wanted to destroy them. Typical humans, so naive. The Syrians had been like that, too. Of course, it was now over three hundred years from when the Sabre had been designed, so it was much more advanced than that first one- but it still carried that name. It was old and proud- like me, I suppose.

I turned and walked away, whistling an old, old tune.

68 Hours and Counting

I myself lived in a surplus Aenar shuttle that I'd… Acquired several years hence. It was small, but it worked for me. The whole affair looked like a long, pointed iceberg, painted a light blue ice color, and consisted of an engine room, two crew quarter spaces, and a control room. Again, not much room, but it worked for me. My control room had one really comfortable chair and one straight-backed hard steel chair. The comfortable one was for guests.

I flicked a switch, pressed a button, and pulled a lever. The winking display told me we were ready for warp. I sent up a short prayer to Mercury and pressed the button that sent my small ship hurtling into warp speed, and for five full seconds I thought for sure the ship was going to fall apart- and then it steadied, and I sent a heartfelt thank-you to Mercury for the safe jump. I was a top-notch starship mechanic, but this Aenar technology was… incredible. I hardly knew how it all worked, much less how to fit it all together. It's the biggest mystery I've ever encountered, even with all my time on the frontier of space- How did a backwards, polar sect of Andorians come up with all this? As far as I knew, I had the only Aenar spacecraft in existence, and it was currently over one hundred light years from its home. Five hundred and eighty seven trillion miles- and yet, it was closer to home than I was.

I uncorked a bottle of Saurian Brandy, taking a swig to banish the thoughts from my mind. I kicked the floor, setting my feet up and twirling in my chair, sighing as my eyes swept over my existence. I idly flicked a switch, old speakers crackling into life. An ancient human song, all the way from old earth, came on over the speakers… The United States Marine Corps hymn. I'd liked the marines- they were the closest anyone ever came to a legionnaire again. They'd fought hard and bravely, and they'd worked together as a unit. There were so many warriors I'd fought with and met, so many; but the marines were my favorite.

I took another swig of the brandy, leaning back and closing my eyes.

Above me, outside my shuttle, the gods danced among the stars.

60 Hours and Counting

I was dreaming. I rarely dreamed- Each one was a rarity in itself, and many were messages. This one was no different. I was on top of a tall, tall mountain, and there was a huge, beautiful city stretched out before me. I walked among the people who seemed unnaturally tall, and were surrounded by colorful auras that hummed and throbbed. Eventually I made my way into a large chamber, surrounded by twelve seats shaped in a U, all facing me.

"You are the last," One spoke, with an owl on her shoulder. "Your people should have died long ago."

"But we preserved you." Another said, fire in his eyes and a red helmet on his head. "We saved you until now."

"Your time is soon," Yet another declared, this one with storming clouds hovering around his brooding brow. "You will know what to do." I wanted to wait, to hold on and ask what they meant, but the vision receded and all I saw was a bridge. I stared, glued to the ground by confusion.

My eyes snapped open instantly as the alert barged out. I was out of my bed and down the hall in an instant, not even bothering to dress properly. It was my ship, I could run around half naked if I wanted to. The corridor was comprised of a single hallway with six alcoves on each side, each with a different color flame in it. I ran past them in a blur of heat and light, the door to the bridge barely sliding open in time to admit my frame. The main viewscreen flashed red, the words 'DISTRESS SIGNAL DETECTED.' I slid into my chair, the ship already changing course to intercept.

"Respice, let's see what we've got here," I ordered, placing my hand on the display pad. It lit up to my touch, glowing under my fingertips as I focused the viewscreen on the source. It scanned as a Starfleet vessel, but look unlike anything he'd ever seen before- It was long, its two nacelles tucked close to the top of its body, with a huge sphere mounted into the front. "Nomen eius, show me its name," I muttered, double tapping the pad until the view zoomed in enough to show its name, written in large black letters across its bow.

