Chapter 24: Approaching The Gap

Landing Zone Bravo
Jutfield Gap Approaches, Eden, Mars
Friday, March 20, 2150

Harlan Jones sat in the front of his APC next to the driver. The regiment had been ordered to move out, heading towards the Jutfield Gap and from there to Eden. They were moving like they were on parade, with First Battalion leading the regiment, and Alpha Company leading the battalion. Harlan thought that if the Greenies hit them, Bravo Company would probably get hit early in any attack.

As they began the march, he began to see a lot of exploded vehicles, and almost all of them were infantry vehicles. It was like his brother had told him. The Greenies were focusing on killing the infantry and anything which might try to keep the infantry alive. In the first five kilometers he saw thirteen dead APCs and four dead SAL antiaircraft laser vehicles. It didn’t fill him with confidence.

“Ell-Tee, you seeing this?” asked the driver.

“I’m seeing it, Joe.” Harlan had learned the APC’s driver was Joe DiGeorgio. He wasn’t a member of the platoon, but a Marine assigned to the orbital lander.

“There’s a lot more dead vehicles than they said on the news last night.”

Harlan nodded. “They also said we were near a lot of vehicles that had broken down during the first invasion.”

“Uh, huh. Broken down, not destroyed. And I’m not seeing any four-year-old dust on these things, either.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s going to do any good if you start saying anything to people. There’s people at regiment and division who might want to talk to you about that.”

Joe snorted and said, “No idea what you’re talking about, Ell-Tee. These are just old wrecks from Martian Hammer, right?”

“Right.” Harlan knew that the driver’s analysis would be all over the squad by lunchtime, and by dinner everybody in the platoon, and probably the company, would know that the Greenies didn’t want them here.

It didn’t even take that long. At 1145 Joe said, “Check out what’s happening over there.” He pointed to their front right quarter. “Can you see what’s going on? I need to focus on my driving.”

“See what I can do.” Harlan linked to the APC’s sensors and extended the carrier’s sensor mast. A carbon fiber pole rose ten meters from the top of the APC and a vid camera deployed. Harlan fed the vid feed to his helmet display and looked in the direction Joe had pointed. Once he focused, his blood ran cold.

Ten kilometers away, an armored cavalry regiment was on the march towards the Gap. They were roughly seven kilometers parallel to Harlan’s regiment and seven kilometers ahead of them in the march. What caught his eye was the large number of exploded and stopped vehicles, both APCs and tanks. Then there was a blur above the line of vehicles and suddenly eight bright flashes followed by eight explosions. APCs were shredded or fireballed in the thin Martian atmosphere. He rewound the footage and slowed it down to a crawl. Four weird-looking planes flew over the column of vehicles just as the APCs began to explode. In addition, the column was moving very slow, much slower than it should have. The attack was focused on a single battalion and the regiment tried to move around the battalion, but it wasn’t moving very fast, and he could see vehicles stopping. Maybe they were trying to rescue some of the troops.

Joe looked over at Harlan as he watched the unfolding disaster. “What is it, Lieutenant? What’s going on?”

Harlan shut down the feed and retracted the sensor mast. He answered, “It seems the communist terrorists have an air force.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Yeah.”

Eden Military Airfield
Eden Military District, Eden, Mars
Friday, March 20, 2150

Major Frederick ‘Fritz’ Forthrust was in Ready Room Two, speaking to the fifteen pilots and sixteen bombardiers of Special Attack Squadron Two. Sitting behind them were the thirty-two pilots and systems operators of Mosquito Attack Squadron Fifty-Seven, just arrived from Libby. Another briefing was being held in Ready Room One, with Special Attack Squadron One, which had flown in from New Pittsburgh late the previous day. They also had a Mosquito Attack Squadron with them.

“Okay, we’ve all practiced this in the simulators and with dummy loads. This is for real. Squadron Two, you are being assigned Section Fourteen-Two. Stay within your boundaries. You should be thirty klicks away from the front line of the Earthlings. Drop your loads in the kill zone and then get the fuck out of there. Get back here, refuel, and reload. We’ll be sending you out again this afternoon. Mosquitoes, you guys are escort. We’ll be watching in case the Marines get cute. If they launch hovers or orbital fighters, we’ll sing out. Get the Hummingbirds out and then go for the attackers. Hovers will be easy, F-22s not so much. You cover the Hummingbirds. Nobody gets the Hummingbirds. Got it?”

There was a murmur of assents and no complaints or denials. Forthrust dismissed the pilots and led the way to the dressing room. He was the sixteenth pilot of Squadron Two, and like the others, he suited up in his MPG biosuit. Then it was out to the hangar, where he did a walk-around and a visual check on his Hummingbird, Honey Girl. He had named it after his daughter, and he smiled as he walked past the nose art of an angelic looking little girl with a pair of devil’s horns. True, so true, he thought. Satisfied, he walked up the ramp and entered the back of the plane. They were already at the almost vacuum-level Martian atmospheric pressure.

Like much of the MPG assets, the Hummingbird transport had received a makeover. The original version, the ETH-70, was an unarmed and unarmored transport vehicle. It was larger and uglier than the sleek and deadly Mosquito, but it hadn’t been designed to be pretty. It had been designed to be utilitarian, and it excelled at its job of carrying people around the Martian wastelands. Its biggest asset was a big cargo bay, which could carry a ten-person squad of MPG infantry and their equipment, or up to six-thousand kilos of equipment.

Shortly after the first invasion Then-Captain Forthrust learned about the CBU48 project. He followed its progress through his friends on the project, and when it worked, he immediately went to his bosses and proposed the creation of a bomber. A Hummingbird could carry six-thousand kilos; a CBU48 weighed roughly two hundred kilos. Theoretically a Hummingbird could carry thirty CBU48s, but the bombing system and changes to the Hummingbird limited the load to twenty-four. There was discussion of designing a dedicated attack plane, but that would be for after the war. In the meantime, Major Forthrust was commanding an ETA-70 attack squadron, and he couldn’t wait to take it into action.

