that it is too fucking thick with Seppies up there for us to just drop in on them unannounced with no backup,' Gunnery Sergeant Suez told Corporal Bates as the two of them dug in behind several large rocks. The landscape reminded Tommy of Tennessee more than any place he'd ever seen. Had he not known he was fifteen, or sixteen, or whatever number of light-years away from Earth, he'd have sworn he was somewhere just south of Knoxville. The steep hills covered with large oaks and white limestone rocks reminded him of that one time he had been to the Smoky Mountains when he had been a kid. He remembered being bored to tears as his parents drove around gawking at trees and waterfalls and bears and shit. This forest had enough going on in it, like enemy soldiers and tanks firing at them, that he didn't expect boredom to be a problem.
'Well, I was thinking that the governor might invite us in for tea,' Bates replied.
'Gunny?' Colonel Roberts's voice came in through the net.
'Yes, sir, Colonel?'
'We need to dig in here for now and hold this spot. As soon as we see hell coming down from above, we'll make our push. Get your squad covered and do not let the Seppies advance on us. Watch out for those M3A16s. Those tanks are older than ours, but they're still tanks nonetheless.'
'Yes, sir.' Tommy checked his DTM mindview. Bates was right beside him. Howser, Willingham, and Sergeant Hubbard were dug in about fifty meters to his east, near the bank of the river.
'Top, got a second?' Tommy called to Tamara.
'Well, Gunny, other than ducking all this goddamned Seppy cannon fire and DEG plasma and watching out for these exploding fucking trees around me, I'm not that busy. I was considering taking a nap.' It was the typical AEM joke. Tommy ignored it. Well, first he chuckled to himself, then he ducked and prayed as a tree just behind him crashed after it exploded about five meters up the trunk,
'Well, Top, I'd hate to bother you while you're napping, but did you notice this river about a hundred meters to your east?'
'Uh, yeah, Tommy, what about it?'
'Well, Top, it has a barge channel in it, and it goes all the way to the front lawn of the governor's mansion.' Tommy thought for a second, then added, 'You think a tank can walk underwater?'
'Son of a bitch. Hold on, Gunny. I need to talk to the two colonels,' Top said.
'What's up, Tommy?' Bates asked him.
'Danny, are you up for a swim?'
'I don't know, Mason, it might work. We might be able to go really quiet, as quiet as we fucking can, and slip right past them. Especially if there were enough resistance from the line here, it might just work. The Army armored infantry and some more tankheads could do that.' Colonel Warboys listened to Colonel Roberts's wild-assed, harebrained, bat-crazy U.S. Marine scheme over the command net.
'Well, if we timed it with some help from above, I believe that might do. What do we do when we get there?' Warboys thought about it briefly as he ran his bot-mode tank through the forest, dodging trees and anti-mecha fire. He pulled up maps of the park and details of the rivers and was beginning to see a plan. 'We'd be behind the lines, and they wouldn't be looking for us. A few tanks could cover you AEMs long enough to get inside and take the QMT controls. I dunno, Ramy. It's risky. But it might just work. It's a long shot your AEMs would survive.'
'Hell, Mason, sitting around here like fish in a barrel ain't?'
'Good point. Shit! Guns, guns, guns!' He turned over backward to avoid incoming while returning fire in the general direction. He probably didn't hit anything but a fucking tree, but it might have at least made some Seppy bastard duck. 'All right, Ramy. I'm getting tired of this shit. Our diversion strategy should still be our original strategy. The
