One Day on Mars

tenth of a second is about eighty-five Earth gravities. The inertial dampening controls of the Ares fighter craft reduced the effect by generating a dampening field around the aircraft. This field served two purposes: 1) to add structural integrity to the fighter plane and 2) to reduce the effect of the g-forces to something that human pilots could withstand.

'Hot damn what a rush!' Jack breathed rapidly like a woman giving birth and spat out obscenities almost as proficiently. He grunted as the overwhelming g-forces from the catapult acceleration subsided.

Jack slowed his breathing a bit and scanned the sky, turning his head left and right slightly, and looked at the viewscreens displaying under and behind him. At the same time his AIC DTMed a full-scale three dimensional and immersive spherical view of the space around him. He could look in any direction and see space outside rather than the interior of the fighter. The view was partially transparent so that he could still monitor other instruments and controls inside the cockpit that were not virtual.

The sky was littered with explosions and flashes of light above and behind him; beneath him was the red planet. In his virtual mindview Jack could see the other planes from his squadron being flung from the Sienna Madira supercarrier. His young wingman pulled in beside the squadron leader on his right. Jack could see the inexperienced pilot scanning around her cockpit virtual view for bogies.

He could also see the main gun batteries of the Madira firing in rapid succession. Missile contrails spilled away from the mammoth warship through the thin upper Martian atmosphere. Some of them impacted the Seppy ship's shield plating and boiled off large chunks of the armor in brilliant orange and white flashes of debris clouds.

The DTM view showed that both the Demon Dawgs and the Utopian Saviors were dishing out a good bit of hell to the mix of Separatist Gnats and Stingers that were buzzing the fleet. The flagship, the U.S.S. George Washington, the U.S.S. Margaret Thatcher, the U.S.S. Boris Yeltsin, and the U.S.S. Nelson Mandela were pouring missiles and directed energy beams into the Separatist fleet. The Seppies were maneuvering slowly but returning fire. They were attempting to use the crossfire as cover and trying to mix into the Martian contingent of the American fleet to force the fleet ships to cease fire with their main guns for fear of friendly fire casualties.

The tactic was working fairly well for the Seppies. The strategy, on the other hand, at the moment seemed all on the side of the Americans because the original five ships that came out of hyperspace first were bait. The ten or so Seppy ships, which included the six carriers, had not counted on the eight supercarriers from Earth, three from Luna, and two from the outer planets as well as ten smaller yet still powerful support vehicles ready to drop out of hyperspace nearby. The Martian contingent of U.S. ships had taken the first beating but were now making a run for it to get out of the way of the fleet vehicles waiting to mop up.

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