one by one they marched up the steep ramp on one side and entered the bowels of the massive ship. Jeff was one of the first to go up. He stepped awkwardly on the steel grating, almost falling more than once. He was still not quite used to walking and moving in reduced gravity, particularly not on a sloped surface.
The inside of the ship was well lit in the cargo area, the power supplied by the auxiliary power unit, which was still running. The APCs were secured nose outward, up against the walls, two meters separating each vehicle from the sides, ten meters separating them from the next row, which left just enough of a corridor to maneuver and drive down. The corridor led to a series of ramps that dropped from one level in the ship to another. Steel locking straps held each of the APCs down.
'Waters,' Walker told him, pointing to one, 'that one is yours.' It was a standard Alexander Industries APC, the WestHem flag painted just above the WestHem Marine Corps symbol.
'Can I scratch out that fuckin flag and that fuckin marine shit?' he asked, kicking at it with his feet.
'There'll be time for that later,' Walker told him. 'For now, just get in the thing and drive it.'
'Right,' he said.
'Be gentle with the controls,' Hicks put in. 'Pretend you're playing with your dick. I'm sure you know how to do that.'
'At least I have a sex drive, dickweed,' Jeff shot back. 'I don't spend all day thinking about...'
'Enough of that shit!' Walker barked. 'Waters, get your vehicle ready for transport. Hicks, you climb in the one next to him and keep your damn mouth shut about it.'
Grumbling and groaning, but not saying much of anything, they went to work releasing the vehicles. It was a simple matter of pulling a lever where the strap met the floor and it was free. They folded them up and stowed them against the wall. They then climbed up onto the front of the vehicles, to the hatch that led to the inside.
'Don't run your fuckin armor into mine, Waters,' Hicks told him as he put his feet through the hatch and began to drop inside.
'Wouldn't touch it with a five meter pole,' Jeff responded, pulling open his own hatch.
The inside of the vehicle was spotlessly clean despite the fact that it had been sitting in storage aboard the landing craft for at least the last ten years with no maintenance of any kind being done. This was because the armor ships had been kept in vacuum, with no moisture or oxygen to cause the sorts of problems that they caused. It was, however, very dark in there, especially when the hatch was closed behind him. He turned on his combat goggles in order to see the controls before him. Just as he had been briefed in the training class on basic armor operation, he turned on the batteries and powered up the computer systems first and foremost.
The lights came on, allowing him to turn the goggles back off, and the two computer screens came to life with system status reports and command buttons. He opened up the view screens before him first, allowing him to see outside, and then took a look at the state of the vehicle on the screens. The fuel tank was completely full of liquid hydrogen to run the turbine engine, the oxygen tank was completely full of liquid oxygen to allow the hydrogen to burn, the batteries were at seventy percent charge, the computer systems were all operational, and the overall status was listed as within operational parameters. He then sat, breathing the air in his suit and listening to the mutterings of the other squad members while he waited for the command to start the engine and pull out.
That command came thirty minutes later, after a few insults between he and Hicks had been traded and they had been told once again to shut the fuck up by Walker. Jeff made sure that the transmission for the vehicle was in neutral and then pushed the tab on the screen for engine start. The powerful turbine engine ground several times and then lit up with a whine. The entire vehicle began to softly vibrate.
'Squad,' Walker said a few minutes later. 'Let's move out. Head downward, the way we came in, at a very slow pace. If one of these things gets jammed in the corridor it'll be a bitch and a half to work free. Waters, you're in front. You get the honor of going first.'
'Right, sarge,' he said, licking his lips a little and putting his hands on the controls. For once, Hicks didn't have a remark to throw back at him.
He pushed the tab on the screen that put the transmission into forward and the smooth whine of the engine lugged down the slightest bit. He went over the controls in his mind one last time — the T-bar on the front controlled direction, the right pedal controlled acceleration, the left provided braking — and then eased forward. The treads of the heavy machine clanked on the steel deck and he moved out into the corridor. With a push of the T-bar the left tread slowed up and the vehicle turned in that direction. After only a few fits and starts he was soon facing down the corridor that led out.
'Not bad, Waters,' Walker told him. 'Now head on down. Remember where our staging location is and head directly there.'
'Right, sarge,' he responded.
Level by level he clanked along, descending out of the ship. The ramps between levels were a bit frightening for someone who had never driven a vehicle of any kind before, let alone a sixty metric ton APC. Gravity, as weak as it was on the surface of Mars, pulled the entire machine downward at a frightening rate, making it seem like it was on the verge of rolling out of control. On the first such descent Jeff instinctively braked hard, bringing the vehicle to a jarring halt and throwing himself forward into the T-bar. It was then he discovered that he'd forgotten to fasten the restraining strap.
The final ramp was the most terrifying of all. Though it was nearly as wide as the ship itself, it was a forty- degree descent to the loading area nearly thirty meters below. To Jeff it looked like two or three kilometers. He hesitated for the briefest of seconds on the edge, gathering his nerve, long enough for Hicks, who was directly behind him, to notice.
'What's the matter, Waters?' he asked over the tactical radio. 'Afraid you might fall over and bump your little nose? Get that fuckin thing down there! You're holding me up.'
'If I was holding you up I'd drop your ass, you can count on that,' Jeff replied sourly. But his antagonist's words had done the trick. He goosed the accelerator and eased over the threshold. The APC began to pick up speed and he stepped on the brake, slowing it. Soon he was down on the ground. He maneuvered the APC onward, steering through and around other groupings of vehicles until he arrived at the assigned staging area for his squad.
One by one the rest of the APCs arrived, parking in a semi-neat formation around him. Walker took a quick roll call from his own APC and then told them to form up on him. He began to clank along, heading for the edge of the spaceport and the open ground beyond it. Soon all ten APCs were on the gritty Martian sand, traversing around the edge of the city towards the MPG base.
The 17th ACR now had its vehicles. All they needed now was someone to fight.
Deep Space near the orbit of Mercury
July 18, 2146
The
Deep within its hull was Landing Ship F, which was a troop housing and transport vessel. On the fourth deck of that particular landing ship were the birthing quarters for Lieutenant Eric Callahan and his forty-man platoon of the 314th Marine ACR. Their quarters were far from luxurious. On the contrary, they were living in an area that had been designed to house two squads. The room was less than twenty meters long and less than five wide. Bunk style hammocks had been strung up from ceiling to floor lining both walls, with only the area where the doors were left uncovered. The smell in the berthing area was not particularly pleasant either. Showers onboard the ship were a strictly rationed luxury, as were laundry facilities. Most of the men had gone for more than a week without bathing and nearly twice that without having clean clothing.
Everyone was bored and out of sorts from spending the last three weeks in these cramped and smelly conditions. Fights broke out on a regular basis, usually over trivial things such as imagined insults or card games. About the only solace was the Internet screen on the far wall, just above the doorway. And this was a solace that had quickly grown old. All it ever showed was news channels that were being beamed to the ship from a communications satellite in Earth orbit.
One such channel was being played now, as the majority of the platoon lay on their racks. It was yet another briefing by General Wrath, their commanding officer. He was explaining to the solar system how the fighting morale of his men was as high as ever although they sincerely hoped that the rogue Martians that were holding the planet hostage would come to their senses and give up peacefully before their arrival.
