Chapter 6B

Like before, most of the action took place at the main entrance. The primacord was detonated and a large hole was blown in the door. The MPG troops were deployed well back from the entrance, backs against the tunnel wall, bodies against the floor. The minute that the door was breached, automatic weapons fire began pouring in from the MPs stationed outside. Most of the shots simply ricocheted harmlessly off of the walls but some of them found their marks in the crowded tunnel. It was inevitable. Cries of "Medic!" began echoing over the tactical net.

The MPG machine gunners opened up, pouring fire through the hole as did the troops who's M-24s were equipped with grenade launchers. Their fire was marginal at best since they couldn't really see their targets too well, but some of the bullets found their marks and some of the grenades caused injury or death by exploding luckily near a deployed MP. Still the MPGs knew the same thing that the WestHem marines down in Eden had found out the hard way. They were vulnerable in the tunnel since they were pinned into a narrow corridor. Here the difference that kept them from being routed out and pushed back to the loading platform was the fact that the doors were not completely missing. There was still solid steel to either side of the hole that had been blasted, allowing cover and a firing position for a limited amount of soldiers. Using this small place of safety to best advantage, men were stationed there to keep the approaches clear of MPs. But still, it quickly became clear that an easy break out was simply not in the cards. There were too many MPs out there and, though they didn't have combat goggles or combat computer support, they were able to lay down a field of fire that was accurate and concentrated enough to make a casualty out of anyone who tried to push out. The invasion of the base would not take place as planned right here.

At the south freight tunnel things were going easier. Once the door was breached the fire was sporadic and light from the opposition on the other side. They had not had a chance to deploy in any significant numbers. The special forces platoons that made up bravo company pushed forward to the entrance and poured machine gun fire and grenades out into the deployed MPs with much greater accuracy and effect. Squads began to pour through the hole into the freight storage and unloading platform beyond it. Here the training that they had been engaging in on the inside of the MPG base — training that they had not understood while they were undertaking it — began to make sense and show its effectiveness in the fight. Like a well-oiled machine, man after man passed through the doorway and rolled either to the left or the right, their eyes searching to acquire targets, their hands and arms adjusting their rifles and than firing at muzzle-flashes and moving figures. There were some casualties taken of course but the sheer speed with which they exited the tunnel kept them to a minimum.

Lon and his men were part of the second group through the door. They spit up into two elements, half moving to the left, half to the right. Lon and the four men with him concentrated their fire on a group of three MPs that were hiding behind an electric forklift and sniping at the men emerging from the tunnel. Lon sent three of his men further right to flank them as he and private Matza on the SAW provided covering fire. The flanking maneuver worked admirably and soon the three MPs were gunned efficiently down with a combination of grenades and automatic weapons fire. From that point on the tunnel exit was clear and Lon's squad moved off to the right flank to help silence the rest of the opposition. The remaining MPs that they encountered began to throw down their weapons and surrender. Each of them were handcuffed with the plastic ties and put down on the ground.

In all, it took less than ten minutes before the loading platform was secure and a beachhead of sorts was established. Medics were brought forward to care for the wounded Martians and, when the time was found, the wounded MPs as well. Major Shaw, who had been lingering in the rear of the column during the firefight, came forward and surveyed the first section of the Triad Naval Base to come under MPG occupation.

"Good job," he told the men. "Now let's push onward. You know your objectives so let's go secure them before they have a chance to gear up to a real defensive posture."

They spit into two elements and headed for the two large corridors at the far end of the platform, corridors that led further into the bowels of the base. The doors guarding them had slammed shut and locked in response to the red zebra condition. Teams went to work putting primacord on them.

Before they had a chance to blow the doors however, Shaw got a vital update on the other elements of the battle. The north freight tunnel, which alpha company was assigned to, had been breached and its entrance station captured with only three killed and four wounded. At Shaw's direction they too began preparing to move further into the base towards their own objective: the docking complexes and the ships that were at anchor there.

But Charlie and Delta companies, in charge of breaching the main gate in the center, had a different story to tell.

"We're pinned down in the tunnel," Captain Evers, the commander in charge of this force told Shaw over the radio net. In the background he could hear the chatter of weapons fire and the hollow booms of explosions. "We won't be able to break out without taking heavy casualties. And every minute we wait, more MPs show up."

"How bad are casualties so far?" Shaw asked him.

"Twelve wounded, six dead."

"Hang tight for a few," Shaw ordered. "I'm gonna send you some help. Wait for my order and then initiate the breakout."

"Copy," Evers replied.

