One Day on Mars

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.

'XO, check that!' Captain Jefferson ordered in response. Uncle Timmy, spread the word around the fleet!

Yes, Captain.

'Quartermaster of the watch!' the XO called.

'Aye sir!' Quartermaster Senior Chief Patea Vanu snapped away from his viewscreen and looked at the XO standing at the window.

'Captain, I'm hearing similar reports from the tankheads on the ground.' The COB added. 'This might be like that one time back in the Desert Campaigns where General Ahmi jammed the Luna City Marines, sir.'

'Hmm, could be COB.'

'Senior Chief Vanu, get me about five lookouts on each deck of the ship that has a portal counting enemy ships with their eyeballs and comparing them to the virtuals. Make it fast.' The XO ordered. He had to place his hands on the safety rail at the window in order to keep from losing his balance from the ship being thrown around by enemy missiles impacting the hull plating. 'Jesus!'

'Aye.'

'Where is that fire coming from?' The CO looked at four different virtual screens in front of him: one scrolling the Madira's health and stores, one scrolling a summarized version of the first for all of the Martian Contingent (the Mandela had a new wing added to it when one of the dying Seppy carriers had rammed it full throttle, both listed out of commission), one displaying battle damage assessments on the attacking Seppy fleet ships (two had already been completely destroyed and another one was heavily damaged), and one with continuous casualty reports. The virtual sphere around his head was a continuous update and display of the battle outside at a small enough scale to fit the battle within it. The ship rocked hard to port again.