Greenies

Deep space, just outside the orbit of Mars

The armada was now well into its deceleration burn. Every surviving ship had turned its rear end towards Mars, which was now visible as a bright red orb glowing in space, and was running its fusion engines at .25G. This time Admiral Jules and the rest of the command staff were actually expecting an attack to occur. By now word that four of the Owls that had been docked at TNB were now missing had reached them from naval intelligence. Since they had encountered only three of the Owls at this point in time, it stood to reason that they just might encounter the fourth as well. And the deceleration burn was the perfect time for such an encounter from the enemy's point of view. With the ships on acceleration in the opposite direction, their sensors had a difficult time detecting objects approaching from directly in their path. The plasma from the engines tended to scramble outgoing radar signals and mask infrared hits.

Hammerhead, the fourth of the Owls, obligingly made herself known right during this period. Since the armada was now moving at less than half the speed that it had during most of the trip, she was forced to employ a different attack tactic. Instead of simply sitting still in relation to the targets, she had accelerated as they'd approached, bringing her own velocity to forty kilometers per second directly towards the target ships. This maintained a closing speed of nearly seventy kilometers per second, which would allow for a speedy escape after the weapon release.

Hammerhead released her first torpedo 350,000 kilometers from Pacaderm. It was yet another near-perfect release, with the weapon approaching in the clutter from the plasma and closing to less than 6000 kilometers before being detected. There was barely enough time for the anti-missile systems to come on line and begin putting up a defense before the weapon reached forty kilometers and detonated, erasing yet another Panama class and another 20,000 marines.

Hammerhead's second torpedo, which was aimed at Mammoth, did not fair quite as well. It was detected more than 60,000 kilometers out by flight of A-22s making a sweep of the area in response to the attack on Pacaderm. Once detected by the attack ship the torpedo became easy fodder. It was dispatched by two close range shots from the A-22s heavy lasers, which exploded the rocket fuel and fragmented the warhead itself into millions of tiny pieces.

Hammerhead herself was detected by another flight of A-22s ninety minutes later. Since by that time the tail end of the armada was already passing them by, only one other flight was in position to go on the offensive against her. The four A-22s made firing runs at her from two different directions, scoring two shots amidships and one direct hit on the engine room. However, Hammerhead proved a formidable enemy. She destroyed two of the A-22s and forced the other two to withdraw, one with heavy damage that required the crew to eject and be picked up by a rescue ship. Hammerhead herself suffered two hull breaches, lost one engine, and a significant propellant leak in her tanks. Sixteen crewmembers were killed and eleven were injured. Despite the damage, the remaining crew was able to seal the holes in the ship, plug the leak, and get the ship turned around for a deceleration burn.

The armada passed her by and continued on their own deceleration burns towards Mars and an eventual orbital inclination. With this passing, Operation Interdiction, the first operation of the Martian Navy and the first major action of the war, came to a close. The operation could only be described as a success. Though three of the four vessels participating had been engaged, destroying one outright and damaging two, with a loss of nearly 200 men and women, Interdiction caused the deaths of more than 83,000 WestHem marines and the loss of nearly one fifth of the battle equipment and fuel allotted for Operation Martian Hammer. It was the greatest loss by the WestHem Navy in its entire history, including the Jupiter War.

That night, on Mars, Laura Whiting and Admiral Belting appeared live on MarsGroup and finally announced the existence of the operation. They explained that the need for security had kept them from making mention of it before. The briefing was given in exacting detail, from the first recruitments shortly after the seizure of the planet to the last shots fired only hours before by Hammerhead. Admiral Belting, after giving a mournful speech for those that had been lost in the operation, gleefully gave a conservative estimate of the damage that had been inflicted to WestHem. The Martian people — particularly those who would be fighting out in the wastelands soon — cheered as one as they heard that 60,000 to 80,000 marines had been killed and that millions of tons of equipment had been destroyed.

'This doesn't mean that the fight is over,' Whiting said after Belting had finished his briefing. 'Not by any means. There are still over 400,000 marines set to land on our planet in less than a week. But with the success of Operation Interdiction, we have evened the odds considerably. Keep up the spirit shown by those brave men and women of Interdiction, and we will prevail in this fight and our planet will remain free.'

WestHem authorities, who received a copy of the Interdiction briefing by naval intelligence sources operating from the armada's flagship, played a heavily edited copy of it for the WestHem populace. In this copy, Laura Whiting seemed to say that Interdiction consisted of a series of suicide attacks with captured Owls that had been guided to their targets by EastHem Henry's that had been tracking the armada. The WestHem people were of course infuriated by this treachery and demanded that stern action be taken against those responsible once Mars was back in WestHem hands. Loretta Williams, the executive council spokesperson on all matters relating to Mars, assured WestHem that Laura Whiting, General Jackson, and the so-called Admiral Belting would all be tried for terrorist acts and crimes against humanity once they were captured.

August 14, 2146

Martian space

One by one, the ships of the armada, their fusion engines now idle, were captured by the Martian gravity and pulled into orbit around the red planet. Using short bursts of their main engines and longer blasts from maneuvering thrusters, they settled into a geosynchronous inclination some 100 degrees west of Triad. It took more than sixteen hours for all of the ships to get into position, but once they were, they formed a tight group with the transports on the inside surrounded by a solid perimeter of escorts and battleships. Active sensors were powered up and lashed back and forth through the vacuum of space, probing for anything approaching. A constant combat space control circled above and below, ready to attack any intruder in force. The Martian forces kept well away from this virtual orbiting fortress, knowing that there was no way they could effectively attack it. The Martians knew that merely establishing orbit around their planet could not conquer it. Their fight would take place on the ground, not high above it.

It was early morning of August 15^th before the entire armada was situated. Had this been the invasion of an EastHem held possession, attack craft would have fanned out through space at this point, attacking and neutralizing the hundreds of communications and navigation satellites that circled both in geosynchronous and low Martian orbit. WestHem doctrine called for this particular phase of an invasion to last almost a week in fact. In this particular invasion however, the executive council, acting on orders from their corporate sponsors, had forbid the destruction of any orbiting satellites. Those communications and navigation birds were worth billions of dollars and they were all owned by various WestHem corporations or the government itself. It was thought that there was no sense in destroying billions worth of hardware that would only have to be replaced once the planet was retaken. And so, though the space wing of the MPG flew a full combat space patrol and was prepared to guard these orbiting assets as part of their doctrine, not a single ship was launched on a single sortie against them.

Of course the establishment of orbit around Mars was a significant media event for the WestHem people. The big three media representatives that were traveling on the flagship now began broadcasting constant live updates instead of the single daily briefing. General Wrath and Admiral Jules now began spending more time giving interviews to various reporters than preparing for the coming operations. Rehashing the force composition of the marines and that of the Martians became a favorite time-filler during the periods when nothing new was happening. Despite the heavy losses due to 'accidents' and 'terrorist suicide attacks', it was estimated that the WestHem marines would be in complete possession of the planet in less than seven days with minimal casualties. Unless of course, the greenies decided to simply give up this hopeless battle before it was started. That was still regarded as a distinct possibility and one that General Wrath tried to facilitate when he sent a message on the open channel asking for a press conference with the MarsGroup Internet services.

Diane Nguyen of MarsGroup agreed to the press conference after consulting with Laura Whiting.

'Let them say their piece,' Whiting told her. 'The Martian people, particularly those with the guns, have a right to hear everything that transpires.'

And so, at 1800, New Pittsburgh time, most of the planet tuned in to MarsGroup to see General Wrath facing