One Day on Mars

11:01 AM Mars Tharsis Standard Time

"We'd better fucking hurry, Lieutenant Colonel, sir!" Corporal Shelly downloaded the QM map from his visor to the Marine strike mecha through the optical line-of-sight port. They could communicate with each other on the QM wireless but Lieutenant Colonel John Masterson's AIC had warned him that the Seppies didn't know they were there and since they were spoofing the QM communications and jamming the long-range it might give away the fact that an entire squadron of U.S. Marine strike mecha survived the crash of the Churchill. The long-range coms were still being jammed completely.

"Roger that, Corporal. Looks like your second lieutenant and sergeant are in a heap of shit." Masterson adjusted his optical sensor net to update continuously from the QM data collected by the two armored e-suit Marines that had run into his strike squadron. That way only the presence of the two AEMs would be compromised. Of course, the fact that his squadron had wiped out several handfuls of Seppy mecha since the crash may have exposed them anyway. But until he knew for certain he was going to use every advantage and take every precaution.

"Okay, Cardiff's Killers, let's get in there and pull these two Marines out of the fire before it's too late. Converge on Dome Circle and kill those bloody Seppy bastards."

"Die, you Seppy bastards!" Sergeant Clay Jackson ducked back behind the steel and concrete fountain wall surrounding the giant metallic statue of Sienna Madira for cover. The Seppy ground support troops and the mecha were literally only tens of meters from them and had only halted their progression due to the horrendous return of hypervelocity automatic railgun fire that the sergeant and second lieutenant had managed to maintain. But the two of them were running out of ammo and had to take more precise shots with very little defilading fire. Both of the Marines had exhausted their complement of grenades and it was unlikely that hand-to-mecha combat would turn out in their favor. They were outgunned, flanked, and seriously outnumbered. Not to mention that the second lieutenant had a big fucking hunk of metal sticking through his leg.

"It's been an honor, Clay!" Second Lieutenant Thomas Washington rose to a knee and took four aimed shots at a drop tank in bot-mode lumbering cautiously toward them. The shots hit the right ankle joint, toppling the mecha forward onto the battlefield between them and a small group of approaching Seppy ground troops. The flailing mecha formed a nice barricade. Washington dropped back below the fountain wall.

"Right back at you sir!" Clay took his turn taking shots. Forty-millimeter cannon fire from the enemy mecha spitanged against the statue, flinging hot metal against the sergeant's armored shoulder. A piece of shrapnel penetrated the armor and seared its way through the seal layer and into the flesh of his shoulder. "Shit!" he grunted in agony as he fired fifty or so rounds off by accident into the smoke and dust and approaching enemy troops.

"You all right, Sarge?"

"Just a flesh wound, I hope. Burns like goddamned hell." He rubbed at the hole in his armored shoulder and looked at the seal layer as it healed itself over the hole in his arm.

"Any ideas, Sarge?"

"Well, lieutenant, other than dying, I'm fresh out." The sergeant leaned back against the wall of the fountain and panted for breath a few times.

"I was afraid of that. I wonder if they'd let us surrender?" The second lieutenant cracked a somber grimacing smile and rose to fire a few more rounds until his HVAR weapon clicked and displayed the out-of-ammo warning on his visor. "Shit, I'm out!"

Sergeant Jackson held his railgun barrel up over the fountain wall and peered at the visor display for a target. There were plenty. The QM tracking and sighting system showed forty-three known targets while his ammo depository displayed one hundred and seven rounds left. He aimed as best he could from behind the wall at the nearest mass of ground troops hammering away at them with railgun fire and depressed the trigger. The Seppy troops were moving too fast for an over-the-head shot to be useful as a pinpoint shot, but as cover fire it slowed the ground troop advance some—if a second or two could be counted as some.

A whining screech and then an explosion a few tens of meters on the enemy side of the fountain sent shrapnel flinging into the already black smoke-filled part of the city. Brilliant flashes of mecha cannon fire and directed energy weapons lit up the smoky battlescape of the largest driving circle in the solar system. The whirling winds caused by the gaping hole in the dome continued to whip the smoke and debris into small dust devils and gustnados. They were illuminated by bright orange and red flashes from mecha exploding. Several more whining screeches followed with explosions and then forty-millimeter cannon fire picked up continuously. The spitanging of HVAR rounds on the fountain and statue ceased but the spitap spitap spitap of HVAR rounds being fired only increased flinging shrapnel buzzing around the other side of the fountain like many angry bees.

