"Right, sarge," Matza said, standing up from his position.
"Wong, get that laser charged up and ready. They probably don't have any hovers on the ground yet but we don't know that for sure. Remember doctrine. We hide from them if we can."
"Right, Sarge," she said, pulling a battery from her pocket and sliding it into the tube. She hit the charge button and the energy began to transfer to the laser. Ten seconds later, it was done. "Charged," she reported, putting it back in her pack with the safety switch engaged.
"Good," Lon said, climbing down from the rock. "Let's move out. Wedge formation, ten meters of separation."
They formed up and began to move across the surface. They stepped carefully and confidently, with the air of people that had spent countless hours training in their environment, moving from one hill to the next, not climbing them, just using them for cover. As they walked they left footprints in the dusty surface but within a minute of their passage the constant wind would obscure these tracks with fresh dust. All had their primary weapons out before them, their gloved fingers near the firing buttons, the red targeting recticles bouncing up and down in their combat goggles. Their pace was brisk despite the cautiousness of their steps and they covered more than two kilometers in twenty minutes. As they neared the area of their targets, Lon motioned for them to spread out a bit more.
Soon they were spread at the base of two large hills, which rose thirty to fifty meters above them. Jefferson was still getting bursts of radio transmissions and active sensor sweeps although the bulk of the hills were blocking much of it. Lon gave a series of hand signals to his team and they split up into two elements, half trotting over to the adjoining hill, half staying put. Lisa remained with Lon at the first hill, her M-24 in the firing position as she scanned the hills beyond their position for opposition.
"Everything clear over here, sarge," said Horishito, who was in charge of the group that had gone to the adjoining hill.
"Copy, Hoary," Lon replied. "I think we're getting close. Go on up and let's see what we can see. We'll head up from here. Weapons tight."
"On the way up," Horishito said. "Weapons tight."
Lon gave another signal to his half of the squad and they started up the hill. They made it up in less than three minutes, all of them moving with sure-footed ease. After the hills that they had regularly climbed during their training missions, this particular thirty-degree rise was nothing. When they got within ten meters of the summit, they dropped down to their bellies and crawled, careful to keep their heads close to the surface.
As they peered over the top the view opened up considerably, showing them what they had come to see. Stretching out before them were two small ranges of shallow hills with a broad plain beyond it. The broad plain, they already knew, was where the landing ship had come down. They could see it now, in the distance, a large, straight-edged shape, obviously man-made, in a landscape full of hills and curves. The sensor mast and the three 150 millimeter artillery guns could be plainly seen poking out. Around the ship, moving about here and there, were the tiny figures of men, visible both visually and in the infrared spectrum. Closer in, on most of the hills before them, other soldiers could be seen. Many were in the process of digging into the surface and stacking sandbags. Others were standing around and watching. Almost all of them were carrying objects that were undoubtedly M-24 rifles.
"They're digging in," Lon said. "At least company strength just on this series of hills."
"Standard doctrine?" Lisa asked.
"Standard WestHem doctrine," Lon said with a nod. "Secure a perimeter around the LZ, send out patrols to secure everything out to five klicks, and then bring down the rest of the forces."
"How long until the patrols come out?" Matza asked.
"Probably not until they have their foxholes done. They'll want secure positions to fall back to in case they have to make a stand."
"Seems reasonable," Matza said.
"Yes," Lon agreed, increasing the magnification on his goggles so he could get a better look, "marines are nothing if not by the book. Unfortunately for them, that also makes them predictable."
He continued to stare at the hills before them, his eyes moving from one magnified view to the other, trying to get a rough count of the force composition against him and trying to identify each position that held enemy troops. As he identified and counted each position he made notations on his map screen, updating the schematic with the concentrations and locations. Soon his tactical map was filled with red marks to go along with the blue marks of friendly forces. Since all of their combat computers were data linked, this information showed up on everyone's map.
"Let's send off this data to Eden," he said when he was done. "Jeffy, we got a line of sight?"
"I can still lock onto 11-C from here," he answered from his position on the other hill.
"Good. Get it done. And let them know we'll be moving in closer and setting up to ambush. We'll hit them when they start sending out patrols."
Back at MPG headquarters General Jackson now had a pretty clear idea of the forces that had so far landed on the planet. Reports had come in from all of the special forces teams that had been deployed which allowed him to update the maps with solid intelligence figures. As far as he knew, none of the special forces teams had been detected by the enemy. None had been engaged anyway.
Jackson directed his computer to initiate a conference with Laura Whiting, who was in her own office four kilometers away. The link up took less than thirty seconds to accomplish. If anything, Laura looked even more fatigued than Jackson himself.
"What do we have, Kevin?" she asked him, stifling a yawn.
"Reports are in from the recon elements at all sites," he told her. "We have approximately twenty thousand enemy troops landed, approximately one thousand of them deployed. Battalion strength at each of the landing zones, making a perimeter and digging in according to standard doctrine. No heavy weapons, armor, or hovers have been spotted as of yet. My guess is that those will come down in the second wave."
"So they're vulnerable right now?" she asked.
"I plan to make them vulnerable every second they're on our planet," he answered. "But yes, they are about as defenseless as they'll ever get right now. If we had a couple of battalions of tanks out there we could destroy their beachheads in less than an hour."
"But we don't," she said.
"No," he said with a sigh. "We don't. That's why they land all the way out there after all. Anyway, we do have platoon strength special forces teams at each LZ and more on the way. Mortar teams have just deployed from each of the cities. They should be on the ground within the hour and able to make attacks thirty minutes after that. They will be utilizing shoot and scoot methods. They'll lob some shells into the Earthling perimeter and then pack up and deploy somewhere else and do it again. Before that happens though I expect some of our fire teams out there will start getting on the scoreboard. The Earthlings will be sending out patrols soon."
"It sounds like you have things well in hand," she said. "Why don't you try to get a little sleep? You look like shit and you'll need to be refreshed when the rest of the troops come down."
"I'll catch a few after the first attacks are carried out," he told her. "I don't think I'll be able to turn my mind off until I know that things are working out there." He smiled a little. "I would suggest that you catch a few hours though. You look like someone who's had a few too many cups of coffee."
"I'll make you a deal," she told him. "I'll sleep when you sleep."
He laughed. "Deal," he told her. "I'll keep you updated as things start to happen here."
It was now three and a half hours since the landing ship had come down. Lieutenant Callahan was standing atop of his hill and surveying the work that his platoon had accomplished. All along the top of the hills around them, trenches had been dug to a depth of 1.5 meters. The rocky soil that had been extracted from these holes had been placed into sandbags that now lined the front of each position. The material of each sandbag was reinforced with Kevlar material, which, thought not impervious to high velocity rounds, would, when coupled with the dirt inside and the other layer of Kevlar on the back, prevent them from penetrating through into the hole. They would also stand up quite well to mortar fire in the unlikely event that the greenies managed to throw some at them. Mounted between two sets of the sandbags in each position was one of the squad automatic weapons. Other firing ports for the smaller M-24s had also been constructed. The positions were by the book and very formidable. By staying within them Callahan's single platoon could find off an entire company of greenies provided that they didn't have tank or hover support.