"Squad," Walker said a few minutes later. "Let's move out. Head downward, the way we came in, at a very slow pace. If one of these things gets jammed in the corridor it'll be a bitch and a half to work free. Waters, you're in front. You get the honor of going first."
"Right, sarge," he said, licking his lips a little and putting his hands on the controls. For once, Hicks didn't have a remark to throw back at him.
He pushed the tab on the screen that put the transmission into forward and the smooth whine of the engine lugged down the slightest bit. He went over the controls in his mind one last time — the T-bar on the front controlled direction, the right pedal controlled acceleration, the left provided braking — and then eased forward. The treads of the heavy machine clanked on the steel deck and he moved out into the corridor. With a push of the T-bar the left tread slowed up and the vehicle turned in that direction. After only a few fits and starts he was soon facing down the corridor that led out.
"Not bad, Waters," Walker told him. "Now head on down. Remember where our staging location is and head directly there."
"Right, sarge," he responded.
Level by level he clanked along, descending out of the ship. The ramps between levels were a bit frightening for someone who had never driven a vehicle of any kind before, let alone a sixty metric ton APC. Gravity, as weak as it was on the surface of Mars, pulled the entire machine downward at a frightening rate, making it seem like it was on the verge of rolling out of control. On the first such descent Jeff instinctively braked hard, bringing the vehicle to a jarring halt and throwing himself forward into the T-bar. It was then he discovered that he'd forgotten to fasten the restraining strap.
The final ramp was the most terrifying of all. Though it was nearly as wide as the ship itself, it was a forty-degree descent to the loading area nearly thirty meters below. To Jeff it looked like two or three kilometers. He hesitated for the briefest of seconds on the edge, gathering his nerve, long enough for Hicks, who was directly behind him, to notice.
"What's the matter, Waters?" he asked over the tactical radio. "Afraid you might fall over and bump your little nose? Get that fuckin thing down there! You're holding me up."
"If I was holding you up I'd drop your ass, you can count on that," Jeff replied sourly. But his antagonist's words had done the trick. He goosed the accelerator and eased over the threshold. The APC began to pick up speed and he stepped on the brake, slowing it. Soon he was down on the ground. He maneuvered the APC onward, steering through and around other groupings of vehicles until he arrived at the assigned staging area for his squad.
One by one the rest of the APCs arrived, parking in a semi-neat formation around him. Walker took a quick roll call from his own APC and then told them to form up on him. He began to clank along, heading for the edge of the spaceport and the open ground beyond it. Soon all ten APCs were on the gritty Martian sand, traversing around the edge of the city towards the MPG base.
The 17th ACR now had its vehicles. All they needed now was someone to fight.
Deep Space near the orbit of Mercury
July 18, 2146
The Mammoth was one of the Panama class transports that were transporting the marines and their equipment to Mars. It was near the middle of the armada, drifting along at maximum speed, it's engines idle except to control the ship's systems and environmental controls.
Deep within its hull was Landing Ship F, which was a troop housing and transport vessel. On the fourth deck of that particular landing ship were the birthing quarters for Lieutenant Eric Callahan and his forty-man platoon of the 314th Marine ACR. Their quarters were far from luxurious. On the contrary, they were living in an area that had been designed to house two squads. The room was less than twenty meters long and less than five wide. Bunk style hammocks had been strung up from ceiling to floor lining both walls, with only the area where the doors were left uncovered. The smell in the berthing area was not particularly pleasant either. Showers onboard the ship were a strictly rationed luxury, as were laundry facilities. Most of the men had gone for more than a week without bathing and nearly twice that without having clean clothing.
Everyone was bored and out of sorts from spending the last three weeks in these cramped and smelly conditions. Fights broke out on a regular basis, usually over trivial things such as imagined insults or card games. About the only solace was the Internet screen on the far wall, just above the doorway. And this was a solace that had quickly grown old. All it ever showed was news channels that were being beamed to the ship from a communications satellite in Earth orbit.
One such channel was being played now, as the majority of the platoon lay on their racks. It was yet another briefing by General Wrath, their commanding officer. He was explaining to the solar system how the fighting morale of his men was as high as ever although they sincerely hoped that the rogue Martians that were holding the planet hostage would come to their senses and give up peacefully before their arrival.
"So our morale is as high as ever, is it?" spat Sergeant Mallory. "Shit, big of that prick to say while he's sitting over there on the flag ship living in a goddamn suite with servants and chicks to suck his dick for him."
"Right," said Sergeant Hamilton, the greenest of the squad leaders. "I'd like to see Wrath spend three weeks crammed in this little room smelling all of the sweat and farts."
"I heard that," said Callahan, who had just entered the room from the aft door. "No talking shit about our commander now. With rank comes blowjobs. When you get to be a general you can sit in the command ship and have a flock of bitches to wax your helmet for you too."
There was some laughter from the men at his words but it was mostly forced. Callahan didn't mind. He'd rather have forced than nothing. In truth he was just as bored and frustrated as everyone else at being crammed into a landing ship with twice as many men as it had been designed for.
"Now then," Callahan said, "I believe that it's about time for our daily workout, is it not?"
The laughter turned to moans and groans. The daily workout requirement was a constant sore spot among the marines.
"Don't give me that whining shit," Callahan told them. "Let's just get our asses up and do it. You all know as well as I do that if we don't keep up our workouts in transit we're not gonna be in shape when we land and start fighting those green fucks."
"They'll surrender before we get there," said Corporal Brad Jones, one of the more cynical members of the platoon. "Everyone knows those greenies are really yellow. They ain't gonna take us on."
"That may be the truth," Callahan conceded. "Probably is in fact. But as of this moment, those greenies still haven't sent us surrender terms or opened negotiations for them. So we assume that we'll have to kick some ass and proceed as if that's the way it's gonna be. So let's move out, marines, shall we?"
With more grumbles and some barely concealed curses, the men began to climb out of their racks and work their way towards the door.
They were not allowed to leave the landing ship, were in fact locked solidly inside of it, so this made their exercise routine a little difficult to manage. Callahan led them to the enlisted mess area, the largest room in the ship, and had them spread out as much as they could to perform their stretches. They then ran around the perimeter of the ship, twisting and turning through hallways, going up and down flights of stairs, in a roughly oval path that covered perhaps a half a kilometer per circuit. They passed other berthing areas, the kitchen, the weapons storage room, the engine room, and the main bridge of the ship time and time again, their feet thumping down in unison on the steel deck, their formation grouping and regrouping depending upon the amount of room available to them.