Chapter 25A

Eden Main Line of Defense

September 14, 2146

1730 hours

The tanks were the first to move against the line — thousands of them rumbling forward in tight, well-formed ranks stretching across two kilometers, their main guns pointing forward, their lasers charged, their ammunition magazines full of fresh rounds from the last resupply operation. Most had full fuel and oxygen tanks but about eight hundred and fifty — the survivors of the battle with the Martian tanks behind the line — were sporting less than a third of their capacity of fuel and oxidizer. Having so many of the monstrous machines in so concentrated of an area going against an enemy tank force a tenth their size, should have been enough to force victory right there. But the MPG engineers had long since taken steps to rob a superior foe of such an easy win.

As the tanks grew closer to the line they encountered a series of steep, artificial berms they could not drive over. They encountered other areas filled with steel tank traps that would break a tread if they were struck. And they encountered lines and lines of anti-tank ditches that were flat out impassible. All of this caused the tanks to bunch of tighter, to lose some of the unit cohesion, to narrow their formations in such a manner that it would be difficult for all of the tanks to fire simultaneously. Eventually they were funneled into narrow corridors only fifteen to twenty tanks wide, reducing the wide scope of fire they'd hoped to enjoy.

It was as they started to narrow up and lose their maneuvering room that the Martian armor opened up on them from their hull-down positions between the pillboxes. Tanks began to explode with frightening regularity all up and down the advance line. Turrets flew, men were shredded, and the dead hulks served to hamper the advance forward of the other tanks, forcing some to simply push their dead companions off into the ditch in order to keep open a corridor for the tanks behind and the APCs to drive through.

The WestHem tanks returned fire from the first moment they were fired upon, blasting within their zones of responsibility as fast as their cannons could be discharged and then recharged. The entire line lit up with the flashes of laser impact. Concrete dust and smashed sections of the protective barriers flew everywhere but the Martian tanks were unaffected as of yet. It would take many shots in exactly the same place to burn through the titanium shielding beneath the concrete.

The WestHem tanks were forced to stop three hundred meters west of the pillboxes. Before them was the main anti-tank ditch. Four meters deep, six meters across, lined with concrete, and running unbroken the entire length of the main line, it was impassible to any vehicle without the assistance of a complete engineering battalion equipped with heavy-duty bridging materials — something the WestHem marines were conspicuously lacking.

The laser fire between the entrenched Martian armor and the exposed WestHem tanks reached a furious pace. With each WestHem tank that was blown up, two more would move forward to take its place. Their crews prayed to whatever deity they believed in that the ground forces would advance quickly and silence those murderous positions.

Captain Callahan watched from his commander's hatch as they advanced forward. Thousand of armored personnel carriers entered the obstacle-ridden maze the tanks had just passed through although they now had the added obstacles of dead tanks and live tanks caught in a massive traffic jam to go around and weave through. Like the tanks, the APCs began to draw heavy laser fire from the Martians as soon as they were forced to bunch close together. This fire did not come from the Martian armor, however. It came from high on the pillboxes, from the heavily fortified Martian anti-tank positions.

APCs blew up all around them. There was no warning, no way to tell which APC was targeted until it simply flashed and exploded, shredding and incinerating everyone inside. Callahan watched in horror, trying to discern some sort of pattern to the death and destruction, trying to give himself some sort of reassurance that something other than random chance was at work here. He was woefully unsuccessful in this venture. An APC blew up right next to his, taking out one of his squads, and then five more blew up somewhere else, both in front and behind, some close enough for the concussion to rock him. It was as random as anything could be. There was no skill involved in surviving here. It was simply luck.

The tanks lining the anti-tank ditch began to fire their main guns, plastering the upper sections of the pillboxes with eighty-millimeter fire. The APCs began to fire their sixty-millimeter guns at these positions as well. It looked impressive enough as explosions, smoke, and debris obscured the entire top half of the pillboxes but the frequency of the laser fire coming back at them did not ease up even a little bit. APCs continued to flash and explode all around them.

