"It was a necessary operational change," Wilde told Browning for perhaps the twentieth time.
"Yes, yes," Browning said. "So you say. It's what let us launch those air strikes... and by the way, they're pretty pissed off about the air strikes as well. They want to know why they weren't informed in advance and why they weren't allowed to video the hovers launching and returning."
"Sir, it was a secret air strike. That means you don't tell anyone about it. And even without them knowing about it you managed to screw it up anyway. We took one hundred percent losses on that strike, sir. One hundred percent. We have only three attack hovers left in our entire Martian inventory now. Sixty-five percent of our pilots and gunners are now either dead or captured."
"Surely you're not suggesting that is my fault," Browning said huffily. "You are the one who planned those air strikes. You told me they would decimate their targets with minimal losses."
"Sir, I planned those air strikes to be launched simultaneously the moment all of the landing ships were on the ground. You delayed the launch for more than two hours just so you could give the operation a catchy name and say that it was launched precisely at 1300."
"It is somewhat traditional to have a nice, round starting time for any major military mission," Browning said. "You know that, Wilde."
"And at what point did that start to take precedence over the element of surprise, General?" Wilde asked. "Those hovers were supposed to launch and be on their targets before the Martians even knew they were in the air. Instead, you delayed the launch until 1300. That gave the Martians enough time to get some of their special forces teams on our perimeter to report the launch."
Again Browning refused to take any sort of responsibility for this. "You said those flat areas we landed in would prevent the greenies from sending special forces teams after us."
"I said no such thing," Wilde replied, no longer caring about the insubordination. "I said the flat area would force them to drop their teams further out and prevent them from moving in too close. I never said their teams would be blinded to what we were doing. That's why I had the APCs shuttle crewmen to the tanks, remember? That's why I had the landing ships form a big perimeter of their own, so the armor could assemble in the center. We've known all along that the Martian special forces teams would get to within operation and observational range."
Browning was shaking his head sadly. "It sounds like you're backpedaling to me, Wilde," he said. "A marine is supposed to know when he's made a mistake."
Wilde actually had to bite his lip to keep from screaming out an angry, blasphemous reply to this. He drew blood but the trick worked — just barely. After a moment he was able to compose himself. "Listen, General," he said. "What's done is done. That won't be much comfort to those flight crews that are now in Martian POW holding or the families of those who were killed, but we have to put that behind us and move on to the next phase of the operation."
"Well of course," Browning said. "My feelings exactly."
"Very good," Wilde said. "Now the reason I commed is to make sure something similar doesn't happen to our ground forces. They're down there unloading their APCs and tanks and mobile guns as fast as they can. It is vital that the marches begin the moment enough armor and arty is ready to move. We have to reach the Martian first lines of defense before their reinforcements arrive in strength. As it stands now, that is going to be very close."
"How close?"
"According to intel the first trains pulled out of Proctor and Libby at 1120 and 1150 this morning. That means the first train will arrive in Eden two and a half hours from now and in New Pittsburgh four hours from now. Eden is the critical one. The Martians could conceivably have reinforcements start trickling into the Jutfield Gap positions by 2200."
"2200? We won't be in position to attack by then."
"No," Wilde agreed. "The best we can hope for is to have everything we need unloaded by 2130 and to start our march at 2200. That's if we break all speed records but, fortunately, at the pace they're going down there we might just do it."
"That's good news indeed," Browning said. "But it still puts us behind the greenie reinforcements."
"Just barely, sir," Wilde said. "And remember, that's a worst case estimate for Martian reinforcement arrival and even if its correct, they will just be trickling in little by little as they are unloaded. They won't be able to field the entire compliment that was loaded on those three trains until at least 0300 for Eden and 0530 for New Pittsburgh. I want our troops to be through the Jutfield Gap in Eden and through the Crossland Gap in New Pittsburgh before that happens. We need to take advantage of our numerical superiority while we still have it and seize the initiative."
"I understand," Browning said.
"So... with that in mind," Wilde said gingerly, "can you make sure that the march is not delayed for any reason?"
"Of course. Why would we delay it?"
"Oh... to think up catchy names for the operation, to launch precisely at on a given hour — any number of things our friends at the big three so enjoy but that hinder us militarily."
"I'll make sure," Browning promised.
"Very good, General. I'll get our units moving the second they are capable of it."
Eden Landing Zone
2200 hours
Callahan sat in he commander's seat of one of the APCs assembled in the center of the formation of landing ships. It had been almost two weeks since he had been in one of these deathtraps. In that time his back wound had healed, he had rested up, fed himself enough to put back two of the five kilos he'd lost, and had been field promoted to full captain officially in charge of Charlie Company. Despite all that he felt the same sense of apprehension and fear as the last time.
The memories of the horrors he had witnessed since arriving on this shitty red rock were still quite fresh in his mind — losing all of his friends, watching them shot down and blown up from the LZ perimeter to the final futile push to the main line of defense, seeing bullets and shrapnel zipping by his own body, missing him by centimeters, and finally, the humiliating retreat back to the landing ships, forced to leave their dead and even some of the wounded behind, the tattered survivors clinging desperately to tanks and APCs like refugees. And somehow, the most humiliating thing of all was the abject refusal of the Martians to strike at them during that retreat, as if they were saying, we kicked your asses so good its not even worth the time or the fuel or the ammo to chase after you.
For the first time in his career Callahan felt the icy hands of irrational panic tightening around his throat.
Get ahold of yourself, Callahan, the rational part of his brain tried to tell him. The odds are different this time. We're hitting their positions with better than four to one advantage and we only have a short march before contact. No refueling, no rearming, no pausing for anything. We'll knock them out of the gap in no time and take the momentum for the next battle.
Yes, the plan they'd been briefed on was a good one, or at least the best that could be hoped for after the clusterfuck of the last few days when the real plan was slowly picked apart and modified again and again. Callahan was still appalled and disgusted by that. He had watched the morale of his men change from an all time low as they were blasted back to orbit after the retreat to an all time high when the plan to overwhelm and capture Eden was first announced. The men knew an eight to one advantage over the Martians would most likely force a bloodless surrender of the city. The Martians were not dumb. They knew defeat when they saw it and they pulled back. Victory seemed assured.