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.