Though the situation Evers found himself in was bad, it was not something that had been unanticipated. "Armand!" Shaw barked into the air, not bothering to use the radio since the object of his yell was standing less then ten meters away.

"Sir?" responded Armand, the commander of Bravo company, as he trotted over.

"Break loose a squad with a hundred meters of primacord and one SAW. We need to flank the MPs on the main entrance before Charlie and Delta can break out. Have them go weapons free by the quickest route and stand by. I'm gonna send a squad from Alpha over to hit the north flank too. Who would be squad leader you're sending?"

Armand thought for a moment. "I'll send the third squad from second platoon," he said. "Sergeant Fargo."

"Good," Shaw said, nodding in approval. He knew Lon personally and was impressed with him. "Get them moving. Fargo will probably be the senior NCO so he'll be in charge of this makeshift platoon under the direct orders of Captain Evers."

"Yes sir," Armand replied.

"Send the rest of your company to their objective but leave another squad here with two SAWs for beachhead security. If this base isn't secured in the next hour, it's never going to be."

"Yes sir," Armand said, switching his radio frequency.

Lon and his squad were called over and given their new orders. He absorbed the information quickly and then consulted his map of the base to find out the best means of getting to the main pedestrian platform. It took him only a minute or so of study to lock in on a course of action. "Let's go people," he told his men. "The sooner we get there, the less Earthlings we'll have to fight."

They made their way across the loading platform to the north side of it, where a small access corridor — its door sealed shut of course — led along the perimeter of the base. Horishito, one of the two men carrying the large coils of primacord, placed a length of it on this door and then set a detonator in it.

"Third squad, breaching side door now," he announced over the command net. There were quite possibly MPs waiting on the other side of the door and his men pointed their weapons in preparation. Part of the security squad that had already been in position trained theirs too.

"Go ahead, Hoary," Lon told him once everyone was in position.

Horishito blew the door, sending it crashing to the floor. No fire came through hole that had been made and his men advanced slowly and carefully to the sides. They took quick glances through the hole finding no MPs but about ten civilian personnel already lying peacefully on the floor, their hands behind their heads, begging the men that they assumed to be heartless terrorists not to shoot them. Lon and the others dashed into the room and secured it, ordering the civilians through the hole and into the main loading area where they joined those already taken prisoner. They then began to move towards the main tunnel entrance nearly a kilometer away.

Admiral Rosewood had moved to the command post in the main TNB control room. This room was a much larger version of the main control room for Triad since it also was responsible for controlling docking, power, gravitation, and traffic control of the naval vessels in port. Sixty-four controllers worked at computer terminals and monitored security camera displays. They watched in disbelief at the events unfolding around them. Rosewood understood.

He now had a better idea of what he was up against and, as such, he feared for his safety and the security of his base now. Thanks to digital camera images that had been taken before the cameras had been shot out, he knew that he had enemy troops in company strength fanning out from two directions, from two different tunnels into vital parts of the base. The blast doors were presenting no problems for them; they were simply blasting them open with primacord. A third company — at least he assumed it was a company — he had yet to get an image of it — was still pinned down in the main tunnel by the MPs. That wouldn't last long he feared. He could see squad strength concentrations moving in on the main gate through other tunnels, obviously to reinforce and flank. He had no MPs to spare to try and stop them, he couldn't even offer more than token resistance to the companies that were moving deeper into the base by the minute. One of them was heading, as he'd initially suspected, directly toward the space docks where access to the 43 docked ships could be had. The TIRT team as well as about twenty regular MPs, were in position there but, even with the heavy weapons, they would not be able to stand up to a company for very long. His attempt to get the crews to their ships to scramble them had been inspired but useless. It had taken too long and their access was now cut off by the advancing MPG.

He had never felt so out of his element in his life. He was a naval admiral, not a ground combat soldier and he was ill equipped to deal with this situation. He had sent off a report to Earth but the length of communications meant that he could expect no reply for nearly three hours. By then the base and all of its ships, all of its highly trained naval personnel, could very well be in Martian hands. And the pre-positioned container ships with the marine division's equipment on board! If they got their hands on those ships, it would nearly double the MPG's inventory of tanks, artillery, and other heavy weaponry! That simply could not be allowed!

It was the thought of these container ships and the marines they were meant for that gave him a glimmer of hope. There were twelve thousand marines down on the surface of Mars! Twelve thousand marines with M-24s, SAWs, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition. And there were lifter craft capable of bringing those marines directly to the naval base in a short amount of time.

He turned to the terminal that he was using for communications. "Get me General Sega down at EMB," he said. "Highest priority!"

A few seconds went by and the computer told him, "General Sega is not taking calls at the moment. Would you like his mail server or would you like to..."

