The DTM virtual threat system lit up like a Christmas tree with Seppy Gomers painted all over the sky and ground. Lock-on warnings started blaring and the AIC-fighter connection began targeting multiple bogies.
'Holy shit, DeathRay! I've got sensors and targeting!' Fish announced over the net. Similar calls began coming in across the planet and the sky. 'I've got multiple targeting solutions.'
'Well, quit telling me about it and fucking fire, mister!' DeathRay replied while following his own advice. 'Fox three, fox three, guns, guns, guns!'
'All right, Killers, let's show these Seppy motherfuckers what real mecha is!' Burner ordered the Marine squadron of FM-12 strike mecha into the fray. The FM-12 strike mecha was considered the most efficient high-technology piece of armed lethal force in the known universe and the Marine pilots knew that it was even more lethal in the hands of a full blooded heartbreaking and life-taking United States Marine! Burner never even backed off the throttle or the guns as he rolled from fighter-mode into bot-mode at a full-velocity run. 'Full velocity with maximum ferocity' was the motto of the Marine FM-12 strike mecha drivers. Lieutenant Colonel John 'Burner' Masterson dove headlong over the top of Lieutenant Colonel Warboys—an Army puke who had gotten himself into a goddamned pickle—tackling a Seppy drop tank that was in bot-mode and chasing Warboys' ass.
'Guns, guns, guns!' Burner judo-twirled and tossed the enemy mecha over a tank-mode mecha thirty meters to his right and fired the jumper jets on the mecha's feet. As Burner rolled in the air over two oncoming enemy bot- mode tanks he was forced to twist and maneuver the body of his FM-12 in order to get through the onslaught of their missiles and cannon fire—a feat that couldn't have been accomplished without his AIC-to-fighter combination working properly. The missiles spiraled around trying to gain purchase on the Marine's mecha but Burner was too good for them.
'Guns, guns, guns!' He set the twin shoulder-mounted forty-millimeter cannons loose in full anti-missile tracking mode. The purple and blue ion trail from the cannon rounds tracked across the path of the first, missile detonating it into a nearly perfect round orange fireball. The shrapnel from the lead missile performed acts of fratricide by detonating the other missiles in turn.
'Fox three!' A missile flew off, taking out a Stinger on approach to strafe him just as Burner righted his mecha standing behind the two enemy bot-mode tanks. He reached out with the butt end of his DEG and slammed it through the cockpit of the mecha on his left while stomping through the back of the mecha on his right, all the while his AIC firing continuously at multiple targets, and hitting them.
'Sweet goddamn, it smells like victory!' Boulder screamed out triumphantly over the net. 'Guns, guns, guns.'
'Scratch three!' One Night replied.
'BullNutz! BullNutz, you got a Stinger dropping in on your six at cherubs two!' Ace in the Hole said.
'I got 'em!' Epoxy replied as his DEG targeting system locked on and burned the Seppy fighter plane with a blue-green energy bolt that nearly ripped the Stinger in two. The enemy mecha fell with a hard
'Oorah, Epoxy!' BullNutz thanked his wingman.
'Oorah!'
Chapter 18
1:54 PM Mars Tharsis Standard Time
'CDC. CO.' Captain Jefferson was having trouble understanding the warnings going off in his head. They were launch warnings of undesignated vehicles but there were so many that it made no sense. The virtual sphere in his head changed scale to encompass Mars out past the Belt and all the way to Luna City. There were trajectories scattering the sphere that, at that scale, were merely blinking red dots. But there were so many red dots that the CO was having trouble comprehending what it was he saw.
'Aye, sir?'
'What the hell is going on? I'm seeing hundreds maybe thousands of launch warnings. Several hundred from Mars space, the Belt, and, well hell, all over the damned system!'
'Yes sir. It looks like every damned ship in the solar system just lifted off. We are also getting hyperspace signatures as soon as they clear the gravity wells, sir.' The CDC sounded as confused as the CO did.
'Hyperspace! Here?'
'I don't think so, sir. Some of the ships going to hyperspace are leaving from Mars and have been in the conduits longer than it would take to get to you. No exits detected, sir?'
'What the . . . ?'
'Sir, we just lost the main DEGs on all forward decks!' the XO said. The overheating had been a problem since the Seppy ships had started focusing their attack on the flagship. The SIFs holding the hull plating together on one side would overheat while the DEG coolant systems were overheating on the other and there was no balance that seemed to be working. Were it not for the Marine mecha pilots on the hull of the ship and the Ares pilots in the mix, the supercarrier might have to abort the mission and attempt a run at hyperspace.
'Goddamnit, Larry, get me my main guns back online!'
Kira Shavi and her AIC Allison had made an impression on the right Separatist Prime Wife and her daughter. Elise Tangier had turned out to be the niece of Gisele Tangier, the true Prime Wife of the Tangier shipping dynasty of the Separatist Laborers Guild. The Separatists' view of economics had often been considered socialistic by intelligence reports. But from all that Kira could discern, they were nothing less than purely capitalistic. True, the Separatists and all their resources seemed to be spent toward freeing the entire Reservation. But the direction of any individual's resources appeared to be fully owned and controlled by that individual. It didn't appear to Kira or Allison that General Ahmi told Gisele Tangier what she could or could not do with her wealth. Still, all of the wealth of the entire Separatist culture seemed to be focused toward something more specific than just 'freedom.' This Exodus that Elise had spoken of was the most likely candidate. And it was often that the Separatists would use the phrase 'Ahmi was served!' enthusiastically and emotionally, but Kira was still uncertain of its true meaning.
Kira sat in the small, but very accommodating, stateroom that Elise had put her in once they boarded the
