Harsh months, I thought, weary. Extremely harsh months.
Endless negotiations, clandestine meetings with the Frumentarii, bribes here, threats there, and when necessary, blood and fire. Some tribes understood no other language like the Navajo, whose proud resistance had been a particularly frustrating challenge. But in the end, as always, imperial order prevailed.
Now, I could finally look at the map in front of me with a measure of satisfaction. From the arid Mojave to the eastern frontier, from the desert lands of southern Mexico to the tribal settlements, every territory now served a loyal governor, carefully chosen and approved by me. The Legion was no longer a fragile coalition of vassals and uneasy allies. It was a solid, centralized empire. Just as I had planned.
I walked slowly toward the window, gazing into the distance at the smoke columns and the silhouettes of laborers deep in their work. Dozens of tribes had been relocated some reluctantly to reinforce key strategic cities. In some cases, those tribes were angered by the loss of ancestral lands, but it was a necessary price to ensure imperial cohesion. I especially recalled how I handled the tribe of Two Suns: their historical loyalty had earned them a symbolic reward after the political freedoms they were forced to surrender. Now they had their own racetrack superficial, perhaps, but it calmed their unrest and preserved the appearance of respect.
My attention returned to the plans on the table. The construction of the new Rome was progressing better than expected. For the first time in a long while, I felt the pressure begin to ease. Perhaps, I thought, I could allow myself to enjoy this victory even if only for one night. But I pushed that thought away. There was still much to be done.
The Legion was strong, unified, more powerful than ever but the true test was yet to come. The NCR watched from afar, resentful and preparing.
Lanius, the loyal butcher, was exceeding every expectation.
Since I had sent him into northern Texas, his advance had been relentless. At first, he conquered smaller territories with ease, crushing scattered tribes and supplying the Legion with a steady stream of slaves. But now, his latest victory had completely shifted the balance of power in the region. A powerful tribal confederation in Oklahoma had been utterly destroyed, and their cities among the largest we had taken so far were now under our absolute control.
The hundreds of thousands of slaves captured were nearly overwhelming the facilities at the Field of Mars. For the first time, I could feel the strain on my collaborators from the Enclave remnants. Always so efficient, so cold they were beginning to show signs of stress as they desperately tried to adapt our traditional Legion tactics to this new imperial age. The influx of slave recruits, abundant and hard to discipline, demanded rapid innovation if we were to integrate them into our army effectively.
Still, I could not allow doubt. I knew Lanius had done exactly what I expected: conquer, intimidate, and provide us with an inexhaustible labor force. Now, it was my responsibility to ensure that this abundance did not spiral into chaos.
Lanius, with his insatiable appetite for conquest and the meager resistance from loosely organized groups, was becoming difficult to manage. Caesar agreed when I suggested putting him on hold. Not because we doubted his ability on the contrary, I was fully convinced he could conquer all of Texas on his own, especially now that the Brotherhood of Steel was engulfed in a destructive civil war and super mutants continued to destabilize the region further but simply because there was no way to properly organize and consolidate so many simultaneous conquests. Especially with Lanius's tendency to brutally destroy tribal structures and given our administrative personnel shortages, most of the slaves taken had no education and were useless beyond basic manual labor.
So I sent clear orders: Lanius was to halt his advance and focus on converting the major cities of Oklahoma into efficient logistical hubs. When the time came, we would move east with well-established supply lines.
Malpais, on the other hand, advanced slowly, but with exemplary steadiness and control. His expansion in Utah wasn't as spectacular or massive as Lanius's, but every step Malpais took was firm and permanent. First, he captured pre-war research facilities, gaining some immediate-use technology. Then he conquered the Zion tribes, acquiring a few thousand useful slaves to reinforce our labor force.
Further north, he made contact with the White Legs. It was disappointing to discover that Ulysses that damned traitor had utterly failed in training them. Their tactics were even worse than the most rudimentary Legion drills. They had no virtue beyond blind aggression, no discipline, no tactical control. Malpais did exactly what I expected of him—he took direct control of the tribe, publicly executed several of their leaders, and reorganized them from scratch over the course of several months before officially integrating them into the Legion's auxiliary forces.