"I'd like you to get him on line," Rosewood interrupted. "Go through whoever you have to and tell them that this is a matter of federal security that supercedes whatever he is dealing with down there."

"Attempting to recontact," the computer dutifully told him.

Another minute went by before Sega's face came on the screen, impatience clearly showing. "John," he said, "I hope this is important because we've just been hit by the MPG. I've got a bunch of dead marines over here and a bunch of greenie ass that I'm getting ready to kick. And I'm not gonna take any fuckin names either."

"It's important," Rosewood assured him, dismissing the startling news about the marine base for the moment in light of his own problems. "I'm having some greenie trouble of my own up here. My base is under attack."

This put a sobering expression on Sega's face. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly.

"They hit the access tunnels about fifteen minutes ago," he explained. "Uniformed and armed MPG soldiers, complete with M-24s, squad automatic weapons, combat goggles and combat computers. It looks like they're in battalion strength."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Sega said, paling as he heard this. "How are you holding?"

"Not too well," Rosewood admitted with a certain amount of shame. "They've breached all three of the tunnels on the base side and two of their elements are now moving through the base. We have another element pinned down in the main tunnel but the greenies have reinforcements enroute to flank my men. I need some help up here. My MPs and my TIRT team are not going to be able to hold for very long."

"Our equipment ships are up there," Sega said. "If the greenies get their hands on those..."

"I have forty-eight front-line naval vessels up here as well," Rosewood interjected. "As well as the crews that operate them. That's nearly a third of the WestHem navy. I would say that this problem is one that requires immediate attention. How soon can you get me some marines up here?"

Sega considered for a moment. "I can load a battalion into two C-12s and get them launched in about twenty minutes if I put a rush on the pilots," he said. "Once in flight, it'll take them about ninety minutes to dock with you. Can you hold that long?"

Rosewood looked at his display doubtfully. "I don't know," he said. "We're outnumbered and outgunned by the greenies. I don't even know where the hell they came from or how they got up to Triad without anyone noticing, but there a shitload of them up here."

Sega now looked a little embarrassed. "Well," he said slowly, "there were reports last night of a large number of MPG troops transporting up to Triad in C-10s."

"What?" Rosewood said, a glare developing on his face. "And nobody thought to mention this to me?"

"It was assumed that it was just one of those bizarre training missions that the greenies are always doing," Sega said. "How the hell were we supposed to know they were going to attack TNB?"

"Jesus," Rosewood said, shaking his head. "What a clusterfuck." He didn't dwell on the how of the problem and the assignment of blame for the time being. "Norm," he said, "I'll try to keep those greenies contained but I really don't know if I'm going to be able to hold until your marines get here. If that company we have pinned in the main tunnel manages to break out, they'll head directly for this command post. If they take it, I won't be able to initiate docking for your transports."

Sega paused, seeming to think for a second. Finally, gingerly, he said, "John, with all due respect, would you mind downloading me a situation schematic? I know that you're above reproach as a naval officer but what you're dealing with now is more along the lines of my profession. Maybe I can..."

"Norm, the download is on the way. I'll do more than take advice from you, I'll put the defense of this base directly under your control."

"I think that's a good idea. I'm assuming control of TNB defense as of now." He paused again while Rosewood instructed his computer to send a copy of his schematics across. Once it arrived he spent a few minutes staring at it intently. "John," he said when he came to a decision, "I need you to pull your men out of the dock area and move them to guarding your command post."

"But the ships..." Rosewood started.

"The ships can't leave or do anything without commands from where you sit. The MPG won't be able to do anything with them until they have the command post secured. Trust me. You must keep them from taking that command post at all costs until my marines can dock. That means you put every available man with a weapon in front of and inside of the building. I'll upload a deployment schematic for you as soon as I have it."

"Okay, it'll be done."

Sega's office looked out over the troop assembly area adjacent to the airlock complexes. From his desk he was able to see the huge, cavernous room that contained the flight area, where his C-12s were sitting idle, and the outside assembly staging. There were ten outdated tanks down there that had nothing but training ammunition to fire as well as twenty-five outdated APCs with the same problem. The vehicles were being ignored as the brigade he had tasked to take the MPG base - those that were left of it anyway - came out of the locker room one by one in their bulky biosuits. They assembled in their pre-determined positions, exactly one arm length apart, their weapons slung over their right shoulders. Soon they would exit through the airlocks and move overland to the main city, where they would breach a hole in the wall, causing the loss of pressure in that particular section. The blast doors surrounding the section would slam down and the marines would enter. They would then seal the hole that they had entered through, thus retaining the integrity of the section, and re-flood it with air by drilling holes through into the undamaged portions of the city. Once the pressure was equalized, they would blast through another wall and start heading for the base. This was the textbook manner of assaulting a pressurized city or structure, something that had been practiced many times but that had never actually been attempted in real combat positions, neither by WestHem or EastHem.

