Page 89 of Scorched Earth

“Do you think that if someone on guard duty at the genesis farts that we’d smell it here?”

The question had been so unexpected that Marcus had struggled for a response. “I… I… I suppose it would stand to reason, though I’ve never seen it documented. Certainly, there have been complaints of other foul odors emanating from other terminus stems.”

Agrippa had pursed his lips, giving a slow nod.“Would have to be sustained, I imagine. No one is going to report a passing whiff.”

It had been hard not to laugh. “Agreed. Sustained and concentrated enough to note, else the fortress’s commander would be inundated with endless reports on smells.”

“Would make an interesting experiment. The collegium is always interested in our discoveries, after all.”

As the memory faded, Marcus considered the theory and how to execute it. As always, solutions rose, his mind picking apart the flaws and rebuilding them, the strategy growing and evolving into the combination of certainty and luck that he liked best. Pulling blank paper in front of him, he wrote two copies of the same letter to be delivered to the spies in Emrant, with specific instructions. Then another in code to Wex with more instructions. He included a recommendation that the collegium take note of the strategy, giving credit to Agrippa because Wex had endlessly bumped heads with him at Lescendor and had questioned Marcus’s choice to make Agrippa primus.

Rising to his feet, Marcus flung open the door to his room and said to his guards, “This letter needs to be sent through to the Atlia terminus. And I need both Felix and Rastag.”

Going back into his room, Marcus examined the map as he ran through his plan, intending only to reveal it in parts to those who needed information to play their role.

“It smells like a bottom-of-the-barrel wine house in here,” Felix said, and Marcus turned to find his friend coming through the door, Rastag on his heels. The Thirty-Seventh’s engineer stumbled, his spectacles slipping down his nose, and Felix caught his arm by reflex before fixing Marcus with a glare. “How much did you drink?”

“Irrelevant. Sit down.” While the two moved to take stools around the small table, Marcus went to the door to speak to Gibzen, who stood outside. “No interruptions. Short of this camp coming under attack, I don’t want to hear so much as a knock on the door. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

Slamming the door shut, he strode to the table and flung himself on a stool. “I’ve a plan. A plan that must stay between the three of us, is that understood? Because all it will take is a whisper in the wrong ear, and it will fall apart.”

Felix’s brow furrowed, but he nodded along with Rastag.

“All right.” Smoothing the map, he tapped a finger atop the major crossing on the river Orinok. “Rastag, I need you to build me a bridge.”

“Not feasible,” his engineer snapped. “Truly, sir, it often feels you allow your imagination to take precedence over the realities of—”

Marcus held up a hand to cut him off. “Hear me out.”

They sat silently as he explained his plan, then leaned back. “Well? Can it be done?”

Rastag crossed his arms, scowling through his smudged spectacles. “I don’t like it.”

“I realize it lacks your usual elegance, but will itwork?”

The Thirty-Seventh’s engineer glared at the scratchwork of calculations in front of him. Then he looked to Felix. “As many men as I want?”

“Within reason.”

“Can we afford it?”

Marcus cleared his throat. “That’s my problem.”

Rastag’s sigh was long and dramatic. “Itshouldwork.”

Those words from anyone else would have filled Marcus with doubt, but from his engineer’s mouth, they amounted to absolute certainty. “Good. Get underway.”

Rastag saluted and left the room, leaving Marcus alone with Felix. He waited in silence as his second-in-command examined the map, and then Felix finally said, “There is no room for error in this. It will require perfect execution for everything to go exactly as you planned, or it will explode in our faces.”

“But do you think it will work?”

“Yeah.” Felix shook his head, chuckling. “You haven’t proposed something this mad since we took Hydrilla.”

“I walked in Hydrilla’s shadow on my way to the Bardeen stem. It still looks the same, though now it flies Cel banners.” Marcus hesitated, his mind drifting back to a memory of a different time, when the defiance Amarin spoke of had burned strongly in his blood. “Do you remember our goals during that siege?”

Felix nodded. “We were a different legion, then.”