When word reached the Army Central's commanders that the enemy's hidden camp was so close by — actually 190 miles to the west — the first reaction was surprise. They'd expected the crafty enemy to choose a location much more difficult to find. Perhaps among the mountains of the continental divide several hundred miles farther west.
Never did they expect the enemy to make a stand on the long, unprotected plain of the Ghost River Valley. What had just the day before seemed to be turning into a long, drawn-out, tiring affair now took on the light of an early finish. Vanquishing an underequipped, crudely formed enemy force many times less its size was a picture-perfect scenario for Army Central's field commanders.
Like all meres, they liked their battles to be quick, bloody, and final.
Two hundred miles to the southeast of Ghost River Valley, the BMK Army South was moving along the banks of the Green Tree River.
They, too, had received word of the enemy's location and now excitement was firing through the troops. Though the southern force was only one hundred thousand men, just a third of the Central force, many of the South's soldiers were mountainous terrain fighters. If the Central Army hit the enemy line full force, any enemy troops that survived would undoubtedly flee into the mountains beyond. Army South was perfectly suited to pursue these retreating troops and in essence, slaughter them in the hills.
The BMK South commanders didn't even wait for orders from BMK HQ. They began moving north toward the enemy with great haste.
Back at BMK HQ, still entrenched in St. Louis almost a thousand miles away from the impending battle zone, Deaux's command staff was in disarray.
The news from the scouts atop Fire Rock Ridge was golden, of course, and it really couldn't have been much better from a tactical point of view. The BMK had massive amounts of men and firepower in the area and were quickly closing in on the enemy position. What's more, the potential battlefield — the Plain of Stars — was flatter than the sea at its calmest.
The operation would be textbook. The enemy camp would be bombarded by the huge Master Blaster arrays already speeding toward their forward deployment. After some softening up, a massive ground attack would commence and would not stop until the enemy position was overrun. With only the mountains at their backs, the fleeing enemy troops would be trapped and destroyed long before they reached the first tree line.
It was an ideal situation, and everyone at BMK Headquarters knew it, except for the most important person: Supreme Commander Deaux himself.
Deaux was asleep when the first report from Fire Rock Ridge came in around seven a.m. He was asleep still. Deaux never rose before the sun and was rarely awake by midmorning.
This day would be no different.
By seven-thirty, the advance scouts atop Fire Rock Ridge had settled into their forward observation positions.
These were a line of trenches cored out by electron torches close to the edge of the ridge. Concealed in this manner, the scouts would be able to look down on the enemy position and gather intelligence while waiting for the main forces of Army Central to arrive.
The BMK scouts were equipped with the latest version TVZs — tactical viz screens. These allowed the scouts to breathe in real-time visual images practically right up to the front line of the enemy fortifications. They had three of these devices in the trench and, peering through them, the scouts could see many enemy troops anxiously adding to the ramparts. Like the base's structures, these were constructed primarily of melted stone and wood. If there were fifteen thousand enemy troops within the huge encampment, at least half of them were working on the fortifications. The line of soldiers digging, building, and hauling away dirt stretched for miles.
After observing the situation for twenty minutes, the advance scouts sent off their first report to BMK HQ. It was three simple lines: "The enemy is spread very thin. He has no large guns. His base is located where he has no means of escape."
The first shots of the Battle of Ghost River came at precisely eight o'clock atop Fire Rock Ridge.
It began as a dull screech coming from somewhere to the north. The BMK advance scouts were so intent on their mission they paid it little mind at first. But then the air itself shook all around them, and the strange noise grew louder and louder. The scouts finally looked up and saw that an airborne object had risen out of the northern hills and was coming right at them.
The scouts didn't know what this thing was. Their top-secret premission briefing had spoken of the enemy's magic weapon, a flying machine that had absolutely nothing in common with anything the BMK had ever flown. The magic weapon was a relatively small aircraft with the power of a space cruiser; this was the only way the BMK commanders could describe it. The strange aircraft had shot down a number of the BMK landing vehicles during the first day of the invasion. It had been attacking targets, both in America and on Planet France, nonstop ever since. This news had been kept secret from the vast majority of the BMK troops. But the scouts were higher in security class, and now they had a need to know.
Oddly enough, though, this wasn't that aircraft.
It was over their position just a few seconds later. Streaking by not fifteen feet off the ground, making a noise loud enough to make one's ears bleed. It was going fast, but not so fast that the scouts couldn't make it out.
It was a robot. A very large robot. It was flying along at high speed, arms tucked back, head up, propelled by miniature rocket burners on the soles of its boots. A thick red beam was flashing intermittently from behind its eye visor. The beams were being directed at the scouts' shuttlecraft, which had been left unattended in a gully five hundred feet below the ridge.
As the scouts watched helplessly, shuttle #555 was rocked by six staccato explosions. The destructo-beam emanating from behind the robot's visor had cut a swath right through the vessel's midsection, and in seconds it was a flaming wreck. Just like that, the scouts had lost their only means of transport off the ridge.
The robot looped around at fantastic speed, then dove on the scouts themselves. This was not typical warfare for these soldiers. They'd been bombarded long range from space before, but they just weren't used to being shot at from machines flying so low. As the robot streaked toward them again, its visor raising itself in anticipation of another volley of destructo-beams, some soldiers panicked. About a third of the hundred men left their positions and fled into the woods nearby.
Those that didn't move, sixty-five soldiers who stayed true to their posts, were all vaporized by 33418's next pass.
By this time, the advancing artillery column was just seven miles away from Fire Rock Ridge, following a narrow dirt road known as Wishbone Pass.
They had been in communication with the advance scouts atop the ridge, and if everything went according to plan, they would soon be using the scouts' shuttle craft to hover-lift each of the Master Blaster arrays up to the cliff.
The commanders of the one hundred-vehicle column were anxious to reach the front. They were well aware of the monetary significance of the upcoming battle. They wanted their part in it to be secure. To do this, they had to reach the ridge and commence the bombardment of the enemy camp as quickly as possible. The more they could pound the enemy before the main forces arrived, the more credible their claim would be that the enemy was in fact subdued by their long guns, and the ground operations were just elaborate mop-ups. This would result in a bigger paycheck for the artillery commanders. Some were predicting the conflict would be over by noon.
Once the column came within five miles of the ridge, the commanders ordered their communications officers to contact the scouts again and get the shuttle-lift operation going.