"But how long can they keep something like that under wraps?" Brian asked. "They've lost thousands of soldiers out here, literally thousands. All of those soldiers have families who will have to be told they're dead."
"And each one of those families," Surrender said, "will assume that their son or husband or father was simply one of the four hundred their press is admitting to. Without any information to the contrary, without any official list of all casualties printed somewhere, how would the families know any different?"
"Wow," Matt said, overwhelmed by the level of deception WestHem was capable of.
"Wow is right," Surrender said. "Listen to this part. She's going to explain why they had to go back to orbit. This should be rich."
It was indeed rich. Loretta Williams told the WestHem public — with a perfectly straight face — that the WestHem marines were fearful of causing too many civilian casualties and destruction and of losing any more of their soldiers by continuing with the horrible plan that General Wrath — the incompetent traitor — had come up with.
"In light of the human shield tactics the greenie terrorists are utilizing and in light of the flawed and costly head-on attacks that General Wrath ordered the marines to use, it was thought by General Browning — the new commander of the Martian taskforce — that it would be prudent to pull everyone back up to the Panamas and regroup. This will give them a chance to replace expended munitions, go over every armored vehicle in detail, and, most importantly to draw up a new plan for the marines to foment the liberation of that planet."
"How long will it be before the marines make new landings?" asked one of the reporters.
"No more than two weeks," Williams promised. "General Browning and his staff are already hard at work on the new liberation plan. I expect a preliminary draft on my desk in twenty-four hours."
The preliminary draft of which she spoke was currently sitting on General Browning's desk — what used to be General Wrath's desk. Browning — now dressed in the Martian red camouflage scheme to impress the viewing audience when he was caught on camera — was going over it in detail with it's author, Major Wilde.
"As you can see, General," Wilde was telling him, "the whole thing starts with an extensive air and space campaign designed to cripple Martian communications, supply efforts, and troop transport abilities. Space fighters will begin fanning out throughout high and low Martian orbit, destroying every satellite they can aim their lasers at. That should start in less than forty-eight hours as it will take the better part of a week to get them all."
"Won't that completely eliminate our ability to use GPS as well?" Browning asked.
"Yes," Wilde admitted, "but we don't have that ability now and it appears the hackers in our intelligence unit are not going to be able to ferret out the encryption codes any time soon. We, however, have learned to operate down there without GPS data. The Martians, on the other hand, have been relying upon their ability to accurately know their position. It's how they put their mortars and their artillery on target with such uncanny accuracy. It's how they are able to call in Mosquitoes and get their special forces teams right where they're needed. If we take communications and navigation away from them, they will be helpless out there."
Browning nodded. "I see," he said. "And then we start strategic surface bombing?"
"We start that simultaneous with the anti-satellite campaign," Wilde said. "The first thing that needs to go is the Alexander Industries ammunition plant outside New Pittsburgh. That is where the Martians are getting all of their bullets, mortars, and artillery shells. We need to send no less than six flights after that target and flatten it. It shouldn't be too hard to do. One good hit in the right spot and the plant will blow itself up."
"I don't want any civilian casualties from this," Browning said. "That doesn't look good on my record. The press is on our side but one thing they love to report on is civilian deaths."
"Civilian casualties would be limited to those who actually work in the plant. The building is located outside the city proper, far enough away that even a catastrophic explosion would not hurt civilian infrastructure."
"Very good," Browning said, nodding. He looked back down at the briefing material. "You have a considerable target list here. Is all of this really necessary?"
"It is absolutely necessary," Wilde said. "Most of these targets, as you can see, are to their rail network that runs between their cities. We hit every bridge, every tunnel, every portion that passes over or under something. This keeps them from making easy repairs and getting the system back in operation in a day or two. If these targets are hit successfully — and there's no reason to think they won't be — Eden will be completely isolated from the other cities by rail. The Martians won't be able to move troops or equipment there. Reinforcement would be impossible and the Martians in Eden would have defend against our entire task force and all of its armor with only the troops they have stationed in that city."
"I like it," Browning said, already envisioning his triumphant march to the Agricorp Building, which he planned to make his headquarters.
"It's simple and direct," Wilde said. "Once the bombing campaign has achieved its goals the landing craft go back down. They land another fifty kilometers out in this wider plain here to the west. It's larger and flatter which would make it more difficult for any Martian special forces teams to operate and would put it at the very extreme range of the Martian Hummingbirds and Mosquitoes. From there, we assemble and rush in at best possible speed to set up a refuel point. We don't stop to engage snipers or other Martians who attack us. We absorb the Mosquito attacks when they come. Less than seventy-two hours after landing, we'll be at the Jutfield Gap in nearly full strength and we'll hit the Martian positions in regimental strength, sweeping them right the hell out of there. We should be able to get through the gap in a matter of hours. Once that happens, we push hard to the main line of defense and slam into them with everything we got. Our advantage should be at least seven to one, maybe closer to eight to one. They'll fall within hours."
"And then we simply occupy Eden and hold onto it?"
"Exactly," Wilde confirmed. "Once we're in those buildings, on those streets, we can probably expect some guerrilla warfare but they won't be able to dislodge us. Not in a million years."
"Okay," Browning said. "You've convinced me. Start getting the flight crews ready for full deployment. I'll look this over in detail and then get it off to the Executive Council."
"Yes, sir," Wilde said. "Oh... there's one more thing."
"What's that?"
"This has to remain top secret if it's going to work. That means we can't brief the reporters on what is going on."
Browning rolled his eyes at him. "I'm not an idiot, Wilde," he said. "I have no intention of briefing reporters on what my attack plan is."
"I'm sure you don't, sir," Wilde said. "It's just that General Wrath used to release operational details before they happened because the press insisted on it. I think a lot of our problems might be because of that."
"I'm not Wrath," Browning said forcefully. "Now go brief in the flight commanders. I want to get this campaign rolling on schedule."
"Yes sir," Wilde said, saluting.
Chapter 20
Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit
September 5, 2146
Rear Admiral Mitchell Spears was the commander of all of the task force's F-22 space fighters. Each of the California Class superdreadnoughts housed a wing of ninety-six of these saucer-shaped craft for a total of 192 of them — or at least that was what they'd left Earth with, they were currently down to 147.