throne, and we’ll be targets right alongside him.” I took a second to think. “And if we can’t get back to Rome, I don’t know how we’ll be able to find the sphere. I don’t even know where to start even if we did find it and I…”
The sounds of soft snores coming from Helena interrupted me. I glanced over to find her completely asleep. It was probably just as well. She didn’t need to hear my useless musings on if and how we can get home. I really had no idea, and it wasn’t worth speculating at this point. It was best to stay positive. Lord knows life wasn’t about to get any easier, and we had to focus on the present. I had no idea when our last day in ancient Rome would come, but it wasn’t impossible to foresee it coming soon.
Part Three
IX
Cisalpine Gaul, Italy
April, 38 A.D.
Life in a Roman legion camp was hardly one of leisure and comfort, or even restful slothfulness for that matter. In fact, life amongst the legions, even during non-campaigning months, was in fact nothing less than Hell on Earth. It was one of hardship, pain, suffering, and plenty of fun things to do. Roman drill masters and tacticians put me through tests and training scenarios that may have even driven my drill instructors back in BUD/S to tears.
Every day it was the same daily grind over and over again. Enough to drive one insane from repetition, but of all of us, Helena had it the worst. She was the only woman in the camp, and under normal circumstances, wouldn’t even have been allowed to enter the gates. Families or other confidants were rarely allowed to travel with the legions while on campaign, and as a result, many men became very lonely, very fast, and Helena had to deal with being an extremely attractive woman surrounded by, basically, very horny men.
There were three incidents before the boys let her into their little club, the first of which occurred the very next morning after we had arrived in camp. One of Galba’s junior officers had been giving us a tour of the camp when a legionnaire seated outside his tent cooking breakfast stood up, and spanked Helena on her supple tush. I suppose she could have been asking for it. She’d borrowed a pair of Wang’s BDU pants, which because he was just a little guy, were a few sizes too small, and scandalously tight on her. It wasn’t until later that I learned she had done this on purpose. She’d anticipated her need to establish dominance over the unruly men, and hoped to incite a reaction exactly like the one she received so she could deal with it quickly.
She wasn’t very thrilled when I stepped in and defended her before she could do it herself.
As soon as I witnessed the harassment, I snatched his wrist in a quick motion and turned it in a direction it wasn’t designed to rotate in. The move forced the man’s body to instinctively lean back on his knees. I followed up the hold by kicking the back of his leg, dropping him to the ground. Following him to the ground, I landed on my back, and simultaneously pulled his arm so that his elbow rested against my knee. I could have ended it right there by applying enough pressure and wait for him to tap out, but his action had infuriated me.
So, pausing for only a moment, just long enough to make sure the man knew he had made a very stupid mistake, I pulled on his arm as hard as I could. His elbow bent in the wrong direction, and I heard a loud pop followed by a crack as I nearly broke his elbow in half. The crowd reacted with an understandable gasp of disgust at my results, if not my actions. The man was punished for assaulting a guest of the camp commander, and spent two weeks in the stockade after receiving twenty lashes from his centurion’s olive branch, a ceremonial tool meant for inflicting pain and punishment in lackluster or disobedient legionnaires.
Later that night, Helena explained her plan, and though she was grateful for my help, asked that I let her handle herself next time.
I agreed.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Two days later, after Galba was satisfied we had settled into the arduous routine of the camp, had us perform a similar demonstration to the one we had showed Caligula back in the Circus Maximus. The emperor showed nothing but amusement at the general’s unwillingness to accept his word, and approved the demonstration.
We shot some armor, blew some holes in the ground, and Helena shot an apple off the rampart near the porta praetoria from the gate opposite it. Additionally, since we had plenty of time to spare, Wang demonstrated his self-defense and hand to hand combat techniques. Wang borrowed from Asian forms he had known as a boy, and the Special Forces training he had obtained later to show the Romans many kinds of throws, takedowns, holds, pressure points, and submission moves, the last of which gave me the impression he watched just a bit too much professional wrestling as well.
We all had self-defense training, even Helena despite her accelerated basic training program, and we had also trained with Wang during our month long lull period after arriving in ancient Rome. When Galba invited our entire squad, Helena included, to help demonstrate and teach these moves to his centurions and decurions, men just below the rank of centurion, one of them decided to get a little frisky.
The maneuver was simple. The decurion Helena was assigned to held a wooden training pugio, or dagger, in an inverted grip, and was instructed to jab it downwards towards her chest. Helena began her defensive move by grasping his wrist which held the knife, and followed by ducking under the dagger, putting her body up against his. This was followed by her final move, using her hips to toss him over her. It was martial arts 101, but the decurion had more than the self-defense class on his mind.
Helena was wearing boots, her BDU pants, and a white tank-top, the same as the rest of us. The difference between us and her, of course, was her curvy waistline and large breasts, and just before Helena tossed the decurion, he reached around with his free hand to fondle them. Successful though he was, his fun didn’t last long.
To Helena’s credit, she was unphased by her attacker and followed through with her throw as planned. Instead of ending it there, she held onto his wrist, twisting it hard, stunning the man long enough for her to step around his arm, lock her ankles near his neck, and fall next to him, positioning him in a textbook arm bar maneuver. However, unlike in a cage match, she broke his arm, just above the elbow.
The man wailed in pain, clutching his crippled appendage. As he squirmed on the ground, I saw that the break was compound, and part of his radius bone pierced his skin. Helena, calm and collected, got to her feet, stepped around the decurion, reared her right leg back, and kicked him with the force of a freight train right in his groin. Unable to determine which body part hurt more, he continued wailing, but kept switching between straddling his arm and clutching his balls. Satisfied, Helena kicked some dirt on the man and turned to leave.
The decurion couldn’t let it go though, and between cries of pain, managed to call Helena a whore, a bitch, and words I hadn’t even learned yet. She turned, and returned to the man’s position, who had now given up swearing, and was fearfully trying to crawl away. Grabbing the man by his broken arm, the pain almost driving him to unconsciousness, Helena pulled his back off the ground, and jabbed her middle three fingers into his throat.
She didn’t break his neck, but it took him at least a minute before he could breathe again, and he never uttered another word, or even a pained sound, for a very long time after that.
Finished with her attacker, she turned and came to stand by Santino and me. The gathered crowd was stunned. Legionnaires, auxilia, centurions, tribunes, and even Galba himself stood, mouths ajar, having witnessed everything. Passing by the general’s position without a word, since her Latin at that point was still rather horrible, she gave him a look which transcended the language barrier, saying little more than, “you’d better hope this never happens again.” Nodding in disbelief, Galba turned, and left the area. Afterwards, no man in the camp dared even touch Helena, and those who had to spar with her, were laughably nervous.
Except for one stubborn dumbass.
By the end of the second week, most of the legionnaires began looking at her with nothing but respect and