The cargo bay had been divided into left and right sections, with three bomb bays on each side, each of which held four CBU48s. The bottom of the fuselage had been strengthened and bomb bay doors had been cut out. When a bombing run commenced, the pilot could drop the bombs one at a time or all at once. Doctrine was for the bombers to only drop the cluster bombs in the path of an advance. A Hummingbird was too fragile and slow to be chanced over an enemy formation. Even if the SAL-50s had been neutralized, there were too many handheld antitank lasers that could be fired at them.

Fritz walked up the ramp and slid between the bomb racks to the cockpit. Already waiting for him was his bombardier, Sergeant Donald ‘Dildo’ Dipster. “What’s our status, Dildo?”

“Just waiting for the pilot to wake up and get on board. I hear that’s pretty much normal for a bomber pilot.”

“Sorry I was late. Your mother wanted a third load.”

“At least it wasn’t my father. Strap your ass in and let’s get out of here. We are number one on the launch list.”

“Strapping in. No, it wasn’t your father. I’ve met him. Ugliest asshole on Mars.”

Fritz and Dildo continued trading shit until the Hummingbird was ready to launch, then they got serious. Dildo flipped a switch on the comm system and Fritz said, “Eden Control, Attack Two-Oh-One ready to roll. Prepared to lighten.”

The unseen voice replied, “Roger, Two-Oh-One, copy you ready and prepared to lighten. Mosquito Attack Six-Four-Two-One and Six-Four-Two-Two waiting on tarmac. Lighten in five ... four ... three ... two ... one.”

Fritz and Dildo automatically braced for the lessening of gravity and the concomitant nausea. A tractor drove into the hangar and hooked up to the Hummingbird and pulled it onto the tarmac. Four minutes later, Two-Oh-Two joined them.

“Bastard Flight cleared for takeoff. Good luck and good hunting,” came over the radio.

Fritz looked at his bombardier and Dildo grimly nodded. Dildo flicked the comm switch to a tactical setting and said, “Bastard Flight, say status.”

“Two-Oh-Two, ready.”

“Six-Four-Two-One, ready.”

“Six-Four-Two-Two, ready.”

“Bastard Flight rolling.” Fritz pushed the throttles forward and the Hummingbird began a rolling start. Well before the end of the runway, he pulled back on the controls, and they were airborne.

Dildo watched his console and said, “Two-Oh-Two airborne. Six-Four-Two-One, Six-Four-Two-Two airborne. Escorts taking position.”

“Dipshit, you get off the ground yet?”

“Go fuck yourself, Fritz. I am right on your ass, five hundred meters right and back,” replied ‘Dipshit’ O’Hara.

“Don’t even bother asking, Fritz. We’re right where we’re supposed to be, too,” came over the radio. It was their escorts calling in. “Now, spend some hydrogen and get up to speed. It’s painful flying this slow!”

“JimJam, I say this from the bottom of my heart. Speaking for myself and all the other pilots of Special Attack Squadron Two, go fuck yourself.”

“Roger that. Taking position and protecting your big fat asses. Bastard Escort out.”

Even in the slow Hummingbirds it was less than half an hour before Bastard Flight was at the Jutfield Gap. At that point, Fritz slowed even further and turned the controls over to Dildo. The bombardier had already loaded their bomb run into the flight control system and pushed a button on the console. Two-Oh-One flew through the Gap and then crossed from west to east. Behind them they could feel a rhythmic thump as the bomb system dropped off CBU48s at set intervals. Five hundred meters behind them and to their right, Two-Oh-Two was doing the same. Meanwhile, their escorts were flying a racetrack pattern between them and the approaching WestHem Marines.

Their bomb bays empty, Dildo closed the bomb bay doors and returned control to the pilot. “Two-Oh-One empty.”

“Two-Oh-Two empty.”

“Two-Oh-One heading back to barn.”

Bastard Escort came back on the radio. “Roger, Bastard Attack. Bomb drop looked right on the money. No sign of any bad guys. Diverting to attack mission. See you back at the base.”

“Roger that, Bastard Escort. Have fun and don’t get stupid. Make sure you get home. Your mother told me before she left my apartment this morning, she would miss you if you bought it. Not much, but some.”

“Strange. That’s what your daughter told me! Bastard Escort out.”

Fritz smiled and watched the two Mosquitoes punch their throttles and rocket towards the advancing armor. Every little bit helped.

MSS Bastard
Mars Orbit
Friday, March 20, 2150

“Skipper, I am getting a hit on the thermals,” said Lieutenant Stacia Combs, Tactical Officer.

“On my screen, Stacia.” replied Commander Buck Banzai. He was the captain of the Bastard, the I-Owl which had been kept back at Mars while the rest of the squadron had sortied to devastate the WestHem convoy. Ever since the remainder of the convoy had entered Mars orbit, they had been quietly looking for any stray WestHem Navy ships they could kill. Nuclear torpedoes were out, but they had a very powerful laser and a crew that would dearly love to use it.

Banzai’s monitor showed a very faint and intermittent return from the thermal sensor. Then it faded, but not before they had determined a possible bearing. “And it’s gone.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“Suggestions?”

“I think that was an Owl dumping heat.”

Banzai smiled. “You think? I know!” Before becoming an Exec and then a Captain, Banzai had been a Tactical Officer himself. He turned to his navigator and said, “Mikey, get the heading from Stacia and get us closer, .01Gs. Stacia, as soon as we can get another peek, I want to go to General Quarters and nail this asshole.”