And, over the shoulder of Titus at his controls, through a slit window and a massive protective grill beyond, Gnaeus glimpsed the receding fire of the Malleus, and a tree, impossibly tall, that scraped the orange Martian sky.
Kerys tumbled out of the open hatch in the flank of the Malleus.
Slam!
Thin it might be even at this low altitude, but hitting the air of this small planet in nothing but a pressure suit felt like running into a wall. And it was full of gritty dust that hissed against her goggles.
Her speed in the air slowed quickly. She was still curled up in a ball, the posture she’d adopted as she’d jumped, better to survive the close passage of the Malleus. But she could hear the roar of the ship’s drive recede, see its glare diminish from the corner of her eye. Now she spread out her arms and legs, letting the air snatch at her and stabilize her. Her speed reduced further and her fall became more orderly, with the buttery sky above her, a scarred rusty landscape below, a pale, diminished sun not far above the horizon. There below her she saw Earthshine’s facilities, the three compounds linked by dusty tracks, just as in Quintus’s images: the bunker, the kernel-drive ship that was her own destination, and that impossibly tall tree in its narrow air tent. On target, then.
And there was a brilliant point of light directly overhead, like a single star that seemed brighter than the sun. Höd, coming for its lethal rendezvous. She looked away, blinking away the dazzle from her eyes.
At the appropriate time she tore at a patch of leather on her chest. Cables ripped free, and she felt bales of fabric unfold at her back. Again she braced herself, folding her arms over her chest. When her wings snatched at the air she was slowed dramatically, a hard tug that wrenched at her lower gut and made her gasp. But it was over in a moment, and when she looked up her wings were spread wide across the sky. Scraped leather stiffened with ribs of wood, the wings had been modeled on the wings of hovering seabirds, such as albatrosses, but this particular set was, of course, adapted for the thin Martian air, and much larger than she would have needed over Terra.
And they were safely open. She felt a surge of satisfaction. Safe for now—at least until she and her sole companion, Freydis, a midranking remex, went flying up into Höd itself, if they ever got that far…
Just as she thought of Freydis, a sprawling shape banked across her vision and the small speakers in her enclosed helmet crackled. “Whee!”
“Stop showing off, Freydis.”
“Sorry, nauarchus. But isn’t this grand? Flying over Mars!”
Kerys didn’t want to discourage her, but she couldn’t suppress a sigh. “If you’re thirty years old, as you are, and strong enough that you didn’t get your guts pulled out of your backside when your wings opened, and if you’re an inexperienced idiot—yes, Freydis. ‘Grand’ is the word I would have used.”
“Sorry, nauarchus.” Freydis quickly calmed down.
Kerys peered down at the ground, tweaking her wings to make sure she was heading for the stubby cylinder that was the Celyn, with its support facilities around it—and she spotted small dark specks that must be crew and guards, waiting for her as she fell from the sky. She called Freydis again. “You know the plan. We’re both wearing identity beacons that mark us out as messengers from the Navy headquarters at Dumnona. Here we are with revised orders for the crew of that ship below. Yes? They’ll reject any such orders, but with any luck the bluff will confuse them long enough at least for us to land before they start shooting. Don’t do or say anything to give us away; just follow my lead.”
“I understand, nauarchus.”
Kerys looked across at her. “So, you’re ready for this? I picked you because you are the best qualified of the crew, in my view. Your aptitude for piloting and independent thinking is exceptional. I also know you trained at Kalinski’s Academy of Saint Jonbar. So you know all about these people, their strange origin, the peculiar nature of this entity Earthshine.”
“Probably as much as anybody at my pay grade, nauarchus.”
That made Kerys laugh. But then she looked down at the heavily armed and suspicious troops on the ground waiting to greet them, and up at the looming presence of the asteroid preparing to smash this world to slag, and she considered the unlikely sequence of events that would be necessary if this bright, eager remex was to survive the day—and all because of her, Kerys, and her insane plan.
“Nauarchus! The troops below. They seem distracted. Look, they’re turning away from us. They’re running, toward—what? A new muster point to the south of here.”
Kerys tweaked her wings, and swiveled in the air so she could see better. And she made out a vehicle roaring across the ground, coated with heavy black armor, churning up a cloud of Martian dust behind it, with the flag of the Legio XC Victrix fluttering in the thin air: roaring straight toward the compound to the south, where that spindly tree grew tall.
“That’s the testudo. They made it.” She couldn’t help raise a fist, careless of being seen from the ground. “Go, you ugly Roman bastards! Go, go!”
The testudo bounced as it raced over the ground, and Gnaeus had to cling to the edge of his couch. They were following one of the dirt tracks the Brikanti had laid down, but it was no Roman road—or at least it wasn’t meant to be taken at this speed.
Still, Gnaeus peered ahead at the mighty trunk of the tree, marveling at the green of its leaves, vivid in the Martian light despite the obscuring air tent within which the whole tree was enclosed. The tent itself was a cylinder, faintly visible because of a coating of adhered dust. The vehicle was already so close that Gnaeus Junius couldn’t see the tree’s upper branches, its crown.
“That thing is ridiculous,” Titus Valerius said, as he worked the levers that controlled the charging testudo.
“It’s a quarter of a mile tall, Titus Valerius. It’s a marvel of biology—of human engineering.”
Titus grunted. “A marvel to which these Brikanti and their druidh would nail us if we ever gave them the chance. And as for its length, you and I can pace it out when we’ve brought it down.”
“It seems a crime.”
“Most actions of the Roman army seem like crimes if you’re on the receiving end of them, I daresay, sir.” He called over his shoulder, “All right, lads, wake up and be ready to move. We’ll topple that unnatural thing, and then it’s out of this tin can and at the Brikanti.”
“Let us at them, Titus Valerius.”
“Don’t sound too eager, Scorpus, will you? Now then, shut up and let me concentrate on that cursed tree.”
The testudo carried a rack of missiles, and there was a simple sight stencilled on the forward window. All Titus had to do, Gnaeus knew, was to line up the sight mark directly on the trunk of the tree, which was a conveniently vertical and highly visible target. They reached a comparatively smooth stretch of track, the jolting of the vehicle subsided, comparatively—and Titus at last closed the firing switch.
When the missiles flew, the testudo rattled and bounced, and the men cheered. The missiles were powered only by Xin fire-of-life powder with an oxidizing compound, Gnaeus knew, but they delivered a kick when they soared away anyhow. Gnaeus could see the missiles swoop in, burning low over the ground, with the Brikanti scattering from their path—and then that tent over the tree blew apart in filmy shreds, an instant before the missiles slammed into the base of the tree itself, not far above a mighty, sprawling root system. A fireball swathed the lower trunk, stretching perhaps fifty paces up into the air. Just for an instant it wasn’t clear if the damage done to the tree had been terminal, and Gnaeus, who had contributed to the calculations of the missile power necessary, felt a twinge of anxiety. He could see the Brikanti troops standing, turning, peering up at their tree in dismay.