Satisfied that the Martian portion of his plans was going forth as scheduled, Sega instructed his computer to get Colonel Summers, commander of his third brigade, on the screen. Summers and his men were currently gearing up in the locker rooms so that they could move out through the interior gates once they were liberated from the greenies.

"Summers here, General," he said once he came on line.

"Summers," Sega said, "there's a bit of a situation going on up at the naval base. I'll need you to break loose one of your battalions to deal with it."

"A situation, sir?"

"Greenies are attacking TNB," Sega said. He then explained the details as quickly as he could.

"Those motherfuckers," Summers said, outraged. "We'll kill them. We'll absolutely murder them, General!"

"I'll be satisfied if you just prevent them from gaining control of the base," Sega told him. "Scrounge up two of our flight crews and start loading your best battalion into those lifters. I want you launching within thirty minutes."

"Yes sir," Summers said, signing off.

Sega gave a quick call to Rosewood to tell him that help would be leaving shortly. Nothing had changed up there - the greenies that had already broken out were still moving through the base, the ones that were pinned down were still stationary, and the ones who were attempting to flank the gate were moving into position.

"Thanks, John," Rosewood told him gratefully. "The shifting of troops from the docks to the control room is underway now. If we can keep those greenies contained in the tunnel for a few more minutes, we might be able to keep them in there indefinitely."

"Yes," Sega said sourly, thinking of the hundreds of casualties he had just suffered under such circumstances. "It's not that hard to do."

He had no sooner signed off from this transmission than two flight crews for the C-12s came rushing out of their ready shack to begin firing up their spacecraft. Ground crewmen followed them out and immediately started the process of hooking starter carts up so that the pre-flight checks could begin. Sega watched in satisfaction as they went about their work. The sooner his marines got up to Triad, the better chance they would have of safeguarding the pre-positioned equipment. And if they were able to do that, he thought, maybe it would become necessary to bring a few tanks and APCs down for his marines to use in retaking the planet. After all, the MPG were using such things in their defense of Eden. It would probably be prudent to fight fire with fire as it were.

Optimism flooding through him, Sega's state of mind shifted almost without his realizing it. Instead of worrying if he was going to be able to safeguard his equipment, he began speculating just what to do with it when it was secured. Surely he wouldn't need an entire division worth of tanks and APCs would he? Probably a brigade's worth would be sufficient. That way he could divide them up into four company-sized units and send one to each of the MPG occupied cities. And as for artillery, well, he wouldn't be needing any of that at all. This would strictly be an indoor conflict, wouldn't it?

As the 640 armed troops slated to head to Mars came marching out of the locker room, their weapons ready, their ammunition and supply backs upon their backs, Sega called up some planning software on his computer and began to formulate just how he was going to retake Eden and the other three cities. As the marines marched up the ramp and crowded into the two surface to orbit craft for the ninety minute trip to Triad, he had the bare beginnings of his plan already formulated.

"General Sega," came Summer's voice over the terminal a few minutes later. "We're loaded up and ready to launch."

Sega glanced at him, giving a little smile. "Very good," he said. "I'm looking at Rosewood's tactical display. The greenies are still moving through the base towards the docks and the housing areas but the main force of them are still pinned in the tunnel. I've ordered all defenders to cover the base control building. There's a good chance the main force of greenies will have broken out of the tunnel by the time you get there, but Rosewood's MPs should hopefully be able to hold them from actually taking control of the place. In any case, it is absolutely vital that you secure that building as quickly as possible. The entire base, not to mention all of the ships at anchor, are controlled from there."

"Understood, General," Summer said. "Can you keep updated schematics of the situation at TNB flowing to me and my men? That would be very useful in letting us know exactly where to land and in what direction to move once we clear the C-12s."

"I'll see to it," he promised. "Now have your pilots get moving. Time's wasting."

"Yes sir," Summer told him, offering a salute before signing off.

While the main assault brigade preparing to march out across the wastelands was still assembling, the first of the giant C-12 lifters released it's brakes and powered up its maneuvering thrusters, filling the flight deck with the roar of a hydrogen rocket motor. The brakes were released and the 350 passenger craft began to creep across the floor towards the airlock complex on the far side of the room. The first set of steel doors was standing invitingly open. The C-12 made its way inside and the doors slowly slid shut behind it, sealing it from the rest of the room. The airlock then began its cycle, expelling the majority of the air out into the atmosphere.

