Chapter 23B

Sierra Madres Mountain Range, 60 kilometers northwest of Eden

1220 hours

Belinda Maxely could feel nervous sweat running down the back of her neck, pooling in the junction of her helmet and the top of her biosuit. Her hands gripped the T-bar of the tank tightly, her feet rested gingerly on the control pedals — one on the accelerator, one on the brake. They were climbing again, traversing a bumpy, rocky, uneven rise between two mountains at a slope of more than thirty-five degrees. The turbine engine was whining with power as the treads slowly pulled them upward at about five kilometers per hour. In her view screen she could see the rear of the tank in front of her, the slope of the ground she was traveling on, the pink Martian sky, and the jagged peaks she was passing through rising high above on each side. To her left, unseen but she knew it was there, was a drop into a canyon that lay less than two meters away. And the ground they were on was sloping in that direction by more than twelve percent.

Xenia couldn't take the tension of not knowing what was going on any more. She unclipped her harness and popped the hatch over her head open. "I need some fresh air," she told Zen who dutifully chuckled at her weak joke.

She stood up, pushing her head through the hatch and immediately regretted it the second she looked to the left. She saw a steep cliff dropping more than two hundred meters into a rocky gorge. From her perspective it seemed mere centimeters away from their left tread. "Oh my fucking God," she whispered, feeling suddenly dizzy and sick to her stomach — a sensation worse that what she experienced during lightening.

"What's wrong?" Zen asked, having heard her transmission.

"Nothing," she said, tearing her eyes away from the sight. She quickly ducked back down and slammed her hatch shut, vowing not to look outside anymore.

They were the forty-third tank in a single-file line of 253 of them. As Zen had told them, their mission was to perform a flanking maneuver to get into the WestHem rear area. And, as Belinda had pointed out, there was no way to do that in a conventional manner without passing through the impenetrable WestHem line. So they were going with the unconventional, a plan that was considered impossible for tracked vehicles of any kind and especially tanks, to accomplish. They had entered the nearer peaks of the Sierra Madres Mountains and were slowly working their way westward by climbing and then descending, turning and then turning back, passing over ground that had never been trod upon by humans let alone driven upon by vehicles.

"Coming up to the top," Belinda said, watching as the tank in front of her disappeared from view. She checked her map display and saw that immediately after starting back down she would have to turn right to a heading of two-eight-four, which would keep her on an even narrower and steeper sloped stretch of the mountain instead of sending her over a cliff.

"I don't remember them telling us we would have to climb fucking mountains when I signed up for the tank corps," Xenia said, sitting back in her seat and keeping her eyes tightly shut.

"I know what you mean, X," Zen replied. "I mean, getting fried by a WestHem laser is one thing. At least it's over quick. Falling off a cliff and tumbling five hundred meters down... well... that's something else."

"Can you guys shut your asses?" Belinda barked at them. "I really need to concentrate for this next part."

They shut their asses. Belinda gave them a little bit of acceleration as the slope before her momentarily increased to forty-three percent. The front of the tank rose up, so all she could see was sky for a second, and then it suddenly nosed downward as she went over the rise and started downward. She saw immediately why she needed to make the right turn. There was nothing but a sheer drop-off directly in front of her. Her own stomach did a few flip-flops but she forced herself to wait until the navigation carrot on her screen swung to the right. When it did, she pushed the T-bar to the left, slowing up the right tread enough so the left tread could push her through the turn. She felt the entire tank slide a little to the left, towards the drop-off, and she goosed the accelerator just a bit, pulling them through it. The slide stopped but the tank, now traveling downhill on a thirty-eight degree slope, started to pick up an alarming amount of speed. She braked as harshly as she dared, slowing them before they could run into the tank in front of them. She only hoped the tank behind them would do the same.

It did and they slowly worked their way down a twisting, turning area of drivability until they were in the narrow gorge below.

"Okay," Belinda said, "we've scraped through that one. We're gonna drive four klicks through this gorge and then we got one more climb and one more descent before we get back into the foothills."

"So you're saying we might actually make it there in one piece?" Xenia asked.

"We might," she said. "This last one looks like the toughest of all though."

"I'm surprised we made it this far," Zen said. "I thought they were fuckin' dusted when they told us we would drive through the mountains. I guess the mapping software we got from Air Ops was pretty good shit after all."

The mapping software he was talking about was the same software the Mosquitoes and the Hummingbirds used to wind their way through these same mountains. It had been developed over the past twenty years and even beyond and was based on countless surveys by laser and radar equipped satellites that had mapped every square centimeter of the mountain ranges with every point measured for exact altitude and slope. This information had been meant to assist pilots and systems operators to plan their flight routes through the area without hitting the large, immovable object known as the ground. It had never been intended to assist ground vehicles in traversing those same mountains but, when turned to the task, and with the assistance of several super-computers in the possession of the MPG, it had done just that, plotting a continuous route in which the slope, width, and rate of climb or descent was within the parameters in which a main battle tank could operate. That route was a twisting, turning snake and some of the passes — such as the one they'd just traversed — were right on the margin of passable and impassable, but it had been deemed possible and the mission had been given the green light.

