They slowed up to less than twenty kilometers per hour and turned in the direction of the fallen Martian. There was some discussion about how many points a fucking greenie terrorist was worth. Eventually they decided he was only worth ten since he wasn't a moving target and therefore not that challenging. There was another discussion — this one quite profane and animated — about which tank was entitled to collect those points. Sergeant Hornsby — the commander of the second tank — finally settled this matter by pulling rank. He ordered his driver to make it slow, just to make sure that accuracy was maintained.
The tank was still in motion and Zen was still clinging quite precariously to the underside of the main gun, but he was wedged in just enough that he could free up his left hand. He opened his computer panel and brought up a menu in his combat goggles. He needed to make sure that Sanchez was okay, that the Earthlings actually did pick him up and get him to medical help. He switched his goggle view so he could see what Sanchez's goggles were seeing. It was an action that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
He couldn't have timed it more perfectly. Sanchez was looking southwest, towards the gap that had just fallen to the Earthlings. The tank tread was approaching him slowly, clanking towards his bent and broken legs.
"Oh fuck... oh my god!" Zen yelled, unaware that he was even speaking aloud, overcome by the horror of what he was seeing. "No!"
The tread rolled up onto Sanchez's legs, smashing them, driving them into the ground. It continued to move forward, inch-by-inch, crushing his pelvis, his back, his stomach. When it reached his chest the video feed suddenly, lethally cut off.
"What is it, Zen?" asked Xenia. "What is it?"
"Oh my god," he whispered. He couldn't answer her. It would be years before he would talk to anyone about what he'd seen through that brief video link.
Sergeant Woodman led two platoons into the trench on the right flank of the hill. The opening was small, only a meter and a half in diameter. The men tossed fragmentation grenades through the hole and then went inside right behind them, their weapons ready to shoot anything that moved. But nothing moved. The trench was deserted except for a few dead Martians and thousands of empty shell casings.
"Clear so far, Lieutenant," Woodman told Callahan, who was hanging back about twenty meters. "A couple of dead Martians in here so we did manage to pop a few of them off. There's ammo boxes, waste containers, and used food gel packs everywhere in here."
"No live Martians though?" Callahan asked. "Not even wounded?"
"Not so far," he said. "I'm sending the men forward to check out the rest."
"Got it. According to Colonel West, the center units are moving upward now too. No opposition. Left flank is up at trench level but is still trying to find the entrance. No opposition there either. Tanks have encircled the hill. They saw a few stragglers heading east but that's about it."
"What about the other hills?" Woodman asked, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.
"West only touched on that for a minute — after all, we've got our own fucking hill to worry about — but some have fallen, some are still shooting but it's mostly holding action. It looks like they're withdrawing in force from the gap."
"So we won?"
Callahan looked down below, where a full-scale triage operation was being set up to start getting the many wounded taken care of, where the dead were littering the ground amid the burned out tanks and APCs. "I wouldn't exactly call this a victory," he said, "but the Jutfield Gap seems to be in our hands now. Let's finish getting these trenches secured, huh? We need to get some defensive positions up by sunrise and we need to get everyone resupplied on ammo and air."
"Sure, LT," Woodman said. "We're gettin' it on."
Woodman trailed behind four of the men, watching as they worked their way forward, deeper into the trench network, their weapons held out before them. The lead man — some private Woodman didn't know and had never seen before the battle — walked close to a sensor imbedded in the wall of the trench, a sensor designed to detect the heat of a biosuit. It triggered a Stevenson mine that had been imbedded in the far wall. The directional explosion ripped through the trench, nearly vaporizing the private and the two men behind him, and sending razor sharp industrial diamond slag through Woodman's face shield and into his face. He fell backward, blinded, the blood boiling out of his head and into the air. Fortunately for him the loss of air pressure killed him long before he was able to suffocate from the lack of air.
Callahan felt the concussion, heard the crack of the explosion, saw the flash of light from the trench above. He tried to contact Woodman to no avail, this despite the fact that his suit was still transmitting.
"What the fuck is going on up there now?" he mumbled.
It took the better part of three minutes before it occurred to one of the surviving men in the trench to switch to the command frequency and update him.
"Fuck," he said, shaking his head, feeling like crying. Even the victories in this war were full of pitfalls. "Okay," he told the corporal on the other end of the radio link. "Get everyone out of that trench and back on the outside. We need to get some sappers up here to clear them for us."
"Yes, sir," the corporal replied.
Callahan switched to the battalion frequency. "Colonel West," he hailed. "This is Callahan."
"Go ahead, Callahan," West said. "Is your section of the hill secured yet?"
"No, sir. I've pulled all the men back out of the trench. The Martians have booby traps up there. One of them just went off and killed four men."
"Booby traps?" West said, seething. "You mean mines? The greenies are utilizing mine warfare?"
Callahan sighed. "I suppose that technically they are mines but they fall mostly into the definition of a booby trap. In any case, my thought is that if they've got this trench wired up then they probably got all of the others up and down the gap wired up as well. You might want to pass the word on to regimental about this before anyone else gets hit."
"You're suggesting we pause here until sappers can clear every trench in this gap?" West asked, appalled.
"Yes, sir," he said, not caring if he was being impertinent or not. "That is exactly what I'm suggesting."
West didn't order it right away, deciding that Callahan's men being blown up was just a fluke. Nor did he pass the information along to regimental, so they could pass it on to the division commander, so he could pass it on to General Wrath who then pass it on to the other units currently attacking the other cities.
It was only when three other hills throughout the gap reported the same thing — that troops attempting to clear the recently vacated trenches were being blown up by powerful booby traps — that someone higher in the chain of command made the decision for him.
When the sun came up at 0605 that morning all of the dismounted marines that had survived the Battle of Jutfield Gap were standing on the various hills, waiting patiently for specialized sappers to make their way through the trenches so they could secure them. It was expected to take hours. And in the meantime, the Martian special forces teams, including the mortar squads and the snipers, left their bases in their Hummingbirds and were transported out into the hills around the gap for another day worth of operations.
Chapter 18
Martian wastelands — 12 kilometers west of Eden
September 1, 2146
The latest artillery bombardment came raining down across the area, shells bursting just above the ground sending shrapnel into anyone unfortunate enough to be underneath and unprotected. Callahan was jerked awake once more as he felt the ground quake beneath him, as he felt the concussions hammer into him. He checked his time display and saw it had been less than fifteen minutes since he'd gone unconscious. That was typical. His body was crying out for sleep, was demanding it with every fiber, every molecule, every atom, but he had only been able to provide it with about three hours or so of that most precious commodity since they'd taken the Jutfield Gap seventy-seven hours ago — and that had all been snatched in ten to twenty minute grabs.