Lieutenant Colonel "Burner" Masterson ran his configurable FM-12 strike mecha at full trot in bot-mode onto the north side of Dome Circle and pierced through the whirling smoke clouds into the opening firing anti-mecha missiles into three Seppy drop tanks and then fired his jump thrusters launching the sleek Mars red humanoid-formed fighter mecha into a full forward flip while multiple beams pulsed from the main directed energy gun in the left hand of the FM-12. The mecha looked like a giant robot with an armored cockpit in its upper mid torso through where a head should be, flanked on either shoulder with swiveling forty-millimeter HVAR cannons.

"Fox three!" Multiple mecha-to-mecha missile tubes stacked along the torso of the lethal vehicle left faint blue and purple ionization trails as the missiles scattered from the FM-12 seeking Seppy targets to kill.

"Whew!" Masterson grunted to offset the g-loading on his lower extremities. The heads-up display on the canopy was lit up with multiple targets having locked on to him and his warning klaxons and the "Bitching Betty" were ringing loud in his ears. "Now come get me! Guns 1, Guns 2!" He let out a howl and released multiple bursts from the shoulder mounted cannons and several DEG bursts.

As the Seppy Orcus drop tanks focused on the lieutenant colonel, the remaining twenty-three FM-12s of Cardiff's Killers brought death from the sky, from behind buildings, within the whirling smoke debris clouds, and one even tore upward through an overpass. The surprise of two dozen American Marine strike fighting mechas threw the more numerous Separatist drop tanks into a state of confusion.

At first they scattered aimlessly, like mice skittering for cover, with no clear plan or forethought into where that cover might be. After the initial shock of the surprise attack dulled, the veteran Seppy mecha pilots began to fight back with some effectiveness. But their numbers had dwindled to even or less with the Americans. And the Americans were moving swiftly and deadly. Cardiff's Killers were doing what they did best—kill.

"LT? Sarge? Can you make a run south?" Corporal Shelly announced over the QM. "The mechaheads are covering the north and me and Kootie are bouncing to ya!"

"Oorah! Shelly!" Sergeant Jackson called back as he brought his city view back to the forefront of his visor. There were the blue dots for Shelly and Kudaf but not a sign of the FM-12s or the Seppy Orcus drop tanks he could see with his own eyes. No time to think about that, he thought. We ain't gonna die today damnit!

Oorah! his AIC Susan replied.

"Shelly, we got you. Sarge and I are bouncing south for better cover. We're out of ammo you gotta give us some cover." Washington tried to bear-crawl away from the fountain as best he could with a half-meter-long hunk of steel sticking out of his left leg. The pain resurfacing from each movement forced him to grit his teeth and focus. He knew he had to focus on surviving and getting the hell out of there.

Tammie! Where do we need to go? We need a retreat route now! Thomas asked his AIC.

Here sir! The southbound interstate overpass gives you the best cover! She highlighted the escape path on the map in his head. She then transferred the same data to the sergeant's AIC.

"Shelly, Kudaf, here is our rendezvous point!" He relayed the data to them through the QM. "Let's bounce, Sergeant!" He stood quickly and released the jumper field on his boots, flinging him twenty meters southward. The jarring motion of the jumping rushed up through his bum leg and sent sharp needles of pain piercing through him. The pain medication was beginning to wear down. He needed medical attention. The second lieutenant gritted his teeth and dreaded the next landing and bounce. He adjusted his stride so that most of the impact would be taken by his right leg instead.

"LT, hang on to my shoulder." Sergeant Jackson saw the second lieutenant shudder on his first bounce and thought he was going to collapse, but the tough young officer pushed through the pain. Jackson caught him by the second bounce and grabbed his left arm. The two men bounced as fast and far south as they could manage. Fortunately, the Seppies were otherwise preoccupied.