U.S.S. Florence Nightingale. Florence Nightingale, the British nurse made famous by the Crimean War. So it was a hospital ship, then. Wonderful- lots of civilians and wounded to deal with. "Quid iniuriam cum eo? What's wrong with it?" I said, activating my special package of engineering-specific sensors I'd picked up from a shady dealer on Risa. Expensive, but stellar stuff. I sat back, pulling down a spare monitor and activating it. A diagram of the ship appeared on the screen, rotating in 3D. The scan, shown as an amber beam washing over the frame, revealed a number of pulsing green spots. Those indicated low-level damage, certainly nothing worth a distress call. The scan intensified, piercing the rudimentary privacy screen over the entirety of the ship and showing a bright red dot. I punched the air. "There we go! Beam me over there, transport procedure three please." I stood up and stood still as the transporter's stasis field fell over me, and next thing I knew I had materialized in the other ship's secondary security room.

I had beamed out half-naked and unequipped, but I beamed in wearing a grade 3 polyalloy weave bodysuit with a full toolkit strapped to my back. Impossible with Federation technology, but somehow the Aenar had cracked it. I took a moment to orientate myself, peering around to see what the problem was. The room was bright, clean, and appeared to be functioning perfectly- Except for the gaping, sparking hole in one of the power conduits. I rushed over to it, double tapping my collar to activate a facial shield built into the suit. It flipped out and shot up, two fibers snapping around my head and joining together. I now had the equivalent of a welder's mask on.

I grabbed the pack around my back, sorting through it until I found my trusty wrench. I held the front of it to the sparking conduit, watching as the head formed around the live wire and deactivated it. I pulled up the visor to my mask, the danger averted for now. Someone tapped my shoulder, and I glanced to see a young woman hovering nervously over my shoulder. "Sir?" I faced back towards the conduit, drawing more tools out of my pack and proceeding to disassemble the whole thing.

"Bit busy right now," I said, my arms buried in the conduit. She was a persistent one, though. She kept tapping, harder and harder. Finally I turned around completely.

"What do you want?" I said exasperatedly, turning my head to see a whole line of redshirts holding nasty-looking phaser rifles. I pulled my arms out of the coupling, holding my hands in the air and surveying them cooly. "I stopped that conduit from overloading," I said, motioning at it. "It was about to overload and blow out your phaser banks." One of the redshirts nodded.

"Take off that pack, if you would please," One said in a high-class accent. He suddenly resembled a redcoat to me- I'd hated them. I slung my pack down and placed it next to me, then pulled off my mask. "Very good. Now, if you'll just follow me down to the brig, we can make you nice and comfy." I sighed. In my haste I'd forgotten the standard hail- letting them know I'm responding to their distress signal, pretty standard stuff. They probably thought I was some sort of pirate. I marched down the corridor, observing as much as I could before one of them blindfolded me. Smart ones, then- trained to think like soldiers. Not exactly standard Starfleeter security, and especially not on a hospital ship. What was this?

58 Hours and Counting

That accursed door finally swung open and admitted a crisp redshirt into my cell. He wasn't security, though- looked more like command. He'd brought with him my things that they'd appropriated just before they'd subjected me to an intense full-body scan, before tossing me in the brig for two hours. Now this, this was weird for a hospital ship. Something wasn't quite right here. The officer sat down across from me, throwing my clothes down on the table. I glanced at them and back up, deciding it would not be prudent to take them back.

"So, then," He said, gesturing widely. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" I stared him down for a moment before answering.

"Just a passing repairman," I said simply. The man nodded.

"And this would be for…?" He said, hoisting the handheld Rigelian phaser I carried in my engineering pack.

"Welding."

"And this?" He'd found the knife tucked in my boot.

"Prying up loose wires. You'd be surprised how much it helps." I leaned back and crossed my arms, my face deadly serious.

"Right," He said, reaching under the table and drawing out my titanium gladius. "And this would be for, oh, I don't know, cutting lengths of cable?"

"Oh, no, that would be for stabbing." I gestured towards the sword. "You slip that in the gaps between you and your shield-mate's shields and stab whoever's on the other side, without exposing yourself to their swords." He looked at me skeptically, gently placing the sword down.