It would have been easier, of course, to simply travel through the smaller foothills at the base of the mountains. There would have been more room to maneuver, the paths wider and less steep, the ultimate distance much shorter, which would have left a much wider safety margin of fuel and oxygen remaining for their actual mission. But the foothill approach was quickly ruled out due to detection concerns. There was simply too many places where the WestHem marines in the field might have spotted the column of tanks as they'd passed by, too much possibility that the dust they raised with their treads — even though it was being minimized by their slow speed — could have billowed up enough to be spotted.

They reached the end of the gorge and turned to the south, following a cut where a Martian stream had once drained. They began to climb, bumping over rocks, occasionally sending little landslides downward to clatter on the tanks below. Halfway up they turned back to the east, following a tributary of that former stream for half a kilometer before turning back to the south again up a steep slope to a ledge that overlooked the gorge on the other side. The pace here was particularly slow, less than two kilometers per hour but slowly, softly, they made it up and over — the clearance between the path and the drop-off less than a meter now.

The column went down the other side, winding and twisting back and forth until they reached a raised plateau that would have been a meadow had it been on an earthly mountain range. The tanks began to assemble into columns and rows once again. When the assembly was complete, the shut their engines off and powered everything but their communications gear down. Ahead of them was a gap between two of the Sierra Madres foothills. Beyond that was the Valley of Death, as the WestHem marines had come to call it.

Zen looked at his mapping software one last time before powering it down. They were two kilometers from the valley, sixteen kilometers west of the Martian main line of defense. As far as he could tell, they had arrived here completely undetected. On his enemy forces screen — which was constantly updated by encrypted satellite transmissions sent out from MPG headquarters in New Pittsburgh, he could see that the main thrust of the marine's forces were gathered just beyond the Red Line. That would soon change.

"What now?" Belinda asked, unstrapping her restraints and opening the hatch above her head.

"Now," Zen said, "we maintain strict radio silence except for inter-tank communications, and... we wait."

"That is what we do best," Xenia said.

"I have a question?" Belinda asked.

"What's that?" Zen replied.

"General Jackson never gives names to operations, right?"

"Right," Xenia said.

"So why did he decide to name this one 'Operation Hannibal'?"

Ten kilometers east of the Eden main line of defense

1500 hours

Captain Callahan was feeling the familiar nervousness he remembered so well from the first phase of the war. He was sitting in the command seat of his APC and the booming of artillery fire from the Martian positions went on and on outside, sometimes far away, sometimes close enough to rock the APC on its springs and send a pattering of shrapnel against the armor. It was relentless and had been for the past six hours, making him wonder just how many 150mm shells those Martians had. But it wasn't the artillery that was bothering him, it was the Mosquitoes and the special forces teams hiding in the hills.

Two hours ago they had suddenly lost interest in killing the artillery guns and had gone back to their normal tactic of targeting the APCs. Since then, every five minutes or so, three or four would be exploded by laser shots from these platforms, killing everyone inside. There was nothing that could be done about this. The troops could not dismount because of the artillery fire and the APCs could not move around even if that would have done any good. They were stuck here, sitting and waiting, hoping that the specter of random death would not fall upon the vehicle they were currently sitting in.

Callahan was confident that his APC would not be specifically targeted for destruction because it was one of the command APCs. Strict orders that were said to have originated from General Browning himself stated that absolutely no communication that was not urgent in nature would be transmitted from any APC. This would keep the special forces teams from zeroing in on the officers. But that random chance — that possibility that one of those aircraft or one of those hidden, ghostly AT holders would happen to pick his APC — worried him greatly.

Oh well, he was forced to conclude. If it's my time, it's my time. Nothing I can do about that. At least we made it through the refuel and re-arm process.

That had been a bit hairy in and of itself. The Martian artillery had been deliberately targeting the refuel points all day long, sometimes doing tremendous damage, causing nasty, messy death. It was during this process that troops were exposed, that fueling hoses were exposed, that live ammunition was out in the open just waiting to be prematurely detonated by a close explosion. But again, someone up above — General Browning it was said — had come up with a procedure that had minimized the attrition during the process. The APCs, tanks, and artillery platforms would pull up as close as physically possible to the supply car and the supplies would be tossed across from one hatch to the other. Though tossing eighty-millimeter shells over a distance of a meter and a half was dangerous, it had proved to be not as dangerous as keeping the four meters of seperation that protocol dictated. This closer distance had also reduced the amount of fueling hoses damaged by shrapnel and had kept the amount of troops out in the open as few as possible too. When it had been the turn of Callahan's APC to go through the process a few pieces of shrapnel had come pinging in, causing a slight injury to their driver, but that had been it. They had pulled away and sat in wait ever since.

The minutes ticked by and Callahan watched the time display carefully. They had been scheduled to pull out and begin their assault on the main line by 1430 at the latest. The measures taken to protect the armor crews had slowed that down considerably.

