Jack. We're clear of the engagement zone. Watching for SAMs and drop mecha. Lieutenant Colonel Warboys has already got his tanks on the ground, Candis alerted him. Also, all the Gods of War cleared the engagement zone safely and are forming up. Jack scanned the DTM and eyeballed outside the cockpit for his squad. All was going according to plan.
Great, Candis. Give me the evac cover trajectory, Jack thought. A trajectory vector traced across the virtual view in his mind and led to four blue dots on the surface. The dots were moving rapidly to the escarpment edge designated as the pickup point.
Lieutenant Junior Grade Seri "Vulcan" Cobbs, leader of the SH-102 Starhawk rescue vehicle squadron, made an announcement on the tac-net frequency that the mission two teams were using. "DeathRay, DeathRay, this is Vulcan. Angels squad, search and rescue, is on the drop and clear of the engagement zone. We are on your six and ready to take to ground on your call."
"Roger, that Vulcan. DeathRay copies you. Give us two shakes to reach cover and recon the evac. Warboys is closing in on the drop zone from the surface now. I've got a lock on the gyrenes afoot but have no track on the Killers. I repeat no track on the Killers."
"Copy that, DeathRay. Angels will hold back until green light. Good luck. Out."
Candis, where are the Killers?
IFF is turned off but they are covering the AEMs. I'm adding optical sensor data to the virtual. You should be able to see them from this range. Closing in on the drop point, now, the AIC answered.
Chapter 15
1:30 PM Mars Tharsis Standard Time
Lieutenant Colonel Mason Warboys had never needed a nickname or a callsign. Warboys was cool enough. The colonel's massive M3A17 transfigurable tank slammed across the Martian mountainside terrain on the hoverfield at over two hundred kilometers per hour, the big DEG turret swinging from left to right seeking targets. There were none to be found. His IFF sensor systems had four blue dots just seconds away near the evac point over the next ridge, but there was no sign of trouble. The Warlords tank squadron followed in behind their commander in formation, scattering dust and debris in a tailwind behind them.
Warboys throttled back his tank as he crested the ridge and saw nothing but a half klick of Martian dirt and ancient lava stones, but his DTM virtual world had the four blue dots dispersed near the edge of the bluff. And then the goddamnedest sight he'd ever seen skittered oddly up over the horizon to the northwest.
"Colonel, this is Warlord Three. Am I seeing things?"
"I don't know, Captain. Could be. But if you're seeing a giant mechanical spider headed right for us then either we both are seeing things or it is really there." Warboys checked his multi-static passive radar, and the sensor system used the background radio noise coming from sources all across the planet and in orbit to generate a three-dimensional image of the spider thing. "Radar shows it is metal. And, it shows that there is nothing else in the area. My AIC tells me it's a garbage truck and that it's our VIP. Let's get him some cover," Warboys ordered.
The hovering tanks converged on the spider's location quickly. As the tank squadron closed the gap down to a few tens of meters, the garbage hauler stopped. Warboys pulled to a stop and popped the hatch on his tank. He hit the repulsor ejector and shot himself out of the tank into a forward roll onto the ground just in front of the spider.
Several meters to the lieutenant colonel's left the dust kicked up and an AEM rose up from the ground. The blue dot on Warboys' DTM virtual view showed it to be Second Lieutenant Thomas Washington. Three other blue spots got dusty almost simultaneously and the rest of the AEM squad rose from their covered locations.
"Greetings, Lieutenant. You Marines look like you could use a lift." Warboys chuckled. "Haven't seen any FM-12s hanging around anywhere have you?"
"Go to all optical and no QMs, Colonel, and I'll explain, sir," Washington said. Warboys sent an AIC command to the squad to go all optical comms.
"All right, how's that?" the lieutenant colonel asked.
"Well, I'll be goddamned if it ain't that Army puke Warboys and his armored nimrods." Burner laughed over the optical net.
"Burner? Is that you? Where the hell are you? What the fuck is going on here?"
"We're under covers. They're tracking our QMs, Mason. They already had a fix on these AEMs so we thought we'd set a trap for them." Burner's answer made Warboys nervous. "I suspect you ought to be getting back in your tank, Lieutenant Colonel. We're expecting company in about three or four minutes."
"That can't be, John. We just dropped in and pinged the entire southern region. Even updated optical scans and saw nothing headed this way. It's all clear," Warboys informed his old jarhead buddy.
"Did you go eyeball, Mason? Or did you use sensors?"
"Burner, I was in a drop tank reentry shroud. How the hell was I gonna go eyeball?"
"That's what I thought. One of my boys found a spread spectrum signal down in the oddest damned part of the spectrum that is uploading a virus or some such thing somehow into the sensors. It changes the code to tell the sensors that there are no Seppy mecha in the view." Burner's voice was dead serious.
"Shit, Burner, are you telling me this is a trap?"
"Yep. But we hope to turn it over on the bastards," Burner answered.
"Hold one, John." Lieutenant Colonel Warboys keyed in the tac-net to DeathRay.
"DeathRay. Warboys. Do an immediate rollover and eyeball the region for me. I mean eyeball, no sensors, and tell me what you've got."
"Roger that, Colonel." Jack rolled the fighter over upside down and searched the mountainside. The squadron was closing in at about ten kilometers altitude and twenty out, giving a slant range of about twenty-two. The resolution of the human eye at that range is about two meters. Jack should have been able to make out a vehicle as a dot from that range. The dots were hard to see, but the dust trails from hundreds of vehicles only about ten kilometers out were not hard to see at all. There were mecha, trucks, and fighters—lots of them.
"Holy shit!" Jack tapped some keys and went all channels. "All hands, all pilots, be aware that the Seppies have us jammed on all sensors. Eyeballs only. We've got a Seppy convoy only minutes from the evac and probably more in the sky. Go eyeballs. I repeat go eyeballs! Holy shit!" A SAM zipped right past his Ares fighter, between him and Fish, taking out a fighter just behind his wingman. Several more missiles streaked by almost simultaneously, all of which hit home on one of the Gods of War before they could take action. "Evasives, goddamnit!"
"CO, did you catch that last transmission from DeathRay?" The XO of the Sienna Madira stood at the viewport of the bridge looking out at the swarming craft around them, trying to compare what he saw with his eyes to what he was seeing in his mind. The continuous audibles of the hundreds of pilots filled the bridge in a concert of guttural grunts, missile and gun firing commands, and horrendous screams. The command-level audibles were amplified and the various bridge officers had their AICs create audio filters to allow only certain communications to get through to their ears. Otherwise, the entire audio mix from the fighters and fleet ships would be overwhelming for any one individual.
"Play it back to me, XO."
"Aye sir!" The ship rocked to port sharply. Once the full fleet had gotten into the mix the Martian Contingent had pulled to the outer periphery of the engagement zone but the Seppies had stayed with them, trying to keep the overwhelming numbers of vessels hindered by friendly fire solutions on their main guns.
"Holy shit! All hands, all pilots, be aware that the Seppies have us jammed on all sensors. Eyeballs only. We've got a Seppy convoy only minutes from the evac and probably more in the sky. Go eyeballs. I repeat go eyeballs! Holy shit!" played through the CO's audio filters.