Chapter 148: The Armada

February 24, 222 AD.

Lugdunum, Roman Gaul.

Valerius, entrusted by the Forge Master with overseeing the Syndicate’s Mediterranean expansion, had appointed Captain Titus to command the forward naval base on Corsica.

With coastal loyalists cleared during the initial amphibious assault, establishing control met little resistance.

Following the seizure of Aleria harbor, dockyards and supply depots for the steam fleet were quickly laid down.

Steam dredges deepened the shoreline to facilitate coaling.

The basin accommodated eight *Aquitaine-class* steam barges, supporting the continuous transfer of coal, iron, and powder.

Titus maintained daily patrols along the perimeter...

Over recent weeks, his coal-fired sweeps had pushed from the Corsican straits toward Ostia, using isolated Sardinian coves to replenish reserves.

The entire Mediterranean network remained on red-line alert after Aurelia’s *Umbrae* confirmed Consul Valerian had mobilized a reformed battle fleet.

From Massilia to Narbo, auxiliary craft patrolled the Tyrrhenian Sea to intercept transports bound for Gaul.

On an overcast morning, Titus worked the waters near the Campanian archipelago, thirty miles off the Italian coast.

He led aboard a steam-monitor, flanked by three light torpedo craft holding an open wedge formation.

Through his brass spyglass, the horizon showed clear.

Titus prepared to order the monitor back to Corsica for coal when the crow’s nest hailed the bridge. "Dominus, movement on the eastern bearing!"

Titus swung his glass toward the heading. A ram sliced through the banks of sea fog, followed by a towering forecastle that dwarfed standard galleys.

Wary that the thrum of his steam engine would draw notice, Titus ordered fires banked and backed the flotilla into deeper water.

He boarded a light wooden skiff with a handful of veterans, using muffled oars to skirt the reefs toward the mainland.

As the sun burned through the fog, the vessel emerged in full view: a war galley rivaling their own freighters in bulk, mounting triple oar-banks and ballistae beneath the crimson and gold eagle standards of the Senate.

Titus recognized the lines from the dossiers Aurelia had forwarded prior to deployment.

Titus ran the skiff into the shadow of a limestone bluff off Elba, leading his men up the rock to secure an elevated post.

From the crest, the full scale of the deployment came clear... ten super-galleys moved past the straits in line abreast, their sweeps churning the water white.

Against ten ships of that rate, his solitary monitor was outmatched.

The galleys held an interlocking screen that covered blind spots and overlapped their ballista arcs across a common killing ground...

The squadron cleared the headland and glided into the roadstead off Elba, dropping iron anchors among the civilian merchant craft.

The diversion had not been part of the Roman itinerary; the armada was bound directly from Ostia to the staging bases in Northern Italy. Yet Admiral Lepidus’s plan to commandeer the civilian hulls had met pushback from his patrician captains.

Fresh from political confiscations in the capital, their coin purses full, the officers insisted on landing to spend silver in the island’s taverns.

Lepidus had conceded a four-hour window before resuming the crossing.

Though blind to the reason for the delay, Titus saw the opportunity to study the hulls...

He dispatched the skiff to the monitor with orders to bring back the junior naval architect assigned to his detachment.

Two hours passed before the skiff returned, pulling into the cove with a soot-stained technician from the Massilia Bureau.

The technician crested the ridge and caught his breath at the sight of the galleys. Titus cut him off with a warning glare, and the man went straight to work, pulling a slate and chalk from his satchel to sketch the waterline, oar spacing, and deck structure.

To determine the bore of the deck mounts, they needed a closer look. Titus had the Syndicate markings stripped from the skiff, hoisted a weathered Roman merchant pennant, and smeared coal dust and bilge water over their gear to pass as coastal traders.

Hunched over the oars, Titus rowed the skiff toward the anchored flagship.

"Dominus, blessings of Jupiter upon your command! We carry uncut Campanian wine. Care to inspect the vintage?" Titus hailed in a dockside drawl, pulling alongside as a marine leaned over the rail.

"Wine? What press? Bring the jars closer, peasant," the marine muttered.

Titus stalled for time, arguing price and vintage while the technician, hidden under a canvas tarp in the stern, recorded the bronze fastenings, frame thickness, and swivel mounts overhead.

"You there! What is that boat doing against the side?" a voice barked from the quarterdeck.

"Shove off, you dogs! If the centurion catches me trading, he’ll take my skin!" the marine hissed, waving them away.

Titus backed water and pulled into the swells, clearing the flagship’s shadow before the deck watch could assemble.

Aboard the flagship, the reprimand landed hard. "Useless dog! You let peddlers foul the hull while the admiral is ashore? Were you not my sister’s get, you’d be over the side. One more slip and you’ll pull an oar in Britannia. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Centurion. It will not happen again."

...

The structural survey reached Lugdunum by telegraph within hours.

Lucius convened an emergency council in the praetorium, gathering the military and industrial leads.

Lucius took the central chair, Valerius at his right, with Tiberius, Octavia, Flavius, and Aurelia completing the circle.

Tiberius stood to present the breakdown.

"Forge Master, Directors... the survey data from Corsica gives us the profile of Valerian’s line. The flagship rate is designated the *Jupiter-class Super-Galley*. Displacement is estimated in the thousands of tons, with an overall length of 60 meters, a 16-meter beam, and a draft of barely 4 meters for beach landings."

"The frames are old-growth Lebanese cedar and oak, sheathed in forged bronze plates against incendiaries."

"For propulsion, she carries a triple-masted rig for open water, supported by three banks of oars pulled by roughly five hundred rowers."

"For armament, she mounts forty torsion ballistae along the rails and ten bronze siphons designed to project Greek Fire across fifty meters."