"We're moving out," came the voice of Captain Ayers back on the landing ship. "Waypoints are being downloaded to your computers right now. We're going to circle around the outside of the ridgeline at grid 47C. That will keep our space relatively wide-open and keep us from having to narrow up in the chokepoints between the hills."
"Thank God someone has common sense," Callahan muttered. He had been afraid they would be ordered directly through those gaps where the lack of maneuvering room would completely negate their numerical superiority.
"Once past the ridgeline," Ayers continued, "we're going to swing north and clear those hills one by one until we find and engage the greenies that have been dropped. We'll start working outward from the landing positions of the first drop. One of the tank platoons will be on point, one will be guarding our left flank, and one our right flank. As the dismounts are out searching the hillsides you'll be surrounded by heavy armor, not to mention your own APCs and the hovers overhead."
"This is the way marines are supposed to fight," someone, Callahan was unsure who, said over the tactical net.
"Time for some greenie flambé," said someone else.
"Callahan," said Ayers, "you're second in command of the company. Your platoon will be on point, right behind the lead tank platoon."
"Yes, sir," Callahan said with a smile. Being on point meant he and his men would be the first to dismount and start kicking some green ass.
Ayers gave the other platoons their positions in the formation and then gave the order to move out. The tanks went first, taking up the front position. The APCs followed behind them. More tanks formed up on the flanks. As a unit they rumbled out of the perimeter, forming a huge cloud of red dust that kicked up into the air and was blown out to the east, marking their position from ten kilometers away. As they reached the edge of the ridgeline and turned north, into the hilly ground that was the greenie hunting area, twelve hovers formed up above them, spreading out, ready to pounce upon any identified greenie position in an instant.
It took them twenty-five minutes to circle around to the area where the first Hummingbird plume had been detected. The ground here was rocky and hilly, the sort of terrain the greenie teams seemed to favor more than anything. The hovers cruised low over the hills and were able to detect the fused soil from the Hummingbird's thrusters but no greenies. That was unsurprising. Experiments with the captured greenie biosuits had confirmed that the Hummingbirds would have to be directly over a greenie at an altitude of less than four hundred meters to even get a sniff.
"Dismounts," came Ayers' voice. "Let's get out there. Start checking those hills in front of you, one by one. Advance to contact. It's time to flush them out."
"Yes sir," Callahan repeated. The APCs came to a halt and the ramps went down. Two hundred men climbed out onto the Martian surface and began to fan out towards the hills. They stayed bunched together as closely as possible on the theory that a simple squad of greenies would not engage that many marines. Despite all the media hype about the suicide attacks that had caused so many casualties, the marines knew that the greenies were far from suicidal.
The marines were right. The special forces teams were not suicidal and had no intention whatsoever of actually going head to head with an entire company supported by tanks and hovers at once. In fact, Lon and his squad were the only actual combat squad currently deployed on the western side of the Eden LZ and they were almost five kilometers away. They had their normal weapons and their normal assortment of anti-tank and anti-aircraft lasers, but their orders were not to engage unless they were located and under attack themselves. Their job on this particular phase of the operation was to observe and report the position of the marines. All of the other teams that had been dropped on the western perimeter were mortar squads and sniper teams. Utilizing the position fixes fed to them by Lon and his team, who were perched atop a series of high hills and watching the marines through combat goggle magnification, the mortar squads pulled back to their optimum range and began to set up while the sniper teams — each of which consisted of a gunner and a spotter — began to move in. But before these elements could begin to do their work, someone had to do something about the hovers. Fortunately, someone was on the way to do just that.
Sixty kilometers to the west, screaming in at six hundred kilometers per hour, a flight of four Mosquitoes turned and banked through the hills, keeping less than thirty meters above the ground. In the lead Mosquito, piloted by Brian Haverty, Matt Mendez started intently at the screen in front of him, watching as the red dots that signified the marine hovers circled slowly around and around.
"Twelve targets," he told Brian through the intercom system. "Three flights of four but all close enough for mutual support. They're in overlapping patterns, altitude four, zero, zero AGL. I'm plotting a position to best engagement zone right now."
"Right," said Brian, who was focused on keeping the aircraft from smashing into the ground or one of the hillsides. The information Mendez was reciting was coming from a special forces team somewhere out in the wastelands, a team that had the deployment under direct observation and was beaming their observations up to a com sat where it was then being encrypted and broadcast to the flight via a transmitter in Eden. "What do we got on ground forces?"
"Company strength tank forces, company strength armored cav, including four SAL five-sevens spread throughout the armor."
"Great," said Brian. "And those SALs won't be shooting training charges either. We need to keep exposure time at an absolute minimum."
"Fuckin' aye," said Matt. "It's also reported that the armored cav is dismounted now. Two hundred troops on the ground."
"And if they're following doctrine," Brian said, "there will be one hand-held SAL per squad. In case you're a little slow on the math, newbie, that means there are at least twenty portable surface-to-air lasers that will be gunning for us."
"They can't hit us with them things, can they?" Matt asked. "They don't lock on target like the mobile SALs do."
"They may not lock but with twenty of them out there gunning for us the chance of a lucky shot slamming into us increases considerably. Don't underestimate the hand-helds. I've been taken down in training missions more than once by them."
"Thanks, boss," Matt said. "I thought I knew about every fucking thing there was that could kill me out here. It's sure nice of you to add to the fuckin' list."
"Just keep our exposure time to a minimum," Brian repeated. "This is an improv mission at its finest. You're in control of where this whole flight pops out and where it goes back into the hills. Don't fuck it up or you'll get some people killed."
"Right," Matt said. "A trial by fire. I got it."
"You'll do fine," Brian told him. "We've practiced this dozens of times. It's a textbook improv air-to-air strike. Classic phase two warfare. "
Matt nodded and looked down at his screen. The holographic map display showed the hills and valleys in three dimensions, with altitude numbers atop each peak. It really was like a training mission except for the fact that the hovers out there were not MPG owned and the SALs were not firing training charges. He put this out of his mind and his nervousness faded away. His finger began to trace a course across the map, taking them in from the east, skirting around the base of three hills, and then popping up over the last set of hills where the hovers were flying. A blue line trailed behind his finger, marking the projected course. When it entered the firing zone, it turned red. He skirted it along the ridge and then curved it back to the west. Once behind the next hill, the tracing turned blue again.