SPARTA
PASS OF THERMOPYLAE
(Background music: Now we are Free, Gladiator ST)
Endith brought the SPAT down slowly over the open field below. Hundreds of years of sedimentation had pushed back the coast of the sea several kilometers, and now there was no fourteen meter wide pass as when the battle had occurred. The moon cast an eerie glow upon the land below, the pitted and shattered concrete of the highway that had once passed through here. Martin stood on the lowered ramp, his dark eyes gazing out into the night at the monument that stood only a few hundred meters away.
A monument to the father he never knew.
"You should have told me you knew who the Oracle was!" Dymas spoke to him from the side as the SPAT began to lower to the ground. They clung to the two hand holds above the opening ramp, the rear of the SPAT filled with the members of Martin's Phalanx. All of them knew something of importance had happened and all of them were alert and restless.