It had taken nearly thirty minutes for Alexander and his band of misfit refugees to backtrack through the main dome to the nearest downward accessing elevator without being spotted by the Separatists who had overrun Mons City. There they had taken the elevator down three levels to a maintenance travel shaft where they took a small electric buggy through all the way to the main elevator shaft of the city. The Separatist troops had not bothered to make it as far below the city yet. Hopefully they would keep it that way.

For a brief moment, Senator Moore and his AIC had considered walking out of the dome through the lower levels, but that would place them at the edge of the dome more than seventy kilometers from the evac point south of the dome—too far to run to in time. On the other hand, if they traveled up the elevator to the maintenance shaft and then up again to the top of the dome they could base-jump with the gliderchutes and cover the territory in ten or twenty minutes, depending on the prevailing winds. Jumping still seemed like the best option. The other alternative might be to hide out in the city bowels until the city was liberated by the American forces, but that seemed dangerous. The fact that it seemed more dangerous than jumping off the top of the city dome might have been debatable but Alexander preferred action and escaping rather than evading and hiding in occupied territory. He had been captured before in his life and it was no fun then. He didn't care to repeat the experience, especially with his wife and six-year-old daughter, an adrenaline junkie, and an older woman from Triton as his responsibilities.

"Okay, we get in the elevator and go up through the hatch on top of it. We'll ride up there in case it opens on the occupied floors. And everybody keeps quiet. Got it?" he said.

"Got it" was the answer he got back with firm nods. The group had learned in the process of their trek just who was in charge and making decisions. Nearly two decades as a Marine had that effect on people.

"Good. Let's do it." He pressed the elevator button. "Everybody hide. If nobody is on the elevator then we get on it." They backed down the hallway to a crossway in the halls and turned around the corner out of sight. Alexander stood to the side of the elevator door with his back against the wall.

The elevator seemed to be taking its time, as if it were making multiple stops along the way. He had been afraid of that. If the Seppies were guarding the elevator then it should be obvious that it would not descend to the lower levels unless somebody had pressed a button. The elevator stopped at the ground level in the open court according to the display above the elevator door. Then it started up, again pinging with each floor level it passed. Ping, basement level one, Ping, basement level two, Ping, basement level three . . .

Good luck, Major! Abigail shouted in his mind. Oorah!

Oorah! His fight-or-flight reflex was on full alert and adrenaline coursed through his body. It's been a long time.

The elevator opened with a whoosh and then there was a click as somebody hit the stop button inside it. Alexander pushed himself back against the wall as tight as he could as the flood of elevator music washed over the quiet hallway. Had he pressed back any harder he might have crushed the drywall. The dull gray barrel of an HVAR rifle poked out the edge of the elevator door on the opposite side, pointing in a direction that was just in front of him by a few centimeters. A second barrel pointed out from his side of the elevator in a similar fashion.

Move, Major!

Alexander grabbed the rifle barrel closest to him with both hands and yanked it back against the elevator door, using the leverage of the door facing to force it free of its owner. As the rifle flung loose he adjusted his grip on the barrel and slammed it butt-first against the barrel of the rifle across the elevator door, pinning it against the door facing. He rushed the elevator door and stepped inside the firing path of the pinned-down HVAR, then recoiled the HVAR in his hands, and then hit the man holding that weapon square in the nose through his open faceplate with the butt of the rifle, cracking the bone and tearing a bloody gash, stunning the man. Alexander then used his body to wedge the man's rifle against the wall of the elevator.

In a single spinning motion, Alexander turned clockwise, jamming the barrel of the HVAR he had commandeered completely through the open faceplate of the other Seppy bastard in the elevator. By this time the Seppy soldier who had taken the rifle butt to the face had regained his composure and was fighting for control of the rifle Alexander held. In the process, one of them, and Alexander wasn't sure which one, he or the Seppy soldier, managed to pull the trigger just as the barrel began to recede from the faceplate of the other soldier's helmet. The hypervelocity round removed a major portion of the back side of the man's head and punched a hole through the elevator wall, splattering red foamy gray matter and skull across the wall of the elevator's plush green and yellow decorative wallpaper.

