The planet came up red through the void.
Not the dusty orange red of old photographs Noah had seen of Mars in history files. This was deep, saturated, the color of something that had been burning for a long time and had settled into it. From up here in open space it looked almost beautiful. The kind of thing you wanted to keep looking at right up until you understood what you were looking at.
Noah held out both hands.
Rael looked at them. Then at his team. Then back at Noah.
"You're serious," Rael said.
"Thirty seconds," Noah said. "Or you can find another way down."
Rael grabbed his hand. His team followed, Mara on one side, Pix on the other, the remaining two closing the chain. Brooks took Noah's left hand without ceremony and nodded once.
Noah looked at Storm above them, the black scales catching no light, just a shape against the stars, already angling toward the planet below.
Then he blinked.
The heat hit them before the ground did.
