to Jack was how did the Seppies build or acquire so much mecha without the orbiting reconnaissance platforms detecting them. Even if the factories were underground there would be telltale signs that the orbiting sensor stations would have uncovered over the years.
'You still hanging in back there, ma'am?' He pulled the Ares fighter into a roll-out to avoid surface-to-air fire from one of the tanks. Flak
'How much further to the drop site?' Nancy asked through gritted teeth. Her knuckles were white from gripping the safety restraints on the backseat of the little fighter-bomber. Of course, her AIC knew exactly how far it was to the drop site, but she had to show some sign of coherence or the lieutenant commander might think she was unconscious or dead and not carry through with the mission.
She had to make it past Elysium—Elysium was the edge of the Martian Separatist region that Sienna Madira had forced the civil disobedient citizens to retreat into—to Phlegra or perhaps Propontis, which were two of the major untouched Separatist stronghold cities deeper within the Reservation. Her mission was to figure out just where the hell the Separatists had been getting all of their recent military buildup from and who was supporting them under the covers—and how.
Thirty years ago, an inspection team would have just flown into the region to see what the hell was going on. But that was before Elle Ahmi in her destinctive red, white, and blue ski mask, long brown hair, Martian desert camouflage, and black fingernails. Ahmi had appeared as if from nowhere as the new terrorist leader and set a fire in the bellies of all the Separatist of the Sol System and perhaps even in the other colonies as well. Nobody was quite certain what Ahmi looked like without the mask, but the various intelligence agencies had been working the problem for three decades.
Once Ahmi became the undisputed leader of the Separatist Union she gave any non-Separatists two Earth days to leave the north region of Mars from Elysium all the way up to Propontis. Then the Seppies began a cleansing effort the likes of which mankind had never seen. The cleansing wasn't genetic; it was philosophical. The Seppy troops used special AICs allegedly developed by Ahmi herself to determine the thought patterns of the Separatist citizens. If they were sympathetic to the U.S. they were fried on the spot—literally fried, doused in oil and set aflame. Fire seemed to be a preferred ritual execution method with the Seppies.
Mankind had often imagined a 'thought police' but the day had finally come when over four hundred thousand people were murdered because of the thoughts in their heads. What it had left in the Reservation was a core million or so of pure Separatist zealot U.S. haters. And after thirty or so years of polygamous procreation the projected population of the Reservation was around eleven million fighting-age adults and twenty million children. Of course, the Seppies considered an adult to be fourteen Earth years old. All thirty-one million of them were most certainly pure Separatist brainwashed zealots. Allison, Nancy's AIC, had been training almost all of her life to overcome and fool the 'thought police.' Hopefully, the AI CIA agent was up to the challenge.
The administration at the time thirty years prior was too spineless and public-poll-driven to send the full military might in to stop the Separatist cleansing. Instead, the damned politicians had an insufficient number of troop divisions dropped into the Reservation borders expecting the Separatists to bow down to the might of the United States military. It was a massacre instead.
Only a few Marines from the Luna City Brigade even survived the conflict. Entire Army mecha platoons were lost and the artillery was completely overrun and destroyed. Due to political reasons air support wasn't used. Had the campaign been run from space instead, history might have turned out a lot different. But as history had unfolded, the last thirty years had been a mess of war, uncomfortable peace, and 'skirmishes' that from any sane frame of reference were clearly battles in a continuous war effort.
The handfuls of Marines that did survive the original Desert Campaigns had been captured and had spent years in prisoner-of-war camps before they were released back to the U.S. government officials at the Elysium Embassy. Since then, the Separatists had fiercely guarded their borders. They conducted business negotiations at the Elysium Embassy or in Mons City but never within the Reservation. Outsiders were simply not allowed within the borders of the Separatist country—ever. They had been receiving support from somewhere, but from where?
'We are still another three hundred kilometers west of the drop zone, ma'am. We'll be there lickety-split.'
Got it, Candis!
'Hold on!' Jack squeezed every muscle in his body to force blood to his brain as the fighter took evasive maneuvers from the surface-to-air missile rapidly encroaching on their personal space. Candis automatically released countermeasures but they were too late. The countermeasures triggered the missile detonation too close to the fighter, rocking it into a hard yaw to the right. The shield plating held but the fighter was tossed into a flat spin.
'Holy shit!' Jack screamed and pulled the HOTAS controls full back, which didn't help at all. He continued grunting loudly and squeezing his abdominal muscles as the fighter whirled helplessly out of control, spinning its occupants at mind bending g-force levels.
'Oh my God!' Nancy let out a panicked cry as the world around her began to tunnel in. She could see a dim light at the end of the tunnel way off in the distance.
'Warning unsafe g-loading . . . ' the fighter's 'Bitching Betty' voice blasted over the cockpit speakers.
'No shiiittt!' Jack grunted.
The Ares fighter was built tougher than any fighter craft mankind had ever managed but even it could take only so many g's before the wings ripped off. As the fighter rolled within its now tumbling spin, Jack could see lights high in the horizon that must be the Phlegra Montes in the distance. He sure as hell didn't want to see them any closer. Ares fighters had been flown into mountains before—the mountains always won.
'Goddamnit all to hell!' Jack forced the HOTAS as hard forward as his g-loaded arms would allow. His AIC began automated recovery controls and between the two of them the tumbling spin began to dampen out. Jack eased back on the stick and grunted again to force more blood back into his brain.
