n the year 2448, the interstellar Empire of Rome spans an area almost as wide as the far-flung colonial worlds of the United States of America. Caesar Numa Pompeii is still rebuilding his shredded empire after the catastrophic war that his predecessor, Caesar Romulus, waged against the United States. War s end left Romulus in a nanovirus-induced coma, captive of Caesar Numa. Numa has under his command a powerful living weapon a patterner, an augmented...