An explosion rocked the APC, the concussion so violent that Callahan knew it wasn't merely another arty shell going off. "Who got it?" he asked the driver, who was looking out through his camera.

"Third squad of second platoon just bought it," the driver told him. "They were two APCs over from us in the line. Blew them to bits."

Callahan nodded, feeling his anxiety to get on with it pushing at him. He wondered again why the Martians had abandoned their attempt to take out the artillery guns. Was it because they realized they wouldn't be able to kill enough of them to neutralize the weapons in the coming battle? Was it because they realized they'd better start taking out some of the ground troops instead? Or was it... was it something else? Something more sinister?

He didn't know, couldn't know, but the question itself made him uneasy. The Martians were clever bastards, led by a man who had proven himself to be a military genius. Was it possible he had a few tricks left up his sleeve?

While he was still pondering that thought the last of the APCs finished the fueling process and the fueling trains began their long, slow turn that would take them back towards the Jutfield Gap where they would stage — hopefully not to be needed again. The word came over the command net, transmitted from the ship instead of from one of the APCs.

"All units," the voice said. "Prepare to start moving in. The time has come to liberate Eden once and for all."

Engines began to start one by one and, after less than twenty minutes, the next order came and the tanks and APCs began to move forward, heading for the main line and the final battle.

Meanwhile the mobile artillery guns separated from the camouflage they'd enjoyed amid the tanks and began to assemble into their own formations. Their loaders and gunners prepared to begin firing on pre-determined points, their goal to destroy the concrete reinforced anti-tank bunkers of the main line. A battalion of tanks remained behind to guard them. This was not because any trouble was expected — after all, what kind of trouble could there be? — but because it was standard doctrine.

And from high above a group of peepers under the control of the MPG noted all of this movement and tracked it, the take being sent to the highest levels of MPG command.

General Jackson sat in his office, an open link to General Zoloft appearing on one of his computer screens. Another was showing live shots from the peepers. Yet another was showing a composite view of the entire Eden theater of operations, including the tanks that were now sequestered just beyond the foothills.

"Lead elements are moving in," Jackson said. "What's their speed?"

"Twenty-five klicks," Zoloft told him. "Arty is setting up in position and will start firing soon. Supply trains are moving west at twelve klicks."

Jackson nodded, smiling predatorily. "It would seem the time is right. Get the Hannibal tanks moving on their targets, full speed ahead. They have the telemetry and they have their orders."

"Yes, sir," Zoloft said smartly. "The order is going out now."

"I'm going to address the troops," he said. "Computer, open a link on the main dispatch channel for Eden operations."

Jeff and Drogan were sitting against the backside of the agricultural truck their squad had been assigned, facing the city. They could see the high rises before them, the city buildings they were fighting to protect. Their topic of conversation, as always, was the uncomfortable and unresolved love triangle between Jeff, Xenia, and Belinda.

"Just wait until the fighting is over," Drogan was telling him. "You're not gonna be able to sort anything out with anyone until then. In that, Xenia is completely on the fuckin' money, you know? How can you make plans in the middle of this mess? How can you commit yourself to anyone or anything when any of us could be dead at any minute."

"I can't change how I feel, Drogan," he replied. "I know I'm stupid for imagining a life beyond this thing. I can't even imagine what Mars is gonna be like if we win, but..."

"All units in the Eden theater of operation," a familiar voice suddenly cut in. "This is General Jackson, talking to you from MPG operations in New Pittsburgh."

"What the fuck is this shit?" Drogan asked, actually grateful for the interruption. She was getting a little weary of hearing Creek drone on and on about Xenia all the time. Sure, she was a hot piece of quim, but was anyone worth all the fuss?

"I don't know," Jeff replied. "I think maybe the shit's about to hit the fan."

"For those of you who are monitoring the enemy positions on your command screen," Jackson said, "you already know what I'm about to tell you. For those who aren't, let me break the news. The WestHem marine units have completed their resupply operation and, as of ten minutes ago, they have begun to move in on the main line of defense. They are moving east at two-five klicks per hour in standard assault formation. The final battle for the fate of Eden is about to begin.

"Desertions have been high over the past few hours, mostly due to the pounding that the WestHem artillery inflicted upon our Jutfield Gap and Blue Line positions last night. I understand and I hold no ill will towards those who left. They simply decided the price of our freedom was a little higher then they expected. For those of you who have stayed behind, I salute you and I thank you for your faith in me and the other commanders who are leading this struggle. Allow me now to ease your mind a little bit about what is to follow.

"The WestHem mobile artillery guns are forming up as we speak. I expect they will begin firing on your positions soon. I wish I could tell you that you won't have to endure any artillery fire at all, but I can now tell you that we initiated a plan that will deal with those guns quickly and efficiently. We will neutralize the artillery threat in this battle and we will neutralize it swiftly. I cannot promise zero casualties before this neutralization takes place — after all, this is war and one cannot always predict everything when so many unknown variables are floating around — but it is my belief that we will silence those guns before they are able to compromise the integrity of most of the main line infantry and anti-tank positions.