"How did you find us?" He said, changing tack.

"You sent out a distress signal. I heard it, I came running, transported in to the nearest damage point and set to work. Warm welcome you gave me, though." He blinked at this.

"We didn't send out a distress call."

"What?" He repeated himself. "But I heard it- I was in the area and my ship picked it up automatically."

"Nobody's ship is 'in the area', Mr. Horace. We're over ten thousand light years away from any civilization. You were sent here- Who sent you?" The information sunk into me slowly. Ten thousand light years…? 5.878 times ten to the sixteenth power miles. Five point eight seven eight times ten to the sixteenth power men of the local population forced to carry equipment to get this far out. I'd only just been leaving the local space of an inner world- it would have taken months to even get out to the edge of space. How…?

It was looking like we were going to be here for a while when the red alert sounded and a man burst into the room. "Sir, Borg vessel sighted!" I started.

"What class?" The man said, standing immediately.

"If you hope to survive, you'd better give me my things back." I said calmly in the middle of their alarm. They ignored me. Nothus.

"Sound the alarm, put the ship on alert," The tall one said, forgetting his last question. "And for heaven's sakes, give the man his sword back."

"Thank you," I nodded.

As I stood up, rolling my shoulders and strapping the gladius's sheathe to my hip, the junior officer who'd brought the news to the other one glanced at my wrists. "What's that tattoo mean?" He said, pointing at the four letters etched in dark letters in my flesh- SPQR.

"Senatus Populesque Romanus," I said. "The Senate and the People of Rome." With that, I walked out the door, into the ship that was no more a hospital ship than I was a repairman.

57 Hours and Counting

I was on the bridge, sitting at an auxiliary console enjoying a nice cup of posca I'd ordered from a replicator. I could have ordered some mulsum, but I wanted to stay on top of my game. For whatever reason, all of the Starfleeters very nicely ignored my presence, allowing me to pull up specs of the ship from my console. "Lepidus, very interesting," I murmured, taking down the specs and turning to the conversation at hand.

"I still say we just let it get close so we can use the weapon," Somebody who looked like a captain was saying. His bearing suggested a complete lack of military training- Actually, it was more as if somebody had taken a doctor and stuck him in charge of the vessel. I guess that wasn't so strange for a normal hospital ship, but it was definitely strange for this hospital ship.

Somebody who looked like a first officer spoke next. "We don't have any guarantee that the weapon will work- We should keep them at a distance." Telum? A weapon? This was interesting- I'd seen only phasers and quantum torps on the specs, nothing on the scale their tone suggested. I activated the console once more and quickly broke through their security, discovering a hidden section not in the regular blueprints. Attrahenti, a tetryon accelerator! It took the massively unstable particles and flung them at speeds approaching high warp- a burst of these would shred the Borg Sphere headed towards us. No shields could stop it.

"It'll work," I interrupted. Everyone turned to look at me and stared at the projections I'd calculated on the screen.

"How did you…" The first officer seemed flabbergasted at the ease at which I'd done it.

"Get through your security? It's not even up to Starfleet specs. A proprium, Starfleet system, I could never break but yours took me about fifteen seconds. Anyways, as you can clearly see here, the ship only has power reserves to fire a short burst at the Sphere before we have to recharge. Now, rerouting the secondary and tertiary warp cores through the bilateral EPS grid like so-" I pressed a few keys, making the necessary changes and showing the diagram on the screen- "We can cut the recharge time in half, but that's still half a minute the Sphere has to transport drones onto the ship." The Captain seemed to be the only one not affected by this.

"We have a transport screen we can put up around the entire ship." He said, tapping his combadge.

"No," I mused. "They'll just break it and transport in anywhere they want. We should leave some sections open and attempt to hold them in a non-critical area- sir," I added hastily. The Captain nodded.

"Bridge to engineering- raise the transport screen. Mr. Horace will be sending you the details from an auxiliary console here. Make the necessary arrangements."

