Chapter 22A

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

September 13, 2146

1718 hours

Major Wilde sat at his desk, watching the InfoServe main news channel that was being beamed over from Earth. It was the top of the hour news summary, although, since it had taken it eighteen minutes to travel to Mars it was no longer the top of the hour. He was shaking his head in disgust and disbelief with every word the grinning newscaster spoke.

"At precisely 1300 hours, Eden and New Pittsburgh time, today, WestHem marines kicked off the second phase of Operation Martian Hammer by launching a massive air strike at military installations controlled by the rogue terrorist members of the Martian Planetary Guard that have been holding the planet hostage. This strike involved upwards of two hundred VTOL extra-terrestrial hovers armed with high-intensity lasers. The name given to this two-pronged strike was 'Operation Hammer Down' according to General Browning in his latest press release."

Wilde made a particularly sour face at the mention of the name. Yes, it was a hammer down operation all right, he thought. Only it was us who got hammered. One hundred percent losses! The worst disaster in extra-terrestrial aviation since... well, since phase one of Martian Hammer. Once again they took a foolproof plan and fucked it all up.

"As we reported earlier," the news anchor went on, "things did not look like they were getting off to a good start on the surface for this second phase. At both cities the landing ships launched from orbit were forced to land at alternate sites, closer in to their targets than doctrine dictates and than was reported yesterday to us. The reason for this was because of reports to marine intelligence that the Martian terrorists had planted powerful improvised mines in the selected landing areas."

"Mines," Wilde muttered. Does anyone really believe that crap? I mean back on Earth, in the ghettos, in the factories, in the upper-end housing buildings? Do they really?

"Now however," the anchor said brightly, "it seems that General Browning has managed to make the best of a bad situation with Operation Hammer Down. Taking advantage of the relatively short distance to target from the alternate landing sites, these two hundred hovers flew directly into the teeth of the most heavily defended Martian terrorist positions, destroying artillery sites, surface-to-air laser sites, portions of the Martian bases themselves, and many of the reinforced defensive positions that the suicide teams staged from in the first phase of the operation.

"General Browning, in a statement issued just twenty minutes ago, tells us that several of the hovers did go down during the engagement and that several pilots and gunners were forced to eject. As to whether these aircraft were shot down or brought down by friendly fire or collision is unknown. The fate of these crews are also unknown at this time although General Browning states there is a good possibility they might be recovered alive before the Martians can capture them."

They cut to a scene from Browning's press conference after the operation. "The crews that participated in this strike have only just returned to base," he told the solar system, "and we have not had a chance to debrief them just yet. We do have search and rescue hovers out at this minute heading for the areas where the aircraft went down. When we know more we'll release it immediately."

Wilde yelled at the computer to change over to a music station. He was unable to stand another second of having their own propaganda thrown back in his face. He actually felt physically ill. His illness was made worse when Major Falon, head of the personnel department for the operation, commed him and told him the real news.

"The Martians worked pretty fast this time," he told Wilde. "They sent over four lists of names. Two were the captured list from Eden and New Pittsburgh. They've captured seventy-six crewmembers from Eden, nine of whom are injured; and sixty-four from New Pittsburgh, eleven of whom are injured. The other two were lists of KIAs from the raid. They've scanned and recovered twenty-six dead in Eden and thirty-eight in New Pittsburgh. The rest of the men from each city are unaccounted for but they put in a note that multiple aircraft near each target area were completely destroyed by the fixed SAL sites and that body identification is impossible without DNA sampling. They will do that after a cease fire is in place one way or the other."

Wilde nodded. "You gotta hand it to those greenies," he said. "At least they let us know."

"Rubbing it in is more like it," Falon said bitterly. He had, after all, received a lot of lists from the Martians over the past week.

"Call it what you want," Wilde said. "Send off the numbers and the names to command like usual and they'll bury it like usual."

"They have to do that, Wilde," Falon said. "The public simply wouldn't understand if we told them how bad the losses have really been."

"Yeah," Wilde said, not bothering to argue. It would be pointless. "I'll catch you later, Falon. Hopefully we won't have to talk that much in the future."

"We won't, ' Falon said righteously. "That new plan of General Browning's is going to bring those murdering terrorists to their knees."

"I certainly hope so," Wilde said. He signed off. He then put in a call to General Browning. He was put on hold for the better part of ten minutes before Browning's image graced his screen. The general looked upset, a state he confirmed with his first words.

