‘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 on 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, towards – what? A new muster point to the south of here.’

Kerys tweaked her wings, and swivelled in the air so she could see better. And she made out a vehicle roaring across the ground, coated with heavy black armour, churning up a cloud of Martian dust behind it, with the flag of the Legio XC Victrix fluttering in the thin air: roaring straight towards 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, marvelling 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 dare say, 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 oxidising 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.

But then the upper trunk leaned, visibly, and there was a crack, loud in the thin air.

‘Ha!’ Titus roared. ‘We did it, boys! We broke the back of their god. Now let’s break a few Brikanti heads!’ He wrenched at his drive levers, and the testudo turned and skidded to a halt in a spray of dust.

The big doors immediately slammed open, and the men released their buckles and were out of the hull in heartbeats, just as they’d been trained. They immediately closed with the Brikanti on the ground, who were still forming up, still raising their weapons.

By the time Gnaeus Junius had followed Titus out of the testudo, the battle was joined. He found himself surrounded by warriors in heavily armoured pressure suits colliding clumsily with each another, many wielding weapons that would have been impossibly heavy if not for the Martian gravity – and all of them trying to get at the Brikanti. Nobody was using ballistae, or other fire-of-life weapons, Gnaeus noticed. These were space-going soldiers, on both sides; the inhibition against using such weapons in fragile extraterrestrial environments must run deep. So it was swords and knives, hand to hand.

Gnaeus was relieved to see that they were nowhere near the falling trunk of the tree, which continued to topple, almost gracefully. But the air was full of the cracks and groans of shattering wood, bits of ripped bark and shredded trunk came flying out of a rising dust cloud, and there were even shreds of the destroyed pressure tent tumbling in the air. It was almost impossible to remember that this was just a diversion, meant to distract the Brikanti troops from their spacecraft and Earthshine’s bunker, the true targets of the operation.

It was chaos. It was glorious. His own blood surging, Gnaeus drew his gladio and charged into the fray.

CHAPTER 29

As Kerys and Freydis came fluttering down from the sky under their leather wings, one officer stayed at her post before the Celyn.

As soon as she hit the ground, as soon as her boots crunched on Martian dust, Kerys shucked off her wings, letting them subside in the thin air, and stalked towards the waiting officer. Stalked – you couldn’t really stalk in low gravity, and that was a perennial problem for officers working in these conditions and trying to look imposing. It was more that she glided across the ground with a commanding air.

But she kept her gaze locked firmly on the officer who was standing between her and the Celyn. The officer wore a standard Brikanti Navy-issue pressure suit, with shoulder flashes to show her rank. From what Kerys could see of her face, she looked young, younger even than Freydis. And she hefted a heavy projectile weapon, not lowering it as Kerys approached.