Alexander struggled with the soldier on his back for several seconds trying to get an upper hand or elbow or headbutt, with little luck or effectiveness. Neither of them could seem to get advantage on the other or maintain a grasp on either weapon long enough to do any damage to the other one. Several times the HVAR in Alexander's hands was triggered, sending hypervelocity rounds down the hallway and through the walls.

Jumpboots, Major! Abigail barked at him in drill-sergeant fashion.

Alexander dropped below the Separatist soldier, allowing the man the high ground. He took the bait and bear-hugged Alexander from behind and wrapped up on his e-suit helmeted head. Once Alexander was certain that the man's head was above his, he squatted lower, tucked his own head in as best he could, and bounced his jumpboots. The boots accelerated the two of them upward through the elevator ceiling, snapping the Separatist soldier's neck, and killing him instantly.

Stunned and uncertain of his attacker's condition, Alexander continued to fling wildly at the body behind him but both were stuck in the hole they had made.

At EASE, Major! Abigail calmed him. Sir! Senator, he's dead.

It took a few seconds for Alexander to regain his focus, but the jumpboots had worked. Now he was stuck in the elevator's ceiling with a dead man on his back. He squirmed and tugged for a few minutes until he managed to work his right hand free. A few more tugs and he managed to pull himself up through the hole in the elevator ceiling and turn himself over onto his bottom, sitting with his legs hanging through the hole. He dropped the dead Separatist soldier back through the hole and began checking himself for damage. None that he could see. Good.

That could have gone better, he thought.

How do we plan to get past them now? No doubt they will stop the elevator if it starts to move again, Abigail noted.

Shit, this isn't going well. We'll have to climb. I should have had a better plan. Too late now. Alexander had been a slow-thinking politician for the last decade or so and had been a long time away from combat strategy and tactics. He was angry with himself for now having given their position away and for endangering his wife and daughter. He had to think. But first things were first.

Alexander dropped back through the hole in the elevator ceiling, landing astraddle of one dead Separatist soldier. A second lifeless bloody mess lay against the back left corner of the elevator. The Stop button was still depressed and the doors of the elevator open wide.

"Wait out there for a moment, girls," he warned his wife, holding out his left hand palm forward. Sehera was peaking around the hall corner at the elevator to see if the coast was clear. "Reyez, come here a minute."

Reyez peaked his head around the corner to see if it was safe, then he straightened himself up and walked tall to the senator. Seeing the red bloody mess in the elevator, the adrenaline junkie had to turn his head and vomit.

"Aw shit!" Alexander moaned. He grabbed the body closest to the elevator door and dragged it out by the feet. "Get out of my way if you can't help," he told Reyez.

"No, I can help. I just never . . . uh!" Reyez began to heave again. Alexander just pushed him away from the elevator door with a swift kick in the ass and then set about moving the other body.

"Soft kids these days." Joanie Hassed, the little Triton woman, stepped in over the first dead body and gave Alexander a hand. "Saw a lot more than this on Triton during the raids."

Alexander understood what she meant. The raids on Triton were some of the bloodiest battles in the past decade—in human history, for that matter. Even the civilians ended up fighting for their lives. The Great American Plan to bring peace throughout Sol and the four colonies was still a long way from being successful. Many of the kids from this generation and one prior who lived on Earth or the Moon and a few places on Mars—like Mons City—had no idea of the utter horror humanity was still inflicting upon itself elsewhere.

"Thanks. We need to . . . " Alexander was about to explain that they needed to strip the two men of their e-suits and take all their weapons and gear, but the little Triton native was halfway through the process on the first body.

"Uh huh." Joanie nodded.

"Right then." Alexander smiled. A good Marine had to smile when he saw a real survivor.

" . . . Manuel . . . Charlie . . . are you there? Report!" Alexander heard faintly out of one of the e-suit helmets.

These suits are still keyed into the Seppy coms! The Seppies had older, less state-of-the-art, suits that did not go encrypted when the occupant was incapacitated like the American e-suits did. That technology had to be fifty years old.

ON IT! Abigail immediately started handshaking with the suit's low-level AI functions.

Can you spoof it?

Just a second. There. You can eavesdrop on this channel. I'll keep the audio open for you, Abigail replied.

Great work. Are they connected to the jamming signal at all? Alexander asked the AIC.