"Those goddamned media reps are still calling every five minutes to bitch at me," he yelled at Wilde. "I told you this would happen if you changed one iota of that plan we submitted! Several of them are even threatening to do an expose on me!"

Wilde knew exactly what he was talking about. The big three reps, both here and on Earth, were very upset that the landing ships had come down more than two hundred kilometers closer to their respective cities than had been outlined in the briefing documents they'd been given. Though it was only a minor change, one made at the last minute so the air strikes could be launched without a refuel point and so the march time to engagement would be minimized, the media didn't like things to deviate from what they had reported as "the plan". They felt it made the public lose respect for their investigative powers. They had been in full-blown outrage mode in the first hours after the landings, some going so far as to call for Browning's resignation for using them as a disinformation vehicle. It was only after Browning fed them the bullshit about the Martians laying mines in the primary landing sites that they began to ease off a bit. True, they all knew the story was bullshit but at least it gave them something plausible (if not entirely realistic) to tell the public.

"It was a necessary operational change," Wilde told Browning for perhaps the twentieth time.

"Yes, yes," Browning said. "So you say. It's what let us launch those air strikes... and by the way, they're pretty pissed off about the air strikes as well. They want to know why they weren't informed in advance and why they weren't allowed to video the hovers launching and returning."

"Sir, it was a secret air strike. That means you don't tell anyone about it. And even without them knowing about it you managed to screw it up anyway. We took one hundred percent losses on that strike, sir. One hundred percent. We have only three attack hovers left in our entire Martian inventory now. Sixty-five percent of our pilots and gunners are now either dead or captured."

"Surely you're not suggesting that is my fault," Browning said huffily. "You are the one who planned those air strikes. You told me they would decimate their targets with minimal losses."

"Sir, I planned those air strikes to be launched simultaneously the moment all of the landing ships were on the ground. You delayed the launch for more than two hours just so you could give the operation a catchy name and say that it was launched precisely at 1300."

"It is somewhat traditional to have a nice, round starting time for any major military mission," Browning said. "You know that, Wilde."

"And at what point did that start to take precedence over the element of surprise, General?" Wilde asked. "Those hovers were supposed to launch and be on their targets before the Martians even knew they were in the air. Instead, you delayed the launch until 1300. That gave the Martians enough time to get some of their special forces teams on our perimeter to report the launch."

Again Browning refused to take any sort of responsibility for this. "You said those flat areas we landed in would prevent the greenies from sending special forces teams after us."

"I said no such thing," Wilde replied, no longer caring about the insubordination. "I said the flat area would force them to drop their teams further out and prevent them from moving in too close. I never said their teams would be blinded to what we were doing. That's why I had the APCs shuttle crewmen to the tanks, remember? That's why I had the landing ships form a big perimeter of their own, so the armor could assemble in the center. We've known all along that the Martian special forces teams would get to within operation and observational range."

Browning was shaking his head sadly. "It sounds like you're backpedaling to me, Wilde," he said. "A marine is supposed to know when he's made a mistake."

Wilde actually had to bite his lip to keep from screaming out an angry, blasphemous reply to this. He drew blood but the trick worked — just barely. After a moment he was able to compose himself. "Listen, General," he said. "What's done is done. That won't be much comfort to those flight crews that are now in Martian POW holding or the families of those who were killed, but we have to put that behind us and move on to the next phase of the operation."

"Well of course," Browning said. "My feelings exactly."

"Very good," Wilde said. "Now the reason I commed is to make sure something similar doesn't happen to our ground forces. They're down there unloading their APCs and tanks and mobile guns as fast as they can. It is vital that the marches begin the moment enough armor and arty is ready to move. We have to reach the Martian first lines of defense before their reinforcements arrive in strength. As it stands now, that is going to be very close."

"How close?"

"According to intel the first trains pulled out of Proctor and Libby at 1120 and 1150 this morning. That means the first train will arrive in Eden two and a half hours from now and in New Pittsburgh four hours from now. Eden is the critical one. The Martians could conceivably have reinforcements start trickling into the Jutfield Gap positions by 2200."

"2200? We won't be in position to attack by then."

"No," Wilde agreed. "The best we can hope for is to have everything we need unloaded by 2130 and to start our march at 2200. That's if we break all speed records but, fortunately, at the pace they're going down there we might just do it."

"That's good news indeed," Browning said. "But it still puts us behind the greenie reinforcements."