Two kilometers away, a ten-man squad of Major Chin's infantry soldiers were huddled inside of a forward defensive trench. The trench was fifty meters long, a meter and a half deep, and had the entire top lined with heavy sandbags filled with dense industrial shavings. The trench had been built more than ten years before as part of the basic line of defense against EastHem invasion. It was but one of more than a thousand such positions in the Eden vicinity alone. The squad had been in their position since being deployed the night before, their mission to help pin the marines inside of their base. They had been staring at the same view all night long and through much of the morning. All were tired but remained alert, especially since the word of what was happening at the main gate of the base inside the city had reached them.

It was one of the privates of this squad, a twenty-one year old junior member of the MPG, that first spotted something different in their area of responsibility. One of the massive airlock doors that led from the interior of the base to the paved flight tarmac was slowly sliding open along its track. "Movement at the airlocks," he reported, gripping his M-24 tighter against him. "Number three lock is opening."

Around him the other soldiers of his squad stiffened up, peering through the gaps in the sandbags that they were nearest to, readying their own weapons. The SAW gunner racked a round into his chamber and gripped the handles of his weapon. The squad sergeant, a twenty-six year old delivery truck driver for an Agricorp subsidiary company, took a quick look himself just to confirm that what his private had reported was true, and then pointed his own weapon outward.

"Okay, guys," he said, his voice betraying no nervousness. "Looks like the Earthlings are making their move. Get ready to light them up when I give the word. I'll get on the link to command."

As the airlock slowly ground along its track, the sergeant talked to his lieutenant, who was in a trench six hundred meters to the southwest. The lieutenant then talked to his captain, who was in an APC a half a kilometer further west of that. The captain then told the rest of his command and then switched to the artillery channel, telling the three batteries of mobile guns that they had available for their operation to stand by for a mission.

"You know the drill, guys," the captain announced to everyone over the tactical net. "As soon as they start to emerge from the airlock, start putting some fire on them. If they continued to advance, we'll plaster them with arty. If that doesn't drive them back inside, the tanks and the APCs will move up and tear into them."

The Eden MPG forces, for security reasons, had no idea what was going on up on Triad. Therefore they had no reason to think that the airlock was going to be used as it was intended: to launch a spacecraft. Everyone was braced for the rush of marines to come pouring out of the large doorway, probably in at least battalion strength, possibly in regimental strength.

It was the squad sergeant that was first to identify the true nature of their enemy. Instead of the forms of hundreds of biosuited marines, he saw the sleek shape of a modern C-12 surface to orbit lifter when the door finally opened enough to allow a visual. "That's a fuckin C-12," he yelled in bewilderment. "Hold your fire." He keyed up the command net. "There are no troops in that airlock," he reported. "It's a C-12 lifter. I repeat, a charlie-one-two surface to orbit lifter is the only thing in that airlock!"

His report was quickly passed up the chain of command and the order to hold fire was quickly passed back down. This took less than thirty seconds to accomplish, during which time the C-12 utilized its rear maneuvering thrusters and began to edge out of the lock towards the launching area a kilometer away.

Major Chin, who was in the base command post, instinctively wanted his tank crews to move in and blow the living crap out of. But then he had second thoughts. The C-12 was undoubtedly full of hydrogen and liquid oxygen, enough to blast it free of the Martian atmosphere and elevate it up to geosynchronous orbit. If the tank rounds or the lasers were to ignite this mixture in just the right way, the resulting explosion would wipe out a good portion of the airlock complex that the craft had emerged from. MPG doctrine was not to cause needless casualties to the enemy, especially not when the base that they occupied might be useful to your own forces after you took it. He quickly contacted General Jackson for instructions.

"A C-12?" Jackson said, frowning a little. He did not, however, seem particularly surprised by this. "Just one?"

"Yes sir," Chin said, looking at his tactical display. "I have no idea what they're hoping to accomplish by launching spacecraft."

"There's a special forces operation taking place on Triad," Jackson said, figuring it was safe enough to let that particular cat out of the bag since it was well underway now. "They're probably trying to get some marines up to reinforce the navy forces up there. We can't allow them to dock."

Major Chin smiled at the information he had just been given. Special forces up on Triad? Naval forces engaged? That could only mean that the MPG was trying to take the naval base and the ships at anchor there. He silently wished them luck and then returned to business. "My tank crews have a bead on it," he told Jackson. "Should we try to take it out without hitting the fuel tanks? We could probably put a few rounds low and take out the gear."