Callahan checked his command screen as they bumped and bounced over the last two hundred meters before the dismount point. His company was now down three complete squads — one lost during the attack on the first line, one lost in the staging area, and now, one lost in the advance to the main line. Fortunately all were from different platoons and many of his platoons had been reinforced with an extra squad due to the shortage of APCs. He made sure his communications gear was set to the command channel. He keyed up and addressed his platoon leaders.

"Listen up, guys," he said, his voice strangely steady despite his terror. "Dismount is in just a few seconds. They're gonna pour every conceivable kind of fire they got on us the second we step out of these APCs. Get your men through the tanks and into that anti-tank ditch as quick as possible. Don't return fire at the pillboxes. Small arms fire ain't gonna do shit to those positions. Get everyone into the ditch where we'll at least have defilade from everything but the arty and the mortars. We'll regroup and then move in from there to the base of the pillboxes. Is everyone clear on that?"

One by one they responded that they were clear.

"Very well," he said. "Things are gonna be ugly the next hour or so. Keep the faith, keep pushing forward, and God willing we'll be standing inside Eden soon. Remember, we got the numbers on them. Let's use them wisely."

No one answered him. The APCs began to grind to a halt a few seconds later. The ramps swung down and he and his men emerged into a living hell of noise, confusion, and death. Explosions hammered into them as proximity fused one hundred and fifty millimeter shells and eighty-millimeter mortars came raining out of the sky. Men were blown to pieces, arms, legs, heads flying off, bodies ripped in half and tossed about. Bullets were streaking in from everywhere, machine gun fire, single shots, three round bursts, cutting others down like ducks in a shooting range. Blood vapor and dust filled the air, making it difficult to see. Callahan watched the sergeant and two of the men from the squad he was with shot down the moment they stepped away from the relative safety of the APC's rear end.

"Down!" he yelled on the command channel. "Get your men on the their bellies! Crawl to that fucking ditch and get inside!" With that, he followed his own advice and threw himself to the ground.

Gradually all the men in his company, in the other companies, in the two battalions tasked to take the pillboxes, did the same. This kept them safe from most of the small arms fire since the tanks were now able to block it. It did very little, however, to protect them from the artillery and the mortars. They continued to boom up and down the line, spraying lethal shrapnel onto the marines below, sending clouds of blood vapor welling upward in their wake.

The first of the troops reached the line of tanks and paused there, trying to regroup a little before pushing forward to the ditch. Callahan reached the rear of one of the tanks — as of yet unscathed in any way — and raised himself up to a kneeling position just behind the right tread of the vehicle. A quick check of his forces screen showed he'd lost thirty of the one hundred and fifty men he'd dismounted with, including one of his lieutenants.

"This will not be a clusterfuck," he told himself, knowing even as he spoke the words that he was lying. "I won't let it."

Another wave of artillery shells came arcing in, exploding up and down the line, killing or maiming more men. Callahan heard shrapnel bouncing off the tank he was hiding behind, saw two more of his men go down.

By this point the men from his company were mixed up with men from the other companies, even men from other battalions. It was not quite a panicked run yet but it was heading that way. More than two hundred men rushed from the cover provided by the tanks and moved across the open ground, heading for the ditch. More were shot down by the small arms fire. Callahan saw one man try to cross in front of a tank just as it fired its main gun. The shell did not explode but the sheer power of the muzzle blast blew the man into hundreds of pieces, scattering some of them more than thirty meters away.

"Christ," Callahan muttered, trying to pick out the path he would take for his own dash.

The first wave of men reached the edge of the ditch and threw themselves inside. Another wave followed right after them. That was when his lieutenants began to scream on the command channel, something incomprehensible. He heard the word "rebar" and "impaled" several times. The rest was gibberish. At the edge of the trench the third wave of men suddenly halted, trying desperately to avoid going in, this despite the fact that small arms fire was cutting them down as they stood there.