"Just barely, sir," Wilde said. "And remember, that's a worst case estimate for Martian reinforcement arrival and even if its correct, they will just be trickling in little by little as they are unloaded. They won't be able to field the entire compliment that was loaded on those three trains until at least 0300 for Eden and 0530 for New Pittsburgh. I want our troops to be through the Jutfield Gap in Eden and through the Crossland Gap in New Pittsburgh before that happens. We need to take advantage of our numerical superiority while we still have it and seize the initiative."

"I understand," Browning said.

"So... with that in mind," Wilde said gingerly, "can you make sure that the march is not delayed for any reason?"

"Of course. Why would we delay it?"

"Oh... to think up catchy names for the operation, to launch precisely at on a given hour — any number of things our friends at the big three so enjoy but that hinder us militarily."

"I'll make sure," Browning promised.

"Very good, General. I'll get our units moving the second they are capable of it."

Eden Landing Zone

2200 hours

Callahan sat in he commander's seat of one of the APCs assembled in the center of the formation of landing ships. It had been almost two weeks since he had been in one of these deathtraps. In that time his back wound had healed, he had rested up, fed himself enough to put back two of the five kilos he'd lost, and had been field promoted to full captain officially in charge of Charlie Company. Despite all that he felt the same sense of apprehension and fear as the last time.

The memories of the horrors he had witnessed since arriving on this shitty red rock were still quite fresh in his mind — losing all of his friends, watching them shot down and blown up from the LZ perimeter to the final futile push to the main line of defense, seeing bullets and shrapnel zipping by his own body, missing him by centimeters, and finally, the humiliating retreat back to the landing ships, forced to leave their dead and even some of the wounded behind, the tattered survivors clinging desperately to tanks and APCs like refugees. And somehow, the most humiliating thing of all was the abject refusal of the Martians to strike at them during that retreat, as if they were saying, we kicked your asses so good its not even worth the time or the fuel or the ammo to chase after you.

For the first time in his career Callahan felt the icy hands of irrational panic tightening around his throat.

Get ahold of yourself, Callahan, the rational part of his brain tried to tell him. The odds are different this time. We're hitting their positions with better than four to one advantage and we only have a short march before contact. No refueling, no rearming, no pausing for anything. We'll knock them out of the gap in no time and take the momentum for the next battle.

Yes, the plan they'd been briefed on was a good one, or at least the best that could be hoped for after the clusterfuck of the last few days when the real plan was slowly picked apart and modified again and again. Callahan was still appalled and disgusted by that. He had watched the morale of his men change from an all time low as they were blasted back to orbit after the retreat to an all time high when the plan to overwhelm and capture Eden was first announced. The men knew an eight to one advantage over the Martians would most likely force a bloodless surrender of the city. The Martians were not dumb. They knew defeat when they saw it and they pulled back. Victory seemed assured.

That high morale, however, had started downward on a slippery, ever-increasing slope as the changes to the plan — obviously fomented by corporate minds working through their political lapdogs — were announced one by one. And now as his newly reinforced company was loaded up into their APCs and about to begin a brief three-hour march back into the Jutfield Gap — the vice of death it was called by those who had been there the first time — that morale was almost back to the level it had been at its worst. Nobody cared how much they outnumbered the Martians or how close to their targets they were this time. Nobody cared that they hadn't even been attacked from the air or from a Martian anti-tank laser in the hands of a special forces squad. None of the good that had happened today could override all of the bad that had already taken place. His experienced troops were almost superstitiously afraid of the Martians and his inexperienced troops — those maintenance men, janitors, cooks, and dishwashers that had been given M-24s and biosuits and told that a marine is a rifleman first and foremost — had naturally picked up on that fear, expanded upon it, exaggerating it until it had turned to a deep, pervasive dread somewhat akin to that felt for eternal damnation in the fires of hell.

Callahan himself was certainly not immune to such feelings as his panic attack was showing him. So many things have gone wrong, his mind insisted on telling him. And there is so much more that could go wrong. Our advantage has been cut in half from what the original plan called for. The Martians still have the use of their navigation and communications satellites. We don't know if the air strike sent out after the Martian heavy guns actually hit any of them.

This last worry was particularly worrisome. Their commanders and the media had proclaimed the surprise air strikes a rousing success, stating that all targets had been destroyed and that most of the aircrews had returned safely and triumphantly. However the rumor mill — which Callahan and most of the others knew was typically a more accurate source of information — claimed that every last one of the hovers sent out had failed to return, the fates of the crews unknown. If that was the case it was possible the strike had not hit anything at all, that the Martian 250s would once again deny the marines the use of their own artillery. Without artillery support the coming battle stood a good chance of turning into the same sort of meat grinder as the first battle.