stalls and seemed to slide down just feet above the heads of panicking people fleeing their seats. Hovering – the air beneath it shimmering and churning like the air above a campfire.
The thudding was suddenly so much louder, Caligula could hear what sounded like a voice shrieking and wailing like a man tormented by a thousand demons. He dropped to his knees behind the parapet, his eyes bulging with terror.
The giant thing, not alive, not any kind of animal, he sensed that now – some sort of vast flying chariot perhaps? – finally slid over the last stall and down on to the arena floor, whipping up swirling clouds of sand and dust.
A second one of these leviathans appeared over the top wall of the amphitheatre, glided down across the stalls, now empty except for the writhing bodies of the trampled and wounded, finally coming to rest beside the first. Both olive-green leviathanswere hovering a man’s height off the ground, churning up storms of grit and sand into the thousands of terrified faces all around.
Finally the roaring wind sound began to drop in pitch and volume and both monsters settled gently on to the ground, the storm cloud of dust and sand settling around them. The deep booming thudding and the horrifying wailing continued, however, drowning out the hoarse screams of panic from all sides of the amphitheatre.
Caligula realized that beneath his imperial robes he had wet himself. Another childhood memory for him today.
Shame.
CHAPTER 21
AD 37, Amphitheatrum Statilii Tauri, Rome
Rashim could hear Stilson’s voice over the comms-channel, guffawing like a frat-boy with a hall-pass. ‘Just look at ’em!’
Dreyfuss was grinning too. Drinking in the spectacle of the arena.
The combat unit leading the platoon, Lieutenant Stern, barked some orders to his men and they dropped down from the hulls of both MCVs on to the hard sand, setting up an ordered circular perimeter, kneeling, weapons raised, around both vehicles with quick, well-practised efficiency.
‘Can we cut this wretched noise now?’ said Rashim. ‘I can’t help but think we’ve made our point!’
Forty feet away, standing on top of the weapons turret of his MCV, he saw Stilson nod slowly. ‘I guess these dumb suckers have heard enough AC/DC. Yeah, OK, you can cut it.’
Rashim ducked down inside and gestured for the unit manning the console to turn the music off. He flipped a switch … and all of a sudden they were engulfed with silence. Complete, hear-a-pin-drop silence.
Stilson’s voice quietly crackled over Rashim’s earpiece. ‘I think we got their attention, eh, Dr Anwar?’
Rashim nodded.
Yes, I think you could probably say that.
‘Have we got that recording ready to go?’
Dreyfuss had worked with Stilson last night, taking the vice-president’s scribbled words and translating them into Latin then reading them aloud and recording it. He’d fussed and fretted for endless hours over the various versions of the recording, worrying about the precise pronunciation of the language. ‘No one knows for sure how some of these words were actually spoken!’ had been his repeated complaint. But he’d done it … eventually settling on one particular recording as the best he was ever going to get.
‘It’s good to go,’ said Dreyfuss over the comms-channel.
‘Then let’s play it!’ said Stilson, hopping down from the weapons turret, walking across the sloping hull of his vehicle and standing proudly on the front of it, hands on hips like some Shakespearian actor centre stage.
The complete silence was broken by the booming sound of Dreyfuss’s voice over the two vehicles’ synced PA system.
‘CITIZENS OF ROME! We come in peace!’
Rashim shook his head. Only a pompous idiot like Stilson would start with a line as cheesy as
that
.
‘We have come down from the heavens to be gods among mortals! We are here to show you new ways, to share our knowledge and our wisdom with you. We are here to educate this dark world,
The thudding was suddenly so much louder, Caligula could hear what sounded like a voice shrieking and wailing like a man tormented by a thousand demons. He dropped to his knees behind the parapet, his eyes bulging with terror.
The giant thing, not alive, not any kind of animal, he sensed that now – some sort of vast flying chariot perhaps? – finally slid over the last stall and down on to the arena floor, whipping up swirling clouds of sand and dust.
A second one of these leviathans appeared over the top wall of the amphitheatre, glided down across the stalls, now empty except for the writhing bodies of the trampled and wounded, finally coming to rest beside the first. Both olive-green leviathanswere hovering a man’s height off the ground, churning up storms of grit and sand into the thousands of terrified faces all around.
Finally the roaring wind sound began to drop in pitch and volume and both monsters settled gently on to the ground, the storm cloud of dust and sand settling around them. The deep booming thudding and the horrifying wailing continued, however, drowning out the hoarse screams of panic from all sides of the amphitheatre.
Caligula realized that beneath his imperial robes he had wet himself. Another childhood memory for him today.
Shame.
CHAPTER 21
AD 37, Amphitheatrum Statilii Tauri, Rome
Rashim could hear Stilson’s voice over the comms-channel, guffawing like a frat-boy with a hall-pass. ‘Just look at ’em!’
Dreyfuss was grinning too. Drinking in the spectacle of the arena.
The combat unit leading the platoon, Lieutenant Stern, barked some orders to his men and they dropped down from the hulls of both MCVs on to the hard sand, setting up an ordered circular perimeter, kneeling, weapons raised, around both vehicles with quick, well-practised efficiency.
‘Can we cut this wretched noise now?’ said Rashim. ‘I can’t help but think we’ve made our point!’
Forty feet away, standing on top of the weapons turret of his MCV, he saw Stilson nod slowly. ‘I guess these dumb suckers have heard enough AC/DC. Yeah, OK, you can cut it.’
Rashim ducked down inside and gestured for the unit manning the console to turn the music off. He flipped a switch … and all of a sudden they were engulfed with silence. Complete, hear-a-pin-drop silence.
Stilson’s voice quietly crackled over Rashim’s earpiece. ‘I think we got their attention, eh, Dr Anwar?’
Rashim nodded.
Yes, I think you could probably say that.
‘Have we got that recording ready to go?’
Dreyfuss had worked with Stilson last night, taking the vice-president’s scribbled words and translating them into Latin then reading them aloud and recording it. He’d fussed and fretted for endless hours over the various versions of the recording, worrying about the precise pronunciation of the language. ‘No one knows for sure how some of these words were actually spoken!’ had been his repeated complaint. But he’d done it … eventually settling on one particular recording as the best he was ever going to get.
‘It’s good to go,’ said Dreyfuss over the comms-channel.
‘Then let’s play it!’ said Stilson, hopping down from the weapons turret, walking across the sloping hull of his vehicle and standing proudly on the front of it, hands on hips like some Shakespearian actor centre stage.
The complete silence was broken by the booming sound of Dreyfuss’s voice over the two vehicles’ synced PA system.
‘CITIZENS OF ROME! We come in peace!’
Rashim shook his head. Only a pompous idiot like Stilson would start with a line as cheesy as
that
.
‘We have come down from the heavens to be gods among mortals! We are here to show you new ways, to share our knowledge and our wisdom with you. We are here to educate this dark world,
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