Well, not Gnaeus. He was from a senatorial family; his time in the army, his jaunts into space, were only intended as stepping stones to better things, a few years of toughening up before he returned to a career in high politics, hopefully in the capital itself. His unwelcome assignment to the Romulus-Remus interstellar mission, while it kept him from coming up against warlike barbarians in Valhalla, had also kept him away from Rome for twenty-five years, in which time a new generation of pushy upstarts had come along to compete for such positions – a whole cadre just as bright and ambitious as Gnaeus, and not decades out of touch with the current intrigues and infighting at the top of the Empire, as he was.

And now, this. Invading a planet occupied by some kind of mad machine, and just as the sky was about to fall. Such adventures had certainly not been in Gnaeus’s career plan.

The deceleration built to a brutal peak. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and wondered if it might not be better if the ship just disintegrated in the air and put an end to it all. But he didn’t really mean that, not even in the worst moments. He had his duty to perform, after all.

And then, like a switch being closed, the deceleration dropped to nearly zero. Gnaeus was thrust forward against his harness, and his stomach rebelled at last, his breakfast of dried fish and bread splashing up out of his mouth.

Titus laughed and clapped him on the back. ‘Never mind, optio. Happens to us all. And none of us saw the optio spew up his guts like a little girl, did we, lads?’

‘Not me, Titus Valerius.’

‘Hang on, I’ll wake up Marcus Vinius to make sure he didn’t see you either—’

‘All right, all right,’ Gnaeus said, scrambling to regain his dignity. ‘Just make sure you’re ready for the drop, Titus – oof.’

Now the ship lurched suddenly to the right, and there was a burst of acceleration.

‘That’s what you get when you’re piloting in an atmosphere,’ Titus said. ‘Coping with turbulence, the thickening air – a lot of dust around on Mars. And trying not to let the barbarians on the surface get a shot in at you. Don’t worry, optio. You have to hand it to the trierarchus and her crew. These Brikanti know how to handle a ship.’

Gnaeus grunted. ‘Unfortunately there’s another bunch of Brikanti on the ground who are trying to kill us.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t worry about that either, sir. If they get us we’ll never know about it.’

‘Legionary, I wish you’d stop telling me not to worry, it’s scaring me to death.’

‘Oh, relax, sir. Why, I remember once on campaign—’

‘All hands,’ came a voice from crackly speakers. ‘This is Quintus Fabius. We’re in the air over the Earthshine base, and ready to make the drops. Timings as we planned. Be ready, we’re only going to get one run at this, before the Malleus takes me back into the safety of orbit where I belong. Call in. Yacht?’

‘Eilidh here, Centurion. Ready to go, with Collius and the rest.’

‘Good luck, and stand by. Jumpers?’

‘Kerys here. All set, Centurion; suits and wings checked over.’

‘Glad to hear it. Testudo?’

He was answered with a roar from the men of the contubernium, a clatter of weapons on breastplates; the din was enormous in the enclosed space of the vehicle. Titus yelled, ‘Let us at them, Centurion!’

‘Try not to get overexcited, Titus Valerius, it’s bad for a man of your age. Very well, everybody. Make sure you all keep in contact throughout the operation. That ball of ice in the sky is less than six hours away. But if you live, you won’t be left behind, and that’s a promise. Understood?’

The men of the contubernium yelled their assent.

‘Then let’s do this. Yacht – go!’

A door slammed open in the belly of the ship, and the whole fabric of the Malleus shuddered. Gnaeus imagined the Martian air snatching at the breach in the ship’s hull as the small landing craft fell away.

‘Jumpers!’

A lurch of deceleration as the ship slowed enough to allow the jumpers to hurl their fragile bodies out into the slipstream.

‘And testudo!’

Gnaeus clutched his harness, bracing himself once again. Another door opened in the belly of the craft, this time directly below him. In the golden-brown Martian light, seen through the testudo’s slit windows, Gnaeus could see the fleeing landscape, not far below.

The men in their rows of couches roared. Titus yelled and gunned the engine of the vehicle.

And with a clatter of released latches, the testudo was dropped from the belly of the spacecraft. For an instant Gnaeus was in free fall, and he imagined he was back in the timeless vacuum of space. Even the legionaries were silent as they fell, just for a moment.

Then the vehicle slammed into the dirt. Weight returned with a rush – and immediately, as the big mesh tyres bit into the Martian dirt, the testudo surged forward. Once again Gnaeus was thrust back into his couch.

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, the 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 stabilise 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 modelled on the wings of hovering sea birds, 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 mid-ranking 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.’