The ships came down through a gap in the canopy that Priya had spotted from six hundred meters up, a rare seam in the unbroken green where an old lightning strike had cleared enough space for two hulls to fit without clipping branches on the way in. Even so, the landing wasn't gentle. Noah felt the ship shudder as it dropped the last thirty feet through humid air thick enough to taste, the engines whining against the resistance of it, and when the ramp finally lowered, the heat hit him like a wall.
It wasn't the dry heat of the Vanguard mission or the burning red of that other planet's surface. This was wet, heavy, alive in a way that made his shirt stick to his back within seconds of stepping onto the ramp. The air smelled of rot and growth in equal measure, sweet decay layered under something green and sharp, and somewhere far off a chorus of insects was already screaming at a pitch that hadn't existed a moment ago and now felt like it had always been there.
