Alexander held his wife's and daughter's hands and pulled them closer to the video monitors. The MNN correspondent was on the north side of the dome near the shelter. The scene behind her was of an overcrowded room with too few seats. The occasional local with an environment suit stood out in the crowd of tourists.
". . . the main dome is still holding as far as we can tell. A few minutes ago the U.S.S Winston Churchill, a Navy supercarrier, exploded in midair and then crashed through the skyline of southern portions of Olympus Mons City, destroying parts of the lower and smaller domes. We have no idea of the massive damage that must have been caused and are not certain of the casualties. The scene here is currently of shock and survival. We can only hope the leak shelters hold since the majority of the people here do not have environment suits. Shennan, is there any word as to what is going on?" The image shifted back to the MNN anchor desk and Shennan Haggarty.
"Right now, Amanda, we know very little. However, we do have some footage of the attack. That's right, attack. Mons City is under a full-scale attack from ground troops with aerial support. The data we have right now is still very sketchy, but it appears as if a cargo and waste disposal transport ship appeared out of hyperspace in orbit above Mons and dropped a full contingent of mechanized drop tanks, infantry, and fighter support. The ship then completed a suicide run at the naval blockade in orbit. It was engaged by the fleet but it appears to have self-destructed, destroying several ships along with it and damaging many others. These events seem to have coincided with the explosion of the Churchill. Right now we can only assume sabotage is what caused it to explode. Just a moment . . . I'm told we have audio from Gail Fehrer in the south dome . . . can we go to that?"
"This is Gail Fehrer. I'm in the south dome of the Olympus Mons skyline. The dome has a massive hole in it the size of several skyscrapers. There are giant girders from the geodesic ribs hanging from the gaping hole. Oh my God, there are skyscrapers collapsing along the path of the crashed ship and explosions going off in the distance. There must be thousands killed or wounded. Once again, just a few moments ago the supercarrier U.S.S Winston Churchill crashed here, destroying most of the southern borough of the city. Almost immediately following that several of what appear to be Separatist mechanized troop carriers dropped from the sky and then a squadron of enemy fighter-bombers plowed through leaving behind death and destruction. It looks as if the bombers may also have taken out portions of the eastern skyline as well, before they met any resistance from the Navy."
"Gail, can you see any of our troops anywhere?" Shennan asked.
"Shennan, I just saw a group of Martian Marines pass through toward the fairgrounds. One of the soldiers told us that they were heavily outnumbered and hoped their superior training and firepower would allow them to hold off the attack until the Martian 34th Mecha Unit arrived."
"Gail, can you give us a description of the scene and mood there?" the anchorman asked.
"Yes, Shennan. There are huge amounts of dust clouds and smoke all around us and there is rubble everywhere. There is the distinct crack of railgun fire and missile detonations in the background. The Marines just went towards what appears to be the most devastated part of the city and where there are still flames and explosions from secondary effects of the crash sounding in the distance. My guess is that there is where the first conflicts are . . . "
After more than an hour of waiting in the adventure store and feeling the large vibrations of exterior explosions outside the main dome, the survivors were more than just panicked. Many of the two dozen survivors who gathered and waited in the adventure store had AICs that were connected to the Internet, but what they found in terms of news was not very reassuring. MNN and local wireless seemed to be the only functioning communications. And the footage on MNN had been looped through so many times that it was getting old hearing the news analysts trying to think of new things to say about it. All other longer-range transmission systems were being actively jammed. This bothered Senator Moore immensely. Nobody, to his knowledge, realized that the Separatists had that type of advanced jamming technology. Sure, they had tanks and fighters and armored e-suits, but they were old technology and they were years behind the QM transceiver communications technologies used throughout the systems.
Abigail, what is going on? How are they jamming the long-range QMs?
Well, Senator, it appears to have been a full-scale attack on Mons City. A fleet of Navy ships was dispatched but apparently the Separatists were ready for them with surface-to-air missiles. A fleet of ships appeared in orbit out of hyperspace just now. MNN will start running that soon. Don't know about the communications jamming. I'll work on that.
How do you know all the other stuff?
I've tied in directly to the MNN anchor desk's producer AIC. I had to promise you would give them an exclusive later.
Good girl!
I try, Senator.
The ships that appeared in orbit . . . ours?
Apparently not, Senator. It would appear Mons City is surrounded and under siege, sir. And now there is sufficient orbital support. My guess is that it is only a matter of time before the main dome begins filling with Separatist ground forces.
What about those Marines? The 34th Mecha and the rest of the Army? Hell, I'd even settle for the Martian Air Force.
The Marines are cut off on the other side of the southern dome, Senator. They continue to take heavy casualties. The Marine tactical AIC I'm in contact with has received no contact from the 34th but they do expect an evac lift to be available in three to four hours. Since the transport tubes between the south dome and the main dome have also been destroyed they had to turn back. The evac is on the south escarpment of the mountain just outside the south dome. The Marines also expect the entire city to be overrun soon. They are fighting as best they can but with little luck. The attackers have a full fighting force, sir. There is a serious numbers advantage in favor of the invaders right now.
Could we get to them, to the evac lift? Alexander held on to his wife's hand as he thought of possibilities. He knew that if the Separatists found a U.S. senator and family they would be killed as spectacle and shown on a systemwide broadcast. Alexander was not about to allow that. He had spent seventeen years—seventeen hard years—in the Luna City Brigade during the first Martian Desert Campaign and he knew how to fight if he had to.
He had fought in units that had started out with hundreds and ended with two or three and then ended up captured and in a POW camp for years. The Separatists, on the other hand, had fared a little better than he. After years of hard fighting the U.S. with dated weapons and terrorist tactics, the Separatists made the war too expensive for the U.S. to desire to continue with it. So the Americans sued for peace, leaving the desert of Syrtis Major to the Separatists. Most of the Separatists went back to within the "Reservation" borders near Phlegra and continued on with working on the terraforming of Mars. But others, the leaders of the Separatist armies under the direction of Elle Ahmi, had maintained a continuously growing military structure within the Separatist community. There were weapons stockpile efforts and occasional terrorist activities against American outposts in the outer system outposts like the massacre at Kuiper Station. After seventeen years of the desert war between 2336 and 2352, an uncomfortable peace had lasted a decade or two—depending on which history book you read—and then Elle Ahmi, the general of the Desert Campaigns, finally rose to absolute power within the Separatist Union. It was unclear how exactly that had happened. Peace had been unraveling for several years and skirmishes were popping up throughout the system. And so once again Alexander was called back to Mars, but his time as a diplomat and not as an armored e-suit Marine.