But a strange thing happened as they crossed the invisible one hundred kilometer mark one by one and rolled onward. The Mosquito attacks continued as the walls of the valley gradually began to narrow inward, funneling them toward the twenty-five kilometer wide Jutfield Gap, but no heavy shells appeared. Not a single one.
As had been the case with Callahan earlier, this seemingly favorable development was met with more unease than anything else. Why did the Martians pay all of that money to design, engineer, install, equip, and arm these guns, why did they have more than five hundred men who might otherwise have been put on the front line trained and operating these guns if they weren't going to use them?
"Counter-battery fire," a few marines were heard to suggest. "Maybe they think they can take our arty out with them."
This suggestion was almost universally scoffed at. WestHem artillery units used the tried and true "shoot and scoot" technique when engaging targets. This meant that each battery of guns would fire three rounds apiece and then quickly move to another location before counter-battery units could bring down answering fire upon them. With six hundred guns firing just for the Eden assault alone, at least one battalion could be firing at any given time while the others were in motion. This was enough to insure a constant barrage would be falling on the Martian positions while keeping the marine guns safe from any form of counter-battery fire, whether they were heavy fixed guns or the Martians own 150mm mobile guns.
No, the consensus was, the marine artillery units had nothing to fear from the Martian 250s. There had to be another reason for the lack of engagement. Maybe, some of the higher-ups in the chain of command suggested, the damn guns didn't even work. After all, they were designed, built, and operated by a bunch of greenies, weren't they?
When they closed to within twenty-five kilometers of the Jutfield Gap the tanks pulled away from the left flank of the formation and the bulk of them moved back to the front, forming the vanguard for the coming assault on the Martian positions. Once in position, they stopped, engines idling. The APCs then spread out into assault positions behind them. They too stopped. In the rear, some five kilometers back, the six hundred guns of the artillery began to spread out as well, setting up to begin their bombardment of the Martian infantry positions.
In APC number 34-A17-06, near the center of the formation, Callahan was in the commander's seat, his helmeted head in his hands, his eyes tracking over the telemetry on his screen that showed the location of his platoon and the rest of his company. He was as tired as he ever remembered being, having gotten less than fifteen minutes of sleep since they'd pulled away from the re-fuel point. His mind was having trouble processing information, making decisions. Even reciting the alphabet in correct order seemed a challenge.
"Platoon leaders," said Captain Ayers' voice in his headset. "Switch over to command-five. Acknowledge."
That brought Callahan awake a little more. Switch over to a command channel? That would mean he would be broadcasting on more than one frequency. That was how the Martians got you!
"Henderson acknowledging," said Sergeant Henderson, who was commanding first platoon.
"Stagway acknowledging," said the voice of a former corporal who was now a recently field-promoted sergeant who was now commanding an entire platoon because all of the other sergeants were dead.
"Billfold acknowledging," said Sergeant Billfold, who had been third sergeant in fourth platoon before the lieutenant and the first two sergeants had bought it.
Jesus, Callahan thought to himself in horrified wonder, we're supposed to fight with this bunch? I don't even know their fucking names!
"Callahan, you there?" Ayers enquired, clearly irritated with the lack of response.
"Uh... sorry, cap," he said. "I was having some problems with my transmit key. Is it safe to switch up to a command channel?"
"It's only the Martian ground units that go after us based on multiple radio frequencies," Ayers told him. "And it's night now so they're not currently operating. Well... they're not firing at us anyway. Besides, we're gonna need to switch back to multi-frequency operations when we go into head-to-head combat. There's no way we can run a full scale battle with all of us talking on the same channel."
"Oh... okay then," Callahan said, too wasted to question this wisdom. "Switching to command-five."
Once everyone had made the switch Ayers wasted little time on idle chitchat. "We've acquired some fresh overheads of our first objective area," he said. A second later the computer beeped, indicating a successful download. "These shots were taken about thirty minutes ago by an AA-71 launched from the Nebraska up in orbit. It managed to get through the Martian combat space patrol and into position. The crew captured the shot and were able to transmit the telemetry back to Nebraska before Martian spacecraft destroyed them."
Callahan woke up a little at the prospect of seeing some up-to-date intelligence on what they would soon be facing. This was a commodity that had been in woefully short supply so far. The ships up in orbit were not in the right position to take close-up shots of the operational areas. They had no satellites in orbit to peer down with. They had no hovers to send on recon flights. Reconnaissance probes were usually engaged and blown to pieces by Martian Space Guard F-22s the moment they entered the envelope of Martian controlled space. Even the mighty AA-71 Falcons — the atmospheric attack craft launched from the Californias which were capable of diving down into the Martian atmosphere and hitting targets on the surface with high energy lasers — recorded nearly fifty percent losses every time they attempted a recon mission, whether they were escorted by fighters or not. This was so high of a number that Admiral Jules had stopped sending them. In short, intelligence had been nearly blinded to what the Martians were doing at their defensive lines ever since establishing orbit.
"Open download," Callahan told his computer.
A second later his screen filled with a high resolution shot of the Jutfield Gap and the area surrounding it. It was a night shot with the features of interest visible in the infrared spectrum. The marking on the shot indicated it had been taken from an altitude of seventy thousand meters above ground level.
"As you can see from the shot," Ayers said, "there are approximately three regiments of armored cavalry deployed through the gap. Tanks and APCs are spaced pretty evenly between the low hillsides."
"Three regiments?" Callahan asked. "I thought they only had two manned ACR units assigned to Eden."
"Intelligence has confirmed through their network of loyalists on the planet that at some point the Martians did manage to successfully unload the armored vehicles and equipment from the pre-positioned Panamas that belonged to the fast reaction division. It appears they deployed some of those armored vehicles to the Eden theater of operations and formed a new armored cav regiment with them."
"Where'd they get the staffing?" Billfold asked.
"Their recruitment efforts during our travel time apparently were successful enough to provide this staffing. However their training time was less than ten weeks. Estimates are that at least one of these ACRs are staffed almost completely with new recruits."
"They're throwing people out to the slaughter," Henderson said.
"Indeed they are," Ayers said. "We're told that a lot of these new recruits might be young kids, elderly, even women."
"Women?" said Stagway with contempt. "Are you shitting, cap?"
"Intelligence tells us that the Martians are so desperate for recruits that they're even conscripting women," Ayers confirmed. "Don't let that soften you up though. There were plenty of women shooting guns at us in Salta, right Callahan?"