"Yes, sir," Engineering responded. I'd already had all the details ready and I sent them through. Then I rose up, stretching.

"Where are you going?" The first officer demanded. I met his imperious gaze with a cold stare.

"Those Borg will take approximately six hours to get here, if you lie low for an ambush starting now. In those six hours, I plan to get lunch and prepare to fight to defend your ship." With that, I smartly turned and walked out of there.

54 Hours and Counting

"This is your ship?" The scrawny redheaded technician asked in wonder. I merely nodded. There was no real reason to have a techie inspect my ship- Every piece of technology on it was beyond Starfleet or worked in such a completely different way that even Scotty would've had a whale of a time trying to figure it out. Hell, I barely understood how the whole thing worked. She was pretty, though. Not exactly pulchra, but bellus enough. I left her at the boarding ramp and went into my quarters.

I shoved over my bed and stood in front of the bulkhead. "Pleno peccatis solvantur." I said, activating the hidden door. Pleno peccatis solvantur- Sins must be paid in full. Inside the hidden space was a full suit of Roman armor, a spatha, a few javelins and a shield. Usually there was a gladius, but that was currently strapped to my back. I heard the door open and whirled around, furious. No one could see this- No one was supposed to see what I am. The ginger techie stood in the opening, gaping at the glittering armor. "Derelinquere locum istum!" I barked at her, pointing at the door. In the heat of the moment I'd spoken Latin, but my intentions were clear. She squeaked and left, the door sliding gently shut. Sighing, I rubbed my temples and turned back to my armory.

I don't even know why I'd protected my trove that harshly- I was going to don it for the fight to come, after all. I knelt in front of the armory and said a prayer to Mars, the God of War. I finished and opened my eyes, and suddenly I was in that room I'd seen in my dreams.

"You were supposed to die!" An angry man with fire in his eyes was telling me. I tried to speak, to tell him that I'd tried to, I really had- but no words could come out.

"Cool your tongue," Another commanded, the one with an owl on her shoulder. "He only survived because of that man." She spoke the words 'that man' with loathing.

"He has meddled in our affairs far too much," Declared a voice like thunder.

"But this time, it plays into our hands," The owl-lady argued. "This is the last one of us. When he dies, we will fade- and, we should have faded a long time ago." Nods all around the U. "But he will, at least, honor our legacy with one last action." Here a woman with flowing white robes and a beautiful face fixed her gaze on me.

"You don't have long now," She said, stretching out her arm. "You have such a short time left, but in that time you will have the blessing of Venus." I felt something flow into me.

And with that I was rudely jerked out of the… vision, I guess you would call it. I shook my head to clear it and glanced at the chronometer- ten minutes until the Borg got here. I grimly stood and put on the armor quickly, its familiar weight settling on my shoulders. I hadn't worn this for… nearly a century, now. It was like riding a bike, though. You never forget.

53 Hours and Counting

I stood as part of a wall, calmly standing there in my Roman armor while everyone else- security redshirts, mostly- leveled phaser rifles at the empty mess hall before us. They gave me strange glances and I ignored them. I drew my spatha and planted the tip into the deck in front of me, both hands on the hilt. I closed my eyes and asked for Mars' blessing. Martis vis fac audeamus mea. Ferrum rege nomen tuum. A voice from beside me interrupted.

"Is that… Latin?" My eyes opened and my head turned to face the man next to me. I hadn't realized I'd spoken out loud, but I was more concerned that the man knew what Latin was. It had been a dead language for hundreds of years now. He was an average-looking fellow, with extremely tousled brown hair that couldn't possibly be regulation. "But nobody knows Latin- at least, not that Latin. That Latin hasn't been spoken since Rome was around!"

"And how do you know that?" I asked quietly. He went silent, perhaps realizing he'd said too much. Who was this strange redshirt, who knew my language? I decided to watch him closely. I looked away and realized with a small amount of alarm that I couldn't remember what he looked like- which was impossible. I had a good memory for faces and I'd last seen him a few seconds ago- but I couldn't even remember his hair color. It had to be some work of Trivia.