No. Not as I can tell.

Damn.

Yes, sir. Damn.

Well, keep on it. That jamming signal was the key to this whole mess, Alexander just knew it was.

Senator? the AIC added.

Yes, Abigail?

These suits are keyed into the Seppie IFF. The AIC said into Alexander's mind with what felt to him like excitement. The IFF or Identify Friend and Foe system in the Separatist e-suit helmets were keyed to understand the encrypted wireless signals and signatures of the Seppy troops and enabled their locations to be followed and mapped in HUDs or direct-to-mind maps. The U.S. troops used similar systems but ones that were more state-of-the-art. DTM had been the way of the warrior for many generations—it went as far back as the first Martian War in Sienna Madira's day.

Can you transfer the code to me? Senator Moore thought.

I think so, sir. But it will take a minute or two. And I'm not sure we have a minute or two. We'll have company soon.

Can we take his helmet?

No sir, we'd need his AIC. The average Seppy didn't carry an AIC but years of intelligence on the troops showed that they apparently did. Or perhaps, Elle Ahmi required it so she could keep tabs on all of them. General Ahmi was either brilliant at understanding and managing massive amounts of data or was a stone cold paranoid whack job—or maybe a little of both.

Where is it?

Here. The image of the Seppy appeared in Alexander's mind with a spot on the back of the dead man's head highlighted in red.

"Uh huh." Moore grunted and unsheathed the knife he'd liberated from the adventure shop and then twisted the man's e-suit helmet off. "This is gonna be gross." He nodded to Joanie to look away but instead she took the blade from him. Reyez looked as if he'd vomit again.

"Wait. I've done that before." The little woman from Triton hefted the dull gray two-decimeter-long monomolecular blade in her hand and studied its point for a second. "This'll do."

Joanie slid the point of the blade just behind the man's ear and pounded the base of the grip with the palm of her hand hard enough to crack through the skull bones. She twisted the knife and then pulled it out slowly. Dark red blood oozed out around the blade. She then repeated the process, this time slightly to the right of the previous bloody stab wound. Then she yanked the blade upward fairly hard and with a twist, causing bloody gray matter and pale white and pink skull bone fragments to crack free and spring upward being held together only by hair and skin. Joanie slid her finger into the man's brainpan just behind his left ear and fished around for a second.

"There it is." She pulled out a small orange and bloody red plastic device about the size and shape of a sunflower seed in its shell.

She did it, Senator. We have to go, now. They are coming down alternative elevators and stairwells. Here and here. Abigail showed him on a three-dimensional city map in his mind. I'll let you know when I get the IFF transfer.

"Great work, Joanie." Moore took the implant from her.

"You know you have to smash that thing or they can track us?"

"I'm counting on that . . . and a few other things. We have to get out of here now," he said as he listened to the Seppy open channel. The Seppies were missing their two buddies and were sending someone else to look for them. The dead Seppy's AICs could have alerted others to their presence, as Abigail couldn't be sure if her jamming attempts had worked or not. At least now they had two rifles, a handful of ordnance, and access to the enemy communications channel. And soon, hopefully very soon, they would have the enemy IFF.

"Look, Daddy." Deanna tugged at her father's arm pointing to a line of small holes in the drywall down the hallway.

Moore knelt beside his daughter. "What is it, baby?"

"Mommy and I were right here." Deanna pulled her father around the corner at the hallway crossing and crawled down onto the floor on all fours as best she could in the child-sized e-suit. "See?"

Alexander did see. Not only was his daughter smart, but she was lucky. The HVAR rounds that had gone off in a random spray during his scuffle with the Seppy soldiers had penetrated the wall in the main hallway and continued right on through the crossing hallway just above where Deanna and Sehera had been hiding. Reyez and Joanie had been on the other side of the hallway, but Moore's family had been right in the line of fire and very lucky and he had been very stupid.

"Jesus!" Alexander and Sehera both grabbed their daughter and began running their hands over her suit looking for puncture wounds. There were none. "Are you okay, sweetheart? You're okay, right?" Alexander gulped hard. "Sehera, you sure you're not hit?"

Abigail ran a quick vitals sweep with her QM sensors. They are unharmed, Senator.

