Reborn In 3rd Century Rome with Future Industry

May 10, 221 AD, Syrian Desert.

Over a month had evaporated since Valeria vanished into the fog of Massilia, and Governor Gratus was losing his grip on reality.

Despite dispatching every Praetorian patrol, locking down the harbor, and interrogating half the city’s smugglers, the ruler had found no trace of his daughter.

The marriage alliance with the Claudian house was disintegrating into a scandal, and Gratus was beginning to suspect she had been kidnapped by a rival faction.

He had turned the south upside down, unaware that his asset was sitting in a northern praetorium, translating Archimedes for the warlord.

While the Governor drowned in the fallout of a missing daughter, Demetrios the Greek shipping magnate was standing on a limestone ridge thousands of miles away, staring down at the expanse of the Syrian desert.

The eastern frontier of the Roman Empire was locked in a war of attrition against the Sassanid Persians.

If it were not for the wealth generated by the Mediterranean trade routes, Rome would have surrendered these provinces decades ago...

The Sassanids possessed a military unit that haunted the nightmares of Roman infantry: the *Savaran* Cataphracts.

These were cavalrymen riding warhorses draped in overlapping bronze and iron scales.

When ten thousand Cataphracts charged across the sands, the weight shattered legionary lines upon impact.

But today, the rules of warfare were about to be rewritten.

Demetrios stood beneath the shade of a command pavilion, flanked by Legate Aurelius... the commander of the Eastern Legions.

Below them on the desert floor, fifteen thousand Roman infantrymen were forming their battle lines.

But unlike traditional formations, the vanguard was comprised of an auxiliary corps wielding the arbalests Demetrios had purchased from the Forge Master of Gaul.

Demetrios had spent a fortune rushing these weapons across the sea, and he had drilled Aurelius’s centurions in the combined-arms tactics Lucius Cassius had demonstrated on the *Campus Martius*.

"They are massing for the charge," Legate Aurelius noted, his voice tight as he pointed a finger toward the horizon.

A mile across the desert, the Persian Cataphracts were assembling.

The sun reflected off thousands of bronze scales, making the cavalry look like a serpent preparing to strike.

Aurelius turned his eyes toward the Greek merchant. "You promised me these bows would pierce eastern steel, Demetrios. I have staked the lives of my vanguard on your word. If that shield wall breaks during the reload phase, my men will be trampled into the sand."

"They are not bows, Legate," Demetrios corrected. "They are siege engines you can hold in your hands. Just ensure your centurions follow the firing doctrine."

Down on the valley floor, the pounding of Persian war drums began to echo across the dunes.

The Cataphracts spurred their warhorses forward. The earth trembled as thousands of cavalrymen transitioned from a trot into a gallop, leveling their lances toward the Roman lines.

The Roman centurions blew their whistles, their voices cutting through the roar of the cavalry.

"Lock shields! Brace for the volley!"

The front rank of the Roman vanguard consisted of spearmen holding overlapping *scuta* shields.

Behind them stood the arbalest crews, their bowstrings winched back and locked, the quarrels loaded in the firing grooves.

"Hold!" Aurelius muttered from the ridge, his knuckles white as he gripped the hilt of his gladius.

"Let them close the distance..."

But the terror of a Cataphract charge was absolute.

As the mountain of horses closed within two hundred paces, the nerve of several recruits shattered.

Without waiting for the command, a dozen men panicked, raised their arbalests over the heads of the spearmen, and pulled their triggers.

The strings snapped. A handful of bolts sailed through the air, striking the Persian vanguard at range.

While the bolts possessed enough force to dent the horse-armor, they had lost too much velocity to achieve penetration.

The bolts deflected off the scales, doing nothing to slow the momentum of the charge.

"Fools!" Aurelius roared from the ridge, his face flushing.

The panic threatened to ripple down the line, but the centurions reasserted control, shoving the men back into formation and screaming for discipline.

The Persian cavalry closed the gap... one hundred paces, then seventy, then fifty.

"Now!" a centurion bellowed. "Drop the wall!"

In unison, the front rank of Roman spearmen dropped to one knee, lowering their shields for a second.

The arbalestiers stepped into the gap, leveled their weapons into the mass of Persian cavalry, and pulled the triggers.

Five thousand bowstrings snapped.

The devastation was absolute. At fifty paces, the quarrels punched through the barding of the Persian warhorses, sheared through the ring-mail of the riders, and buried themselves deep into bone and organ.

The front ranks of the Cataphract charge collapsed. Horses flipped head-over-heels into the sand, crushing their riders and creating a pile-up for the cavalry surging behind them.

The Persian momentum was arrested in a storm of shrieking horses and shattered metal.

"Shields up! Wind the cranks!" the Roman centurions screamed.

The spearmen stood back up, locking their *scuta* into a wall just as the surviving Persian cavalry crashed into them.

The Persians hacked at the Roman shields with maces and longswords, but without their momentum, they were caught in a stalemate...

Behind the safety of the shield wall, the Roman arbalestiers placed their boots in the stirrups and began grinding the hand-winches, locking the strings back and dropping quarrels into the grooves.

It took them seconds, but the infantry line held.

"Wall down!"

The shields dropped a second time. Another volley of iron tore into the stalled Persian cavalry.

That second volley shattered the Sassanid morale. The cavalrymen, unaccustomed to weapons that could punch through their plate armor, broke formation.

Panic infected the surviving riders, and they wheeled their mounts around, fleeing back across the desert to escape the slaughter.

Legate Aurelius watched the rout in awe. He drew his gladius, thrusting it into the desert air.

"Cavalry! Advance and run them down! Leave no survivors!"

The Roman light cavalry, held in reserve on the flanks, surged forward, chasing down the retreating Persians and cutting them to pieces in the dunes.

The battle, which should have been a meat grinder lasting hours, had been decided in less than ten minutes.

Hours later, the sun began to set over a battlefield littered with the carcasses of horses and men...

Legate Aurelius stood before the ranks of his vanguard. The commander’s face was smeared with dust, but his eyes burned with triumph.

He paced back and forth, addressing the auxiliaries.

"You are soldiers of Rome!" Aurelius projected. "Yet some of you disgraced the eagles today! You let fear guide your hands, firing your weapons before the command was given. If not for the power of the steel you hold in your hands, the Persian charge would have trampled this legion into the dust!"

The men who had fired early stared at the sand, flushed with shame.

"But you held the line when it mattered," Aurelius continued. "You broke the unbreakable. You shattered the Cataphracts! Learn the discipline of these machines, follow the timing of your centurions to the letter, and we will drive the Sassanids all the way back to the gates of Ctesiphon! Glory to Rome!"

"Glory to Rome!" the auxiliaries roared, slamming their fists against their breastplates.

Standing near the command tent, Demetrios watched the celebration with a heavy expression.

The Legate was thrilled. The men were elated. But Demetrios felt a realization settling in his bones.

He had watched a downgraded, export-variant weapon annihilate the cavalry in the eastern world.

Lucius Cassius had sold him these arbalests because the Forge Master no longer needed them.

Demetrios knew Legate Rufinus was preparing to march his legions south to crush the Syndicate in Gaul.

He pitied the man... Rufinus was marching blind into a meat grinder.

As the Roman soldiers began dragging the arbalests back to the supply wagons, Demetrios’s thoughts drifted back to Massilia.

He wondered if Governor Gratus had found his missing daughter yet...

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