The Borg transported in and the room was filled with phaser beams. I stayed still, quietly watching as a few were cut down before the rest adapted. "Fall back!" One yelled. "Remodulate!" The redshirts all furiously backpedaled, messing with the settings in their rifles. The Borg marched on towards me. I calmly raised my spatha, slinging the large column shield off of my back. One raised its arm and I planted the shield in front of me, feeling it shudder as the Borg fired its beam weapon at it. I moved the shield and stabbed forwards, impaling the drone's sternum. He collapsed, his body jerking and sparks shooting out. One thing I'd learned about the Borg- they couldn't adapt to my sword.

I blocked more beams and sliced a few more down. The spatha wasn't my usual choice- it was a longer blade more suited for calvary- but now I was glad for the extra reach. I didn't want to close to point-blank range where I had no hope of blocking a beam in time. I'd killed over a dozen of them before the Starfleeters yelled "Hit the deck!" As soon as I did, phaser beams washed over me, striking all the Borg in the room down.

"Postremo," I muttered, standing up and rolling my shoulders. A Borg corpse twitched and I impaled it. Probably overkill, but who really cared? I heard applause throughout the room and turned in surprise- the redshirts were clapping.

"Well done!" They shouted. I shrugged and pressed a button on my wrist. The room dissolved and I rematerialized in my quarters. I spoke the words and carefully polished and stored every piece of my armor, one at a time. It was the first thing we learned in the Legion- equipment first, body later. A legionnaire could go for days without food if he must, but with a dull blade he wouldn't last a day. That done, I quietly ate on my own ship and turned in for the night. Fighting always made me sleepy, and now that the crisis was averted I might be able to get some decent shut eye.

2 Days Ago- 48 Hours and Counting

I padded down the corridor on my ship, sipping from a cup of hot tea. Tea was the one foreign thing I embraced wholeheartedly. I rounded a corner and saw that strange man whose face I couldn't remember studying the alcove devoted to Vulcan. Vulcan's flame burned a dark, simmering orange. "Sometimes you can hear hammers in the flame," I said calmly, leaning against the bulkhead. The man jumped, looking around wildly until he saw me.

"This is Vulcan's flame, isn't it?" He asked, looking not in the least ashamed to have been caught snooping around on my ship. My eyes narrowed.

"Yes, it is, but how do you know that?" The man chuckled.

"The Greeks called him Hephaestus. God of the forge and machinery, so I guess that makes him the Roman god for smithing weapons." I nodded.

"You could say that." I placed my cup of tea in the hallway replicator, pressing the button for matter reclamation. It disappeared in a flurry of particles. "Now," I said, drawing a wicked sharp knife from an arm sheathe, "You're going to tell me exactly who you are and what you're doing here, and how you know about the gods." He smiled.

"I'd be happy to, but I think we should take this to my home court then." I frowned.

"What do you-" Suddenly, we weren't on my ship anymore. We were outside, in space, with no protection. It shouldn't even have been possible… Fascinating. We had a magnificent view of the Nightingale as it approached the Borg ship. We watched as it unleashed a devastating barrage of blue, fiery bolts into the sphere, ripping it apart completely. It was an awe-inspiring sight, and also a terrifying one. Power like this… Maybe it wasn't meant to be wielded by mortals. I glanced at my companion, who studied the wreckage with a sad look on his face. He looked old, ancient, in fact.

"Sorry about all the secrecy," He apologized, watching the Borg ship disintegrate. "I had to be sure you were the one."

"What one?" I demanded. Nobody knew what I really was.

"The one we were told to find," He said simply. "A few days ago, our order was contacted by a mysterious force that simply said "Find the last remnant of Rome among the stars" and listed a string of coordinates. I'm the only one that stayed on Earth long enough to observe Rome, so they sent me here." We stood on the deck of my ship once more.

"Why?" I asked. The mysterious force must have been the gods- who else could it be? But I had no idea of what this order was, nor this man who could slip through space as easily as his face slipped from my memory. He shrugged.