"What the fuck is going on?" Callahan demanded. "Somebody chill the fuck out and give me a report!"

"Beyers here, sir," said the lieutenant in charge of his fourth platoon. "The Martians have rebar sticking up from the bottom of that ditch! They've sharpened the points into spears! We couldn't see it because of all the dust that's blown in there. The men went down and... fuck, sir... I never seen nothing like this. They're impaled down there!"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Callahan said, horrified.

Men began to pile up at the edge of the ditch. Others, panicked, not knowing what was going on, slammed into them. Many fell in. The panic increased when the machine gun and rifle fire picked up in intensity, slamming into them. And then another wave of artillery fire, targeted directly over the tanks where most of the other men were piling up, started to explode above them. More men from the tank positions rushed forward, pushing more men from the front into the ditch. Fights broke out and several men on the edge began to shoot at their own troops with their M-24s, desperate to avoid being pushed over.

The force of the troops pushing from behind was much greater than the resistance of the troops trying to stand firm on the edge of the ditch. Dozens and then hundreds fell in. At this point those on the edge stopped hesitating and simply allowed themselves to be carried in. Callahan thought he had an idea why the resistance had stopped.

Another shell exploded very close behind him, close enough that the concussion pushed him forward onto the tank's tread guard. Bullets came slamming in just in front of him, ricocheting off the steel hull of the tank less than half a meter in front of his face. He pushed himself backwards, until he was standing on the ground again and then made his dash to the ditch. He stopped for a second on the edge and saw that his suspicions had been correct. Dozens of marines were down on the bottom, impaled by the sharpened rebar points. Some were dead, the points penetrating through their chests, their stomachs. Others were less fortunate. One man had slid down the concrete side and had ended up impaled right through his groin. He was squirming and twisting, probably screaming as well although Callahan couldn't hear him. Others had the spikes through their lower legs, their thighs, their hips. What this had all served to do, however, was to cushion the landing for those behind them. It was distasteful to use the corpse of another marine as a landing pad but things were down to sheer survival now. Knowing that he would be haunted by it later — assuming he lived long enough for there to be a later — Callahan slid down the eighty degree concrete slope and into the ditch, his feet landing firmly on the chest of one man and the head of another, his weight driving the lethal spikes even further into their lifeless bodies. He stepped forward, using the corpses of others to make his way over and between the spikes until he made it to the far side of the ditch. He leaned against the concrete wall, catching his breath, trying to control the fear and horror.

There was defilade from the mortars and the artillery fire here since the airburst shell fragments were coming in at an angle. Other men had figured this out as well and it was crowded on this side. Most looked like they had no intention of leaving. Others were continuing to leap into the ditch and it was soon full of men, pushing chest to chest, legs to legs. They had to go up the other side and make the final dash to the base of the pillboxes. Callahan spoke on his command channel, trying to tell his platoon leaders to start moving but no one was listening to him. He tried on the tactical channels, speaking directly to the men but all he got for his efforts was insubordinate profanity.

"Fuck that shit, sir," someone yelled back at him. "I'm staying here."

"Goddamn right," someone else added. "If you're so fucking hot to get up there and get your head blown off, be my fuckin' guest!"

"We need to move up all at once, all along the line," Callahan said. "It's the only way that any of us are going to get out of here alive!"

"I know how to get out of here alive," one of his sergeants said. "We go back up the other side and start heading back to the APCs. Remember what happened the first time? The Martians stop shooting at you when you retreat!"

"I vote for that!" someone else put in. "Let's get the fuck out of here! Let the goddamn greenies keep this fucking place if they want it that bad."

Other voices quickly echoed this sentiment. Callahan wasn't listening in on the other companies' channels but he suspected the other captains were probably getting similar dissent. He was actually starting to think that what they were suggesting was sensible when the Martians pulled their next surprise on them.

