tanks and grunts on the line hold it until we get support from above. Then they try to poke a hole in the line and rush through to the mansion. By then we might be there, and we'd probably need somebody to cover our asses.' Mason liked the plan. Well, it wasn't so much that he liked it as he liked it better than sitting around dodging cannon fire and exploding trees. The marine's plan was bold, daring, sneaky, and only a little bat-shit crazy. Only a little.
'I agree with that plan. We should shoot it up to the ground boss,' Roberts said to the senior colonel.
'Yep. I'm a little busy over here. You want to take care of that?' Warboys dove his tank over a downed tree, taking cover from an incoming rain of anti-mecha fire. One of the tracer rounds passed just below his canopy and between the arm and torso of his mecha.
Warlord One's targeting system tracked the trajectory of the railgun rounds back to the generation-old tank that had nearly got him and then locked on with the DEG.
'Guns, guns, guns!' he shouted. The directed energy burst from the barrel atop his bot-mode tank and traced across the hillside, cutting through several oaks as it did. The DEG blast followed the enemy tank as it bounced through the woods up and down the slope until it finally hit its mark. The energy burst tore into the cockpit of the Arcadian M3A16 hovertank. The bot-mode tank exploded at the seams in an orange flash and then fell forward, sliding to a halt into an oak tree farther down the slope. Black smoke poured from the dead tank's joints and seals.
'Ground boss likes the plan, but can't be certain when we'll get top cover. Apparently, things are tough all over up there,' Roberts communicated back to him. 'I tried to convince them that things were tough all over down here, too. They said they would try to get us some FM-12s for backup.'
'Air cover would be nice,' Warboys replied.
'How long will it take you tankheads to walk ten kilometers underwater and against a current?'
'Uh, my AIC says eighteen point six minutes. Let's shoot for twenty- five,' Warboys answered the Marine colonel.
'Got it. I'll work the plan. Assuming we get approval, let's be ready to move in five minutes. Pick your team and start moving them to the river without looking like you're moving them to the river.'
'Roger that, Ramy. Let's do it.'
'All right, folks, listen up!' Warlord One broadcast to all the tanks, AAIs, and AEMs. 'Our mission is to take the governor's mansion. That is where the controls for that QMT facility are supposed to be, so we can't just blow it up from space. We have to march in there and take it away from the bastards standing there. Let's go show them how the United States of America plays king of the hill.'
'Hoowah!'
'Oorah!'
The Warlords totaled twelve state-of-the-art M3A17 transfigurable tank mecha. There were two squads of AEMs and three squads of AAIs. Warboys's DTM view of the battlescape showed him at least fifty enemy tank mecha and more than a thousand ground troops, and that was just in the near vicinity. His long-range sensors showed a much larger mass of troops just beyond the main line between them and where the control center for the orbiting QMT facility was.
'Warlord Two, you and the rest of the even numbers will stay here and lead this attack. I'll take the odd-numbered Warlords and a few AEMs for a swim,' Warboys ordered his second-in-command.
Chapter 23
July 1, 2394 AD
Ross 128, Arcadia Orbit
Friday, 3:38 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
The Utopian Saviors had been ordered to hit the Seppy supercarrier closest to the planet with all they had. The Demon Dawgs were backing them up and drawing the enemy ship's AA. Deuce and Goat, and Jawbone and Popstar had their FM-12s in bot mode, bouncing across the side of the hull of the giant armored spaceship that was presently facing the planet like