When he finally moved further north, Malpais achieved another notable success: the destruction of Vault 24's forces, a well-defended facility—though evidently not well enough. His campaign stalled temporarily when he faced the fierce Eighties tribe, expert highway raiders whose resistance proved more problematic than anticipated. But Malpais, with the patience and tenacity I so valued in him, faced them with determination until he forced their retreat and compelled them to surrender territory and slaves in exchange for a temporary ceasefire.
He did not stop there. Using that momentum, he turned east and swiftly crushed the Tar Walkers, whose conflicting vision inevitably led them to clash with Malpais's forces. The reason was simple, and obvious: his obsession with destroying New Canaan—purging it once and for all of the opulence and corruption he viewed as intolerable. For Malpais, it was a personal goal. He saw this crusade against religious excess as a matter of honor and profound conviction—as if he were a divine judgment returning to his former land to cleanse it of its worldly sins.
Here we were. New Rome thrived under my watchful eye. The city had taken on a life of its own, driven not only by our unrelenting legionary discipline but also by a growing fervor for the Cult of Libertas, which had surged after the reforms I introduced.
The emancipation reform after fifteen years of service had proven far more successful than anticipated. The streets were now filled with freedmen—former slaves who, with their newfound liberty, flooded the city with surprising enthusiasm. Many worked on the vertical hydroponic farms rising proudly into the skies of New Rome, promising abundant harvests to sustain the Empire's growing might. Others applied the skills they had acquired during years of hard labor in the Legion to public works that rapidly transformed our capital into one worthy of the new empire.
From the window of my office, I watched this spectacle with satisfaction. The Legion had always been strong in war, but now it proved capable of building and thriving in peace. The energy in the streets was tangible, and I felt genuine pride seeing how former slaves—now citizens—worked, driven by the real promise of a better life.
It was ironic, I thought, that an empire born of conquest and fear would now draw strength from hope and limited, carefully administered freedom. But so it had to be. This exact blend of iron and reward, discipline and opportunity, would ensure New Rome endured for generations.
Yet much remained to be done. No matter how far we advanced, new obstacles always emerged. Military reforms needed implementing, governors needed proper education, and administrators had to be trained in modern, efficient methods. My greatest difficulty lay precisely in our own army.
Although Caesar strongly supported educating the civilian population—keeping propaganda light—he held a hard line regarding the legionaries. To him, the strength of the Legion lay in keeping its troops ignorant and fanatical, convinced they served a god among men. That voluntary ignorance was essential to the absolute loyalty of the average soldier, willing to die for Caesar rather than fall into enemy hands.
I could understand his logic. But the pool of candidates was shallow; anyone who showed aptitude with numbers quickly became a decanus, and drawing even those few administrators away from the military for civil service strained us. Despite the use of training capsules, many of us bore the weight of lacking enough administrators due to our constant expansion. We had alleviated it somewhat by concentrating the population, but it was a slow fix.
My project to build schools, hospitals, and libraries in New Rome had Caesar's full support. But now I faced a new challenge: there were no legionary citizens prepared to serve in those institutions. After generations of encouraging ignorance in our troops, we lacked trained personnel to teach, heal, and administer our growing empire.
Our own medics were among the best the Legion had, but it would be foolish to assign them to civilians—especially when the campaign against the NCR resumed and I would need them the most.
Then I thought of the NCR prisoners of war. Engineers, doctors, highly trained specialists we captured during the Mojave campaign. They could fill the very gap we ourselves had created. Moreover, the NCR was in a deep economic crisis, unable to pay even a modest ransom for their men, as all their remaining gold flowed into our coffers as part of war reparations. And I would not return their troops without being paid for peace. Our legionaries would rather drive a dagger into their own chests than be captured by the enemy, so the prospect of a prisoner exchange was out of the question.