Mortar shells began to fall into the trench, exploding not in the air but when they hit the bottom. Men were blown apart, splattered against the sides of the trench, ripped apart by the shrapnel, gutted by pieces of rebar that were blown loose and hurtled through the air at high speed. This happened all along the length of the ditch, the shells dropping neatly inside as if they'd been lofted from directly above.

It's a fucking trap! Callahan's mind screamed at him, panic starting to flow freely. They have this entire ditch pre-sighted and they're dropping impact-fused mortars inside of it! They've probably been practicing this for years!

"Get out!" Callahan yelled at his men. "Start helping each other up to the top! We need to get out of here or they're gonna blow all of us to pieces!"

This time the men were a little more willing to listen to him. The edge of the ditch was four meters above their heads. The men against the wall formed stirrups with their hands and other men moved forward, putting their feet in them and getting lifted up to the edge. Once they grabbed the edge the lower man would give the upper a shove, sending him up onto the ground. Many of the men hefted up came tumbling back down again, shot to pieces by the Martian small arms fire from the pillboxes.

"Faster!" Callahan yelled. "And more! We need to get everyone up at once if anyone is going to live! Come on! Move, move, move!"

His men picked up the pace. The other companies did the same although Callahan didn't know if they were simply following his example or had figured out the same thing on their own. But soon hundreds of men all along the length of the occupied portion of the ditch were shoving their comrades upward as fast as they could, trying desperately to get out of the frying pan of the mortar ridden trench and into the fire of the open ground beyond.

Jeff Creek, the rest of his platoon, and two other 17^th ACR infantry platoons had been moved from the reserve staging area to Pillbox 73 when it became apparent that the marines were making a push to the center. Pillbox 73 was two kilometers west of the personnel airlocks for the MPG base, one of the primary defensive positions guarding the approach to the most important section of the city. They had been driven over to the rear of it in four of the agricultural trucks and had accessed it by means of the movement trench that led to a small opening in the rear. From there they'd climbed several sets of concrete stairs and entered the lower infantry level where a company of 2^nd Infantry Division troops had already been engaged with the advancing marines who, at that point, had just dismounted from their APCs.

The interior of the pillbox was open and cavernous, with a high ceiling. The floor behind them was covered with steel crates full of ammunition, grenades, extra weapons, and other supplies. The firing ports lined the western, northern, and southern walls and consisted of open spaces about half a meter high and two meters long, each protected by an extra layer of concrete. Jeff had been assigned to a mounted 7mm heavy machine gun in the south corner of the pillbox. Drogan and the other members of his squad were in the firing ports around him, lined up with their M-24s and a SAW three to a port. The floor at their feet was littered with hundreds upon hundreds of empty shell casings.

The pillbox was as formidable of a defensive position as they'd been promised. For the past thirty minutes now the WestHem tanks and APCs had been slamming wave after wave of eighty millimeter, sixty millimeter, and twenty millimeter directly into them. The explosions were terrifying, to say the least, and much of the concrete had crumbled away under the onslaught, but so far the barrier was holding. Of the one hundred and ninety troops occupying this particular pillbox only two had been killed and six wounded — all the result of shrapnel flying into their ports at exactly the right angle and making a lucky strike.

What bothered Jeff about the pillbox, however, was not the protection it offered from the front and from the sides, but the apparent lack of protection it offered from the rear. Instead of small openings to fire through like on the other three walls, the rear had huge openings in the concrete, two of them, each one ten meters long by five meters high, going from floor to ceiling. They were, in effect, paneless windows to the outside large enough that he could see the mortar teams and some of the agricultural trucks parked out there. He could see the buildings rising beyond the MPG base, could see the sky and the ground through them. True, they would not generally experience enemy fire coming in from the rear — if they did they were in a lot of trouble — but wouldn't you think they would have enclosed it back there just for general principals? He couldn't think of any rational explanation for this somewhat glaring oversight.