Stef grunted. ‘That would be characteristic. He likes his holes in the ground, the bunkers he shared with his Core AI brothers back on Earth, his hold-out under Paris, his pit under Hellas …’

Beth said, ‘But this whole planet is going to be hammered by Ceres. I can’t believe he’s going to stay around for that. He’ll want to survive, whatever he’s trying to do here. Just as he got away from Earth before the Nail fell.’

‘Right,’ said Stef. ‘And if Ceres is going to fall within twelve hours, his only way out of here will be aboard that ship, the Celyn.’

‘Very well,’ Quintus said. ‘That is the configuration on the ground. Now I want a tactical plan. It would not be hard to be destructive. Frankly, we could go in with our kernel drive blazing, and melt all of this back into the Martian sand.’

‘But we’re not here to destroy,’ the ColU said. ‘We need to get to Earthshine. The purpose is to deflect Ceres, if it is still possible.’

‘Our foes know that too,’ said Quintus. ‘So they will be waiting for us to attempt a softer approach, perhaps a landing. They may have missiles, even kernel-driven, to shoot us down as we approach, as is standard protection for our great cities on Terra—’

‘Maybe not,’ put in Movena, Quintus’s trierarchus. ‘The scans we’ve been able to do of the surface would show us any such missiles. There are kernels here –’ She pointed. ‘Under Earthshine’s bunker. But they aren’t a configuration we recognise – they certainly aren’t being used in missiles.’

‘This conversation is inefficient.’ Ari Guthfrithson stepped forward now, cold, clinical. ‘We must focus on the goal and work backwards. We have to get to Earthshine; we have to persuade him to deflect Höd, if this is still possible. Well, then. You have brought my family here—’

Beth snarled, ‘We are not your family.’ Mardina clutched her arm.

Ari ignored her. He tapped the image of the bunker. ‘You must land us here. The three of us, mother, father, daughter – his granddaughter and great-granddaughter. And the farm machine, one mechanical mind that may be able to communicate with another.’

‘Thanks for thinking of me,’ the ColU said drily.

‘Earthshine will take us into his bunker. He has saved you before, Beth, you know that, when he brought you on the Tatania, out of the bonfire of your Earth. He will save you again today. For I am sure you are right. He will have no ambition to be extinguished. And he will be motivated to take us with him, wherever he goes.’

Quintus prompted, ‘And once you’re down there …’

‘We try to persuade him to stop. But this will rely on us getting to that bunker unhindered.’

Quintus nodded. ‘We have yachts; we can get you down there. But in the meantime we’ll have to draw off the bulk of whatever forces he has. We have a testudo that we can have some fun with on the ground …’ He pulled his lip. ‘Earthshine’s forces will be pretty well dug in.’

Movena smiled. ‘But these are my people. Brikanti. I know how they think. And I have a suggestion to divert their attention.’

‘Which is?’

‘They have to protect two of their three facilities on the ground, the launch site, the bunker. So, attack the third.’

Quintus smiled. ‘Ah. The big tree. The Brikanti will be drawn away to save that, being the superstitious barbarians they are.’

Kerys, visibly dismissing the insult, shook her head. ‘These are standard plays. We need something more. A backup plan. Even if Beth Eden Jones and the others get through to Earthshine, there’s no guarantee he will listen to them. We need to think about other ways of stopping Höd.’

‘Such as?’ Quintus asked. ‘There are troops on Höd itself; they will no doubt stay up there to defend it until the last possible minute. If we try to approach in the Malleus they will blast us out of the sky – or do their level best.’

‘True. So we don’t approach in the Malleus. Or rather, I don’t.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean that I will take a small crew, Brikanti-trained – just a couple of us would do – and take that ship, from the ground. The Celyn. It’s the same class as my own last command, the Ukelwydd. I could fly it blindfold. We will eliminate it as a threat to the Malleus, if nothing else. And perhaps we can be a backup to this strategy of persuasion. I could simply fly up to Höd, which is conveniently hurtling in towards us, and use the ship’s communication codes, and maybe my own rank, as cover to approach. And then—’

Quintus frowned. ‘Yes, and then?’

‘I don’t know. I’ll have to improvise. The crew on Höd must have some kind of abort facility.’

‘Not necessarily,’ the ColU murmured.

‘Well, if there isn’t, we’ll think of something else.’

Movena nodded enthusiastically. ‘It may be a slim chance, but better than none at all.’

Kerys said, ‘If you drop me below the base’s horizon, perhaps on the same pass when you drop Beth and her party for the bunker—’

‘Beth, and her party, and me.’ The voice wavered, but was forceful.

Stef turned, and to her dismay saw Penny in the doorway, clinging to a rail with one clawlike hand, her grey hair a cloud around her head. ‘Penny – go back to your couch.’

‘I will not, and I don’t answer to you now, Stef, if I ever did. Listen to me. I know Earthshine better than any of you. I was even a colleague of sorts, once, and have been here again, on this side of the jonbar hinge. Drop me onto Mars in a wheelchair – in a pressurised sack, whatever – I can help you.’ She smiled thinly. ‘At the minimum it might distract him. Another diversion of forces.’ She glared at her sister. ‘I trust you’re not going to put up any more objections?’

Stef felt anger surge. ‘You never belonged in my life anyway. To see you leave it now will be no loss to me.’

Quintus held up his hands. ‘We don’t have time for this. We have a plan, and it’s the best we’re going to find. Prepare for your drops in –’ He glanced at his trierarchus.

‘One hour,’ Movena said.

‘One hour.’ He glanced around at the group. ‘We will probably never meet again like this, those of us assembled here. And many of us may not survive the day at all. If you believe in Jesu, may He be at your side now.’ He clapped his hands, breaking the moment. ‘Go, go!’

CHAPTER 28

With six hours left before the arrival of Ceres, the Malleus Jesu tore into the atmosphere of Mars. It was, Titus Valerius cried triumphantly, like a Roman gladio ripping through a barbarian’s guts.

Gnaeus Junius, along with a contubernium of eight men under the command of Titus, was already tucked inside the heavily armoured hide of a testudo. He clung to his couch harness, dug himself deeper into the padding, and told himself he was as safe as he could reasonably be, at such a moment, in his armoured pressure suit, buried in his couch, inside an armoured vehicle that in turn was swaddled in the hold of the Malleus, a kernel-powered fist of a ship. Thus Gnaeus was wrapped up in layers of cushioning and armour and hull plate, like a precious gift ready for transport to the favoured son of an emperor.

But right now this gift was being delivered by falling headlong into the thin Martian air. The ship fell backside first, with its kernel bank burning bright to slow it down from its interplanetary speeds. Gnaeus just prayed that the thick hull, which right now was peeling away in layers to carry away excess heat, would last long enough to keep the ship intact through these painfully long heartbeats of the entry.

Ahead of him Gnaeus saw the men of the contubernium in their couches, all of them with their backs to him, soaking up the deceleration. A contubernium was formally a ‘tent group’, a unit within the legion – a band who trained, lived and fought together. They seemed relaxed. One of them was even asleep, as far as Gnaeus could see, a man called Marcus Vinius. They’d been through far worse than this in training, Titus had assured him.