Captain Donnal considered the image of this man lifting up an APC with one hand and smashing it down on a demon nearly as big. With his own strength.

He had the sudden urge to very much not come to grips with this Ancient.

“The Ancients I have met on the field of combat tended to be much taller, Commander,” he noted curiously.

Despite himself, Briggs had to smile widely, his thick, square teeth strangely charming. “Captain, I must admit that is the very first time in my life I’ve been called short.”

Captain Donnal laughed despite himself. It did seem ludicrous on the face of it.

“The Titan gene can ostensibly take a base Human all the way up to eighteen feet tall, Captain, and there are rumors that with Warp enhancement they can reach all the way up to thirty feet. That is the equivalent of a twelve to sixteen gravity biopsi heritage, and I am only rated for six. I could probably endure up to twenty feet tall or so, but really, that just makes me a big target and completely unable to socialize with and relate to humans. Eight feet is pretty much all I’m willing to compromise, and I still have to watch a lot of ceilings.”

“You seem to have a... relationship with the Colonel?” he noted professionally.

Briggs’ smile was still there. “I am her big fuzzy, and she is my little woman, if that is what you are asking. Flirt with her all you like, she’ll still come back to me,” he said confidently.

Captain Donnal had some distracting thoughts upon hearing those words. She had literally the finest rear he had ever seen, even if he was ignoring the sexual implications, and those Tails she could summon...

“Commander, those combat tails she uses and manipulates... I do not recall their like in any records I have seen of psionic disciplines,” he hastily redirected his thoughts.

“They aren’t common, because they are an Advanced Ten Discipline, Captain,” Briggs explained easily. “They’re a variant of a multi-arm technique and tail-forming discipline. The former is often called Spider Arms, Octopus Arms, Junglar Arms, or something similar, depending on how they are manifested. The latter is called a Manticore Tail, and is the source of the spike throwing. Melding them together gives her more arcs of fire and vectors of attack. She’ll sometimes actually bring out a third pair of arms on her hips, but that’s only if things get really serious.” He made a gesture at the base of his spine. “You saw the Runeplate at her tailbone, right?” Well, it was damn near impossible to miss, so Captain Donnal could only nod. “Ties the whole effect to her sidearm, so they share in the same psionic enhancements. Saves a lot of money, too.”

Captain Donnal noted the effect for the future, completely oblivious to the fact what he had heard was total malarky. Psionics was a variable and scattered discipline, with different effects in different places. This Null and Source effect, for instance, he had never heard of, and just at a glance seemed to put major restrictions on what abilities the two could display. The whole telepathic, telekinetic, energy-manipulation or Summoning so often found among battlepsis had not been on display at all on either of them. Indeed, he suspected that without that Runeplate, her Spike-throwing might not have been possible at all...

There was a hum and crackle in the air, and suddenly Colonel Rantha was back where she had been standing, as if she had never left, smoothly inserted and returned to her previous position.

Her hair reached into her Masspack, and began to toss out slightly concave steel Disks, which all hummed faintly and turned to float down parallel to the ground, stopping three feet above it.

There were twenty-three of them, naturally.

“Captain, I’m going to finish healing up the last three of you, then you’re all going to lay down flat on the Disk and form a Disk Train. I’ll be dragging you behind me as we make our way back to a relatively safe zone where you can resupply and plan your next moves.

“Also, I’ve let the Coronals know you are present, and the Coronal Duke is waiting to speak with you when you’ve seen to your men.”

Captain Donnal nodded shortly. A Coronal Duke! This was not a minor planet if such a personage was here. Then again, with a Warp Zone of this size nearby, perhaps it was expected...

---

At a gesture, each of the Emerald Bulls claimed one of the floating Disks, pressing down on them to make sure they could take the weight. Everyone waited patiently as the last two men, who had the lowest level of infection, and the Captain himself, were finally treated.

When they were done, they laid down on their chests on the Disks, stretched out their gauntlets, and locked them around the legs of the Marine in front of them.

Captain Donnal took up second to last position in front of Commander Briggs, while Sergeant Tummal, who had lost his gauntlet, was first in line.

They all watched as her Tails manifested, sliding out like serpents from Tats on her back... and then the great golden wings, looking like they were spun out of metal, unfolded out from under the Masspack she was wearing, spreading out like razor-edged feathered pinions, Runes formed on the gleaming ecto-metal pulsing with power.

Flames flickered around the wings as they were spread wide, truly a glorious image with that golden (Nogged) hair between them, seeming to flow up into them. The flames flowed down her back into small engines that suddenly deCompressed out of the shinguards she was wearing. Lights whirred, and there was a quiet rumble the Marines knew well, a smaller version of their own jetpacks coming to life.

The Tails extended out, the smaller pairs wrapping around Tummal’s upper arms and shoulders, the longer one from her tailbone snaking into place around his torso. The ends of all of them hovered like poised serpents above him, aimed in all directions.

“If we get attacked, it’ll probably be from the sky, as we’ll be moving too fast for ground forces. I have you covered,” her reassuring voice came over their radios, the only comms they had left, once again leaving them bemused at the very idea of being ‘protected’.