"No idea," He said. "I assumed the force, probably your gods, would show some sort of sign at this point." I laughed, somewhat bitterly.

"Deos raro agere velimus." He nodded in agreement.

"Indeed, indeed." And with that, he disappeared. I stared after him, then rubbed my eyes. When I opened them, I again stood in the chamber with twelve thrones. The woman with the owl on her shoulder stood before me, fixing her icy gaze on me.

"The traveler has found you," She said. "The pieces are falling into place. Now you must go to where your fellow humans dwell, aboard the larger vessel. Mingle among them." She glided away and the beautiful one took her place.

"There you will find my blessing- but do not look too far." Cryptic, as usual. The man with angry fire eyes stood before me now.

"Your fight is coming," He whispered, a surprising change from his normal bellow. "You must prepare for it." The vision faded away, leaving me standing in my transporter room dressed in jeans and a clean shirt. Shrugging, I stepped onto the pad and tapped a key. I materialized in the shuttlebay, scaring the hell out of that cute, redheaded technician I'd met earlier.

"Tallarite's beard, you scared me!" She exclaimed, leveling a wrench at me. I held up my hands in mock surrender.

"Whoa, whoa!" I said, laughing a little bit. "Hold your fire. I just came out to sightsee a little bit." She lowered the wrench, standing with her arms crossed.

"You're a mechanic. What's the sightsee on a ship that you haven't already seen?" She had a good point, but I'd been asked this before.

"Every ship is different," I explained. "Each one's engine makes a slightly different tune. Every ship's gravity plating is different by a few microns. Every ship has its own unique sweet spot." She raised an eyebrow at that one.

"Sweet spot?" She sounded skeptical. I sighed.

"Here, let me show you. When are you off duty?" She tossed her wrench aside.

"Now," She said, her face perfectly blank. I stared at her, slightly confused for a minute. She broke out laughing. "You should've seen the look on your face!" She said. Her laugh was beautiful, high and clear. I grinned, my cheeks going a little red. It was funny- I could stare down Borg with a sword, but this one girl had outmaneuvered me. She held out her arm. "C'mon, mechanic soldier boy. Show me this sweet spot." I took her arm and we walked through the doors, out into the ship.

38 Hours and Counting

I stumbled back aboard my ship, reeling from the amounts of alcohol I'd drank. Some Andorian had challenged me to a drinking contest. I was a Roman. I was a militus. The only honorable thing to do was accept. I'd won. Veni, vidi, vici- I came, I saw, I conquered. I chuckled at that thought. I was the Julius Caesar of vocatus, alcohol.

More than that, I'd had more fun with the techie than I'd had in years. Her name was something unpronounceable, but she'd said that everyone called her Missy. She knew a hell of a lot about warp theory and old Earth 2D programs- definitely an oddity these days. Damned modern technology. It was probably Greek, all of it. Damned graecus.

Eventually, we found ourselves in my quarters, discussing something or another. I was saying something half in English, half in slurred Latin. "Numbers aren't real, colors aren't real, tempus isn't real. Simpliciter quidem, mentis conatum sunt in circuitu nostro in sæcula." My hands moved expansively across an imaginary universe. She looked at me strangely.

"What?" I realized I'd spoken the whole last sentence in Latin. I facepalmed and spoke more slowly.

"They are simply the mind's attempt to make sense of the world around us," I translated. "The entire universe is a bunch of nugarum, nonsense. Our minds can't handle that, so we put little boxes around everything and call is significatio, sense. Thus we have numbers for everything- for distance, for colors, even for tempus, time. But none of it is real."

"That's a sobering thought," She commented, slowly moving closer to me. Something was in her eyes that I hadn't seen in a long time. "What about feelings? Are those… Nugarum, too?" I smiled.

"Nulla. Emotions and feelings are very real. Talis est decretum deos. Such is the god's decree." We were very close now. Something, some spark, hung in the air between us. She pulled back, breaking it and looking at her watch.

