"Got it," she said.
"And remember," put in Zen, "we're sittin' in the fuckin' turret."
"No shit," she said testily. "You put the fire on the marines and I'll get you back down."
The mortars and artillery rounds continued to explode in the open area without let-up, flying in in volleys. It was a strangely beautiful sight if you could forget that people were being blown to pieces by it — people who were intent on killing their comrades up on the hill.
"I've got movement over there," Sanchez said. "On the far side, by those rocky mounds."
Zen looked in that direction and saw two and then three biosuited figures crouched low near the rocks, probably evaluating the terrain before moving on. "Should we hit them now?" he asked. "Keep them pinned in there?"
"We're not here to pin them in anywhere," Sanchez said. "We're here to kill as many of them as possible. We'll wait until they're making the dash."
"Right," Zen said.
They saw the marines waving their hands forward. They then rushed out into the open area, trotting in that clumsy, awkward way Earthlings had. Ten then twenty than thirty then forty appeared behind them, their grouping nothing like an actual formation, more like a bunch of guys who were in a panic as they tried to get out of a killing zone.
"All right, do it, Xenia," Sanchez order. "Get us up there."
"Moving," she said, her hands going to the controls. She backed up six meters, turned to the right a bit, and then moved forward, bringing the tank up a shallow berm on the side of their position.
"Fire as soon as you can get the gun on the them," Sanchez told Zen.
"Bet your ass, sarge," he replied, staring fixedly at his gunnery screen. Slowly the view began to match what he was seeing from the laser turret camera. His targeting recticle appeared and he moved it to the center of the running troops and pushed the range button. "That's good, Xenia," he said. "I got 'em."
She stopped, her hands ready to pull them back down the second she was told.
"Getting range," Zen said, more to himself than anyone else. "Got it. Computer, set round for airburst, one, one, zero, zero meters."
"Set," the computer replied.
"Firing," he said, pushing the button on his console. There was boom as the round was fired and the tank rocked backwards on its treads. The shell streaked out and exploded in the midst of a group of soldiers halfway across the open area. When the flash cleared they were all on the ground, many of them in pieces.
As the automatic loading system ejected the spent shell casing and rolled another into the breech, Sanchez opened up with the twenty millimeter, raking it across other groups of exposed marines. Zen, who was watching the screen and looking for the best place to put his next shot, saw that the marines hit by these rounds weren't just falling down with a little blood boiling out of their wounds. They were being blown apart, arms, legs, heads flying free, some cut in half, some exploding as their air tanks were hit, their blood boiling out of their bodies like geysers.
"Jesus," he said, fascinated, horrified, surprised to find himself feeling something like empathy for the poor bastards on the receiving end of it. War truly was hell. You couldn't really appreciate just what that meant until you'd seen men being blown into pieces before your eyes.
"Loaded," the computer told him. "Default is airburst. State range."
"One, three, zero, zero meters," Zen answered. He pushed the button and sent another shell out, blowing another group of marines — this time cowering behind some small rocks — into oblivion.
"Okay, get us back under cover!" Sanchez ordered. "Move it, Xenia!"
The words weren't even completely out of his mouth before she had them backing down the berm to the relative safety of the flat ground. It was none too soon either. No more than three seconds after they were clear the berm lit up with laser strikes that fused the sand into glass and exploded it all over the front of the tank. She brought them to an abrupt halt and then went forward again, pulling them back behind their barricade. The laser fire shifted and began to slam into the barrier once more. There was a bright flash as one of them burned through. A warning alarm began to blare.
"Burn through!" Xenia reported. "They hit the left tread and damaged it."
"How bad?" asked Sanchez. If one of their treads had been rendered unusable they would be stuck here, unable to do anything but turn in a tight circle.
"Integrity is still intact according to the computer," she replied. "I don't know how long it'll carry us though."
"Okay, I guess we'll worry about it when its time to leave," Sanchez said. "In the meantime, Zen, start popping those tanks again."
"Right," he said, already putting his recticle on one and preparing to fire.
Callahan watched the reinforcements come straggling in, dashing and crawling their way forward, some of them dragging wounded with them, most of them looking panicked as the Martian gunners up above picked them off with SAW fire and M-24 fire. Sergeant Woodman was in charge of them. He found his way up to Callahan's position and threw himself breathlessly to the ground.
"Goddammit, I didn't sign up for this shit," were the first words out of his mouth when they switched to a close range tactical channel.
"Pretty bad coming over?" Callahan asked him, although without much interest. It had been pretty bad waiting for them too. Grenades or rifle fire had killed another ten or so.
"We left the center position with seventy-six men," he said. "We made it here with fifty-two, six of whom are wounded and unable to fight."
"Artillery?" Callahan asked. He had seen the shells coming over the hill, had heard the distant concussions.
"That got some," Woodman said. "And then the Martian tanks hit us when we crossed the open ground. Eighty millimeter shells and twenties." He shook his head, still able to vividly visualize the horror of it. "And then when we rounded the bend and started moving up to here, they opened up on us from the trenches. This just ain't a real good place to be."
"No shit," Callahan answered. "We need to get up there as quick as possible and chase them out of those trenches before they kill us all."
"Leapfrog approach?" Woodman asked.
Callahan shook his head. "Covering fire is completely ineffective against them," he said. "We move up all at once and overwhelm them."
"No covering fire? Just advance into..." He looked up at the hill, where the gun flashes were still lighting up despite the continued peppering from the tanks and APCs. "... into that?"
"It's the only way," Callahan told him. "Brief your men but do it quick. We're moving in five minutes."
Jeff looked out his firing hole, his weapon pointed downward, his targeting recticle bouncing around as he turned his head left and right, looking for people to kill and finding none. All of the marines down there, including the reinforcements they'd just plastered, were hunkered down behind cover, denying him a target.
"All the dumb ones are dead now," said Drogan. "We're dealing with the Darwinian result of survival of the fittest here."
"They still have to come up this fuckin' hill after us," said Hicks.
Even Corporal Woo, one of the reinforcements sent from the center with a grenade launcher attached to his M-24, had not found a target to launch at in the last three minutes or so. In fact, everything was quiet. Most of the tanks and APCs had stopped firing, probably, opined Walker, because they were getting low on ammunition and wanted to conserve what was left for their final push.
"Our AT units are pulling out," Walker said. "They're out of charging batteries. We'll be following shortly."