The flames on her wings intensified as she turned around, mist pouring off her feet, and she began to lean forwards as her jets intensified, and they began to move.

Her feet came up right against Tummal’s shoulders, flames flowing to each side of his helmed head, and they began to pick up speed very quickly.

Everyone had enhanced reflexes, and could follow the ground as it began to slide by. Trotting speed, running speed, land vehicle cruising speed, racing...

In thirty seconds, the extended line of prone Space Marines was up over a hundred miles an hour, watching the ground flying past just below them, and they were only getting faster.

“I’m going to do some simple maneuvers so you get used to the shifting. Sliding left.” Her wings dipped, sent her left, and the line shifted and creaked as it followed. “Sliding right. Up, and down.” The long tail of Disks rose and fell with her. “Okay, you should start being able to feel the lift accumulating. We’re going to go for some altitude to give us some room to work with.” Her voice was as casual and easy as if she were a tour guide going out for a stroll. “Remember that you can’t fall off the Disk unless you want to. If you have to release your grip, just do so, and the Disk will fall back to the ground with you on it. We’re going to do a roll right... and left.”

The whole line corkscrewed smoothly as her wings cut and turned, and they began to rise off the ground.

“Okay, bring the boots in to your shoulders.” There was a slow series of clanks as boots met shoulder armor, and magnetic grips latched on. “Got it. Okay, I’m going to be flying tree-top level to minimize any chances of being seen from a distance, this will be about three hundred miles an hour. Barring any mishaps, which of course we shall encounter, we should reach the front lines of the safe zone in about two hours. There’s some air cover coming to help us on the way.

“Tables up, belts tight, traveling music on, gentlemen.”

Without further ado, they rose smoothly from the ground, the wind whistling against the edges of the Disks and helping with lift and control, rising up past the trees whipping past to either side down the clear valley they were streaking along. A clear voice as smooth as honey began to sing to them a ballad as old as the Empire. Even as the trees whipped past only a few yards beneath them, and they twisted and turned gently to avoid this or that, the Emerald Bulls found themselves relaxing and slipping into a fugue state as they streaked through the air.

---------

“Your Captain interrupts this fine broadcast of elevator music to inform you that our duly unscheduled mishap has materialized.”

The Emerald Bulls all blinked, returning instantly to wakefulness, and amazed despite themselves that they had drifted off. The honey-smooth voice seemed more amused and knowing than anything.

“We’ve got a trio of gyrocopters swinging in behind us. They must have caught sight of us just as we went over that ridge behind us. There’s nothing to worry about from their firearms, they can’t penetrate your armor, but their forward autocannon might. Their missiles could be a problem, and of course they could radio out to bring in some jets for reinforcements.

“So, we’re going to kill them. Briggs, can you climb up and get your Autobow ready?”

Behind Captain Donnal, Briggs effortlessly reached forward, latching onto the Marine Captain’s armor, and hauled himself up against the wind. Indeed, the wind had no effect on him at all, breaking past his Vajra as if he was frictionless.

He sat down on Captain Donnal’s prone back, legs locked around the other’s hips, and pulled out his Autobow.

The sharp-eyed might have noticed that the underbar would have exactly fit his shoulder-mounted las as the full-size Autobow unfolded. Briggs looked coolly back at the three dots closing in on them from behind, about a thousand yards back at this point, but catching up steadily.

He saw the glitter of tracer fire, as did Sama, who smoothly reported, “Fireflies on the left,” as she swerved right, and the arcing shells streaked past harmlessly, too much velocity spent to get through their armor anyways.

Briggs extended the sprits on Rhythm, which hummed with the sheer amount of tension on the string as they pulled taut. He wasn’t about to waste a shot, although he knew it could actually reach out that far, and just waited for them to close in.

“Okay, we’re going into a canyon here. Gentlemen, prepare to brake in about five seconds as we go around that bend ahead. Briggs, get the last one before we do.”

Their speed dropped as they swung around into the canyon, and the copters pursued like hungry hawks, pulling closer as the long line of the Disk Train bent and snaked around a bend ahead-

Briggs snapped up and released.

The draw strength on Rhythm rivalled that of a ballista, with 100% kinetic energy dump, no wasted thrum. The Sun Shot flashed past like a rifle shell, and the last of the gyrocopters ran straight into the incendiary head that punched through the bullet-proof crysglass and turned the cockpit into an inferno.

Then he was around the corner.

The other two didn’t have time to falter as the last in line was picked off. Incensed and gun barrels starting to turn, they swooped around the corner... and saw that the whole Disk Train had stopped impossibly in midair, a whole bunch of armored heads were turned their way as they flew past... and Briggs and Sama released at the same time, leading them just perfectly.

Cockpits exploded in flames as burning Sun Shots met them, and everyone watched as the gyros went tumbling down into the canyon below, pretty as a picture.

“There are incoming,” Captain Donnal spoke into the comms, picking up sparks of chatter.

“How unfortunate for them,” she replied calmly from atop Corporal Tummal’s shoulders. “Our air cover is two minutes out.” She leaned over, lifted off his back, and her jets started to burn again, picking up speed.