So I crossed the Colorado River and headed to the POW camp I had ordered built months earlier. Initially designed as a propaganda tool against the NCR—hoping that letting enemy reporters see how we treated their captured soldiers would encourage further surrenders—it had gone mostly unused since the end of the war, functioning instead as a holding facility with acceptable conditions and no torture or constant humiliation.
Among the thousands of prisoners were valuable individuals: doctors and surgeons captured in military hospitals, engineers who had built fortifications against us, and numerous administrators from the NCR embassy in Vegas who survived the siege. In short, they were exactly what we needed to fill the positions our empire lacked.
After months in captivity under decent conditions, their defiance had waned. Their worst fears—being crucified or sold into slavery—had faded. I could see it in their tired but attentive eyes when I addressed them in the camp's central courtyard.
"The NCR is neither willing nor able to pay your ransom," I announced, using the speakers integrated into my armor while scanning their faces. They were seated, dirty, exhausted, resigned. Still, some lifted their heads with a flicker of interest as I paused.
"The Legion could keep you locked away indefinitely. Let you rot in these barracks while time eats away at you. But today, I offer an alternative."
I saw them tense. Some exchanged glances. Contained hope.
"We offer you the chance to buy your freedom. You will work for us, in the facilities best suited to your skills. Engineers, doctors, operators, technicians… we won't waste useful talent. You'll be assigned to hospitals, factories, public works, or reconstruction programs, as needed."
I paused to let the message sink in. Then I added, without softening the blow:
"Obviously, the pay will be far below civilian standards. Enough to cover your needs and ensure you remain with us for at least one full year. At the end of that time, you'll be free to return home… or stay, if you find something better here."
I stepped forward, stopping in front of a row of prisoners who didn't look away from me.
"Or you can keep waiting for the NCR to pay for you. Though they haven't even finished paying the war reparations."
I stepped back to watch as they debated among themselves. They didn't raise their voices, but the gestures were clear: some spoke quickly, jaws tight as if afraid to be overheard; others simply lowered their heads, too drained to argue. There was tension, fear—but also a flicker of logic in their eyes.
They had spent months here, eating just enough, locked away without purpose, with no news from home beyond distorted rumors whispered by the guards. Now, for the first time, they had a way out. Not victory. Not redemption. But a choice. And for men used to orders and trenches, that was more than they'd expected.
It didn't take long for a respectable number of prisoners to accept. Some with resignation, others with a near-professional seriousness, as if it were just a new assignment rather than prolonged captivity. Necessity, hunger, and uncertainty had done their work better than any speech.
I immediately assigned them to various sectors in New Rome: hospitals, treatment plants, maintenance centers, vertical farms. The doctors went to the southern wing of the hospital complex under the supervision of a pair of local scribes. Civil engineers were assigned to heavy infrastructure projects. The administrators were distributed among the records offices and bureaus managing our new imperial bureaucracy—given low-level work with no access to sensitive information.
Naturally, I also assigned frumentarii to each group. Not as open jailers, but as silent supervisors. They knew how to act without raising their voices: they observed, memorized, evaluated.
As I organized the assignments, I passed through one of the commercial district streets. It was midday, and as had become usual, activity was intense. Markets were bustling, vendors shouted prices, and the new freedmen families were taking their place as both consumers and labor force.
But then, something caught my attention.
It wasn't a sound, nor a voice. It was a visual detail—simple, but off.
The clothing.
Some of the "shoppers" moving through the stalls wore garments that clearly didn't belong here. Modern cuts, uncommon colors, and above all, a label. A tag on the collar of a shirt I recognized instantly. It was from a textile company in the NCR common in cities like Redding or Shady Sands
I looked more closely.
Not many, but enough to notice the pattern. They arrived with small bags or discreet boxes. Inside: gold and silver jewelry—rings, necklaces, bracelets, even rare coins—which they exchanged quickly for denarii and aureus at the stalls. They didn't say much, but it was clear they knew exactly where to go.
Then they left with their arms full of cans and food. Preserves, dried fruit, packaged grains—products from our vertical farms. They carried it all and left quickly, avoiding staying in one place too long.
Strange. Very strange.