Shit, that was so stupid of me. We have got to get them out of here.

"Alexander." Sehera looked at her husband sternly. "We cannot do that again."

"I know. I'm so sorry, dear. We have to get out of here."

"Look, I hate to break this up and all," Joanie interrupted. "But we should keep moving. Everybody is all right here, yes?" She nodded knowingly at Moore.

"Right, let's get moving."

Lieutenant Commander Jack Boland wiped the sweat off of his face and set his helmet on the seat of his Ares fighter. For some reason the squadron had been recalled and the fighters were zipping in through the braking field and slamming into the landing deck as fast as they could ingress.

"What the hell, Chief? I thought we were doing a second wave deep into the mountains past Elysium." He returned the salute to the maintenance chief climbing the ladder on the other side of the fighter and then stepped down another rung of his own ladder. Jack pulled the seal ring on his gloves and removed them with a pop swoosh. He tossed them beside his helmet as an afterthought.

"Yes, sir. It appears that the Madira and most of the fleet has been called to the Tharsis Mons region. Mons City has been overrun by a large invasion force and we are pulling out to there."

"No shit?" Jack couldn't believe what he was hearing. Mons City under attack? Those Seppy bastards have got some kind of balls.

I agree, sir, his AIC Candis commented.

"Well, pull that backseat hardware out of my fighter and reload it with standard gear. I suspect I'll be going back into the mix when we get there along with the rest of the Gods of War." Jack nodded to the chief. "Meantime, I'm gonna get some chow."

"Yes sir! I'd avoid the meatloaf sir. The stuff gave Hull Technician Third Class Joe Buckley the worst case of the shits I ever saw. He literally almost shit himself to death. Doc says he's gonna make it though." He laughed but his warning was serious. After all, it was the chief's job to make sure his pilots and their gear were always running top-notch and ship shape. He had to do his part in taking care of the men. Sure the CAG would say the pilots were his men, and the captain of the Madira would say they were his, but the chief knew different. He looked out for his men.

"Thanks, Chief. Has double zero reported in yet?" Boland asked.

"You haven't heard?" The chief turned three shades of pale.

"Heard what?" Jack stood still. He'd seen that look on the chief's face before. Even through the smut, oil, and other grime covering the chief's orange coveralls from head to toe he could tell the chief was hurting inside.

"Lieutenant Commander Tyler was shot down south of Elysium about fifteen minutes ago. She and her AIC were lost." The chief looked at his boots for a brief moment.

"Shit!"

"Yes sir. Seppy motherfuckers! Some of the pilots were saying there was a new Seppy mecha out there that got her. Did you see any new vehicles sir?"

"No. But I didn't engage them as long. I did see a whole shitload of mecha on the ground though."

"Remember sir, don't eat the meatloaf."

"See ya later, Chief. I can't believe it. And get that backseat out of my plane."

Jack couldn't believe it. Sarah Tyler, call sign EvilDead, good ol' double zero, the CAG, was shot down. Jack had known Sarah for years. They went through flight school together. Shit!

Yes sir. Shit! Candis agreed. Jack, the XO's AIC has ordered us to see him ASAP.

Tell him we're on our way. I guess the meatloaf can wait anyway.

"Lieutenant Commander Boland, sir!" Jack snapped a quick salute as he stepped into the XO's office. The chief executive officer looked up from his coffee cup and glanced to his right at his office couch. Captain Wallace Jefferson nodded to them both as well as a man that Boland had seen only one other time—the briefing where he met Nancy Penzington.

"At ease, gentlemen," the captain said. The man with no name was wearing a lieutenant's insignia, but Jack doubted that the man was in any branch of the military, since the last time he saw the man he was wearing an army colonel's uniform.

"Sir." Jack stood at ease with his hands behind his back.

"Have a seat, son," the XO said, waving to an office chair. Jack just nodded and took a seat.

"First things first." The captain started. "Was the package delivered?"

"The package was delivered coincident with the ordnance, sir," Jack said in a low, quiet tone. All the cloak-and-dagger stuff tended to make him lower his voice subconsciously.

"Good enough?" Captain Jefferson asked the "lieutenant."