"Shoot!" She said. "I'd better get some sleep so I'll be ready for my shift tomorrow." She walked out, but lingered by the door a moment. "Horace?" She said. "One last question." I gestured for her to continue. "You fight with a sword, talk about gods like they're real. You speak this… Latin as fluently as you do English. You look like you're thirty but act like you're much, much older. Who are you?" To this, I had no answer. She was gone before I could think of a reply. I laid back, letting myself slowly sink into sleep. Above my head the gods whirled about, weaving their wills in tapestries of infinite complexity- and I was their pawn.

1 Day Ago- 24 Hours and Counting

"Rise, hero," A voice thundered, and I found myself once more in that room. The one who had spoken stood before me, a commanding aura around him and a lightning bolt clutched in his hand. Jupiter, king of the gods and lord of the skies. "Where you failed in your last life, you have a second chance to succeed in this one. Choose like a Roman and our blessing will be with you." The fiery man took his place.

"Try not to screw it up this time!" He bellowed at me, jabbing his spear into the ground. Then stood a sandy, wispy figure who appeared to be sleepwalking.

"It is not yet time for you to awake. You will rise when you are needed." He stretched his hand out over me, and I felt myself sink slowly back into sleep. I heard voices as if from a distance.

"He has so little time left."

"He is mortal. He had so little time from the moment he was born. He has survived this long only because we cursed him with it."

"Their flames burn brightly, mortals. Short, but bright. Sometimes I think it is a better existence than we have."

The Day

I woke up, feeling fresher than I ever had before and possessed of a bad feeling. I dashed to my armory and put on my legion armor, grabbing my gladius and the tower shield I used, freshly repaired from my battle the other day. The transporter took me to the center of the bridge, where ensigns dashed about. The Captain stood, gripping the handrail and staring grimly at the center screen. It showed a full Borg tactical cube coming at them. The time to intercept was barely three minutes. Somebody noticed me.

"Ah, Horace," The Captain said. "You always seem to crop up when we need you. I fear that we will very shortly be fighting for our lives, however. That thing absorbed our first long-range barrage from the tachyon cannon. By the time it's ready to fire again, we'll have been assimilated." He sounded hopeless. I studied some ship schematics.

"There," I pointed towards a compartment nearer the engines. "We can detach that section from the ship. Put up the screens everywhere but that, make them commit to trying to overrun us from there. Hold them off long enough to detach it." The Captain regarded me skeptically.

"That's suicide." I shook my head.

"Use the transporters as soon as that section is away. I'll give your chief a frequency to cut through your screens. Volunteer only- I'll lead it. This is the only way." The Captain sighed, passing a hand in front of his face.

"Alright, mechanic. We'll do it your way." He turned away, giving the necessary orders. I went to the designated section and waited as the volunteers showed up. There was only one- the redheaded techie. She clutched a phaser rifle nervously and gave me a faltering grin.

"Not much of a second date, huh?" She joked, all the color drained from her face. I pressed the button, opening the door and hopped through, sealing it shut behind me with her on the other side- the safe side. Not her. Anybody but her. Voices came through the combadge they gave me.

"The frequency doesn't work!"

"You'll be killed!"

"You don't have to do this!" That last voice was the techie, pleading desperately. I tapped my combadge.

"For how can a man die better than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of his fathers and the temples of his gods?" I said into it and crushed it beneath my feet.

And then they were there- the Borg. Their forms seemed to flicker and change, turning from Borg to Etruscan soldiers and back again. I felt presences all around me- the gods blessings. I am Horatius- that same Horatius on the bridge. True, I held off enough Etruscans to keep Rome safe, but I was a coward. I left my friends alone at the last second and dived into the Tiber. They are the true heroes, not me. For my cowardice, Mars cursed me with immortality. Humans dream about immortality, but it isn't a blessing. It's a lifetime full of watching the people you care about grow old and die around you. It's a lifetime of knowing you'll outlast everyone you meet.

But the gods are merciful. They preserved me for this- this last defence, this last bridge over the Tiber. Here I would die. But I took solace in the fact.

For how can a man die better?