"Excellent. Thank you, Captain, Colonel Chekov, and thank you, Lieutenant Commander Boland. Your country owes you a debt of gratitude. There will be a sealed classified commendation added to your personal records." The man offered to shake Jack's hand. Jack rose and gripped the man's hand firmly.

"Thank you, uh, Lieutenant." Jack smirked.

"Captain." The man nodded and made his exit from the XO's office.

"Is that all, sir?" Lieutenant Commander Boland asked.

"One more thing, Jack. Your new flight number is double zero again. Try not to blow up any civilian domes this time."

"Yes, sir."

"We'll expect you to say a few things at the service," Colonel Chekov added. "Sarah will be sorely missed."

"Yes, sir. She will. She has a daughter but she's grown. Still, she'll miss her mother." Jack straightened himself up. "Other orders, sir? What about this Mons City thing?"

"Well, Jack, it appears as though you'll be going to work in a couple hours or so. No rest for the CAG. Mons City has been overrun and the Churchill has been completely destroyed by sabotage as far as we can tell. Also, our long-range communications into the area have been completely jammed. Even the hardlines have been cut, but we're getting data out from daisy chained QM coms and from the Mars News Network AIC feeds."

"Jesus," Jack muttered.

"My sentiments exactly, son." The captain paused for a second.

"How did they sabotage the Churchill, sir?"

"We have zero intel or BDA at this point. We have no idea how they managed to get onto the ship and with ordnance. Maybe they used some ordnance already on the ship, but then how did they get to it? We could go nuts trying to figure that out without any data. So don't, that's an order." It was clear the CO was unhappy with the situation.

"Yes, sir."

"Just know that we are upping the security on all the ships in the fleet as we speak."

"Makes sense, sir. What do we do about Tharsis?" Jack was certain there was a big fight coming. Seppy bastards can't just blow up a U.S. Navy supercarrier and attack a city and expect to get away with it, he thought.

Absolutely not! Candis agreed.

"The air and space over the entire Tharsis region have been secured by the Seppies," the CO continued. "Initial drop tanks came in a large cargo freighter and dropped on the city at the same time the Churchill was destroyed. Then the freighter evaded the rest of the fleet over Tharsis just long enough to lure them in and detonate itself. The thing went off with the energy of a gluonium bomb and took out most of the local fleet."

"Holy shit, sir. Gluonium? Where did they get that?"

"Good question. There's more. Only minutes after the freighter's detonation, six carriers dropped out of hyperspace from somewhere out past Kuiper Station. Drop tanks and other Seppy mecha have been scattered across the region. The bastards can only hold the space for a few more hours with just six ships. We are going to bring all eighteen supercarriers and more than ten lesser-sized vehicles of the fleet in and crush them if the president gives the go-ahead. Unfortunately, there are over five million hostages in the Olympus Mons area, and more than twenty-five million spread out in the other Tharsis mountain cities, all assumed captured with many thousands dead. We've received no terms from the Seppies, so who knows what they are planning."

"Where did they get six carriers from, sir?"

"Your guess is as good as any right now. And Jack, there is one more glitch here."

"Sir?"

"We just got a courier from Earth in a small ship capable of hyperspace. The courier brought us this data straight from the Pentagon. Since the long-range coms are jammed we're sending messages back and forth the old-fashioned way." The CO tapped a few keys on a console at his desk and spun the monitor around for Jack to see. "Read this intel. It is quite alarming. The Seppies have a new fighter mecha that appears to be a poor man's copy of the FM-12. Analysts' details are in there, but if you haven't heard yet, we encountered a squadron of them after you had gone past the engagement zone. They are formidable and there are eyewitness accounts and computer analyses of them in there as well. All I can suggest is that you read this intel and plan accordingly."

"Aye, sir."

"The main thing is to prepare air support for an attack on six carriers, with the Sienna Madira running point and minimizing damage to the civilian population and hostages and at the same time allow for a VIP extraction at the ground coordinates in the file. I want you to have the air group ready in ninety minutes. We attack in two hours and thirty minutes. Understood, Lieutenant Commander?" The captain stared at him tight-lipped.

"Sir! I'm on it."

"And . . . DeathRay . . . "

"Sir?"

"Good hunting."

"Yes sir!"