minutes of sleep since they'd pulled away from the re-fuel point. His mind was having trouble processing information, making decisions. Even reciting the alphabet in correct order seemed a challenge.
'Platoon leaders,' said Captain Ayers' voice in his headset. 'Switch over to command-five. Acknowledge.'
That brought Callahan awake a little more. Switch over to a command channel? That would mean he would be broadcasting on more than one frequency. That was how the Martians got you!
'Henderson acknowledging,' said Sergeant Henderson, who was commanding first platoon.
'Stagway acknowledging,' said the voice of a former corporal who was now a recently field-promoted sergeant who was now commanding an entire platoon because all of the other sergeants were dead.
'Billfold acknowledging,' said Sergeant Billfold, who had been third sergeant in fourth platoon before the lieutenant and the first two sergeants had bought it.
'Callahan, you there?' Ayers enquired, clearly irritated with the lack of response.
'Uh... sorry, cap,' he said. 'I was having some problems with my transmit key. Is it safe to switch up to a command channel?'
'It's only the Martian ground units that go after us based on multiple radio frequencies,' Ayers told him. 'And it's night now so they're not currently operating. Well... they're not firing at us anyway. Besides, we're gonna need to switch back to multi-frequency operations when we go into head-to-head combat. There's no way we can run a full scale battle with all of us talking on the same channel.'
'Oh... okay then,' Callahan said, too wasted to question this wisdom. 'Switching to command-five.'
Once everyone had made the switch Ayers wasted little time on idle chitchat. 'We've acquired some fresh overheads of our first objective area,' he said. A second later the computer beeped, indicating a successful download. 'These shots were taken about thirty minutes ago by an AA-71 launched from the
Callahan woke up a little at the prospect of seeing some up-to-date intelligence on what they would soon be facing. This was a commodity that had been in woefully short supply so far. The ships up in orbit were not in the right position to take close-up shots of the operational areas. They had no satellites in orbit to peer down with. They had no hovers to send on recon flights. Reconnaissance probes were usually engaged and blown to pieces by Martian Space Guard F-22s the moment they entered the envelope of Martian controlled space. Even the mighty AA-71 Falcons — the atmospheric attack craft launched from the Californias which were capable of diving down into the Martian atmosphere and hitting targets on the surface with high energy lasers — recorded nearly fifty percent losses every time they attempted a recon mission, whether they were escorted by fighters or not. This was so high of a number that Admiral Jules had stopped sending them. In short, intelligence had been nearly blinded to what the Martians were doing at their defensive lines ever since establishing orbit.
'Open download,' Callahan told his computer.
A second later his screen filled with a high resolution shot of the Jutfield Gap and the area surrounding it. It was a night shot with the features of interest visible in the infrared spectrum. The marking on the shot indicated it had been taken from an altitude of seventy thousand meters above ground level.
'As you can see from the shot,' Ayers said, 'there are approximately three regiments of armored cavalry deployed through the gap. Tanks and APCs are spaced pretty evenly between the low hillsides.'
'Three regiments?' Callahan asked. 'I thought they only had two manned ACR units assigned to Eden.'
'Intelligence has confirmed through their network of loyalists on the planet that at some point the Martians did manage to successfully unload the armored vehicles and equipment from the pre-positioned Panamas that belonged to the fast reaction division. It appears they deployed some of those armored vehicles to the Eden theater of operations and formed a new armored cav regiment with them.'
'Where'd they get the staffing?' Billfold asked.
'Their recruitment efforts during our travel time apparently were successful enough to provide this staffing. However their training time was less than ten weeks. Estimates are that at least one of these ACRs are staffed almost completely with new recruits.'
'They're throwing people out to the slaughter,' Henderson said.
'Indeed they are,' Ayers said. 'We're told that a lot of these new recruits might be young kids, elderly, even women.'
'Women?' said Stagway with contempt. 'Are you shitting, cap?'
'Intelligence tells us that the Martians are so desperate for recruits that they're even conscripting women,' Ayers confirmed. 'Don't let that soften you up though. There were plenty of women shooting guns at us in Salta, right Callahan?'
'Damn right,' Callahan agreed. 'You just put 'em down like anyone else.'
'Not that you would be able to tell which were the women or the kids or the old people anyway,' Ayers said. 'If they pick up arms against you, you kill them. That's the rule. In any case, division command feels that the most likely outcome once we engage will be a complete collapse of their lines and a disorganized retreat. This will probably occur once the artillery starts to fall on them, which should be in less than twenty minutes now.'
'Thank God,' Billfold said.
'Amen to that,' said Henderson.
'In any case,' Ayers went on, 'we need to make preparations for our assault in the unlikely event that the Martians do manage to hold through the artillery and the tank assault. So let's go over our area of operation. Look at grid 17-A. As you can see, it is mostly flat plain dotted with areas of raised elevation ranging anywhere from thirty to one hundred meters above mean ground level. The Martian tanks and APCs are in prepared positions in the gaps between these hills and their dismounted infantry are in prepared positions atop the hills. We can see the armored vehicles and get an accurate count of them but apparently the Martians have some sort of overhead cover on their dismount positions. We can tell they're manned by the heat escaping from them but we can't get a count on personnel or weaponry from the overheads. What is plain to see, however, is that this is the ideal place for our foe to make a first stand against us — or so it would seem to them. These hills in the gap provide them with overlapping fields of fire of both small arms and man-portable anti-armor weapons.'
'If we engage them head to head we're gonna take some pretty good casualties before we push them off those hills,' Callahan said, looking at the shimmer of heat that stretched from one end of the gap to the other.
'True,' agreed Ayers. 'That is why we're not going to be engaging them head to head. The artillery is going to pound them for at least an hour before any of the other units even move into range. If they don't surrender or flee from that — or if they're not all killed from the bombardment — the tanks will move in next and destroy their tanks and APCs and then mop up any survivors in the dismount positions with their main guns. At that point we will move in and occupy the ground.'
'Seems simple enough,' said Henderson.
'Yeah,' said Callahan, the uneasy feeling coming on him again. 'But so has everything else so far and it's yet to turn out that way. What about their artillery?'
'The approaches to the gap are within range of both their heavy guns and their mobile 150s,' Ayers said. 'However, once our artillery units pound the shit out of their trenches, they're going to move up for counter-battery fire of the Martian artillery. We should be able to take those hills without too much of a problem. After the gap, the terrain widens out considerably, allowing us more room to maneuver.'
'All right,' said Stagway, confidence in his voice. 'Looks like this thing is finally starting to turn around.'
No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than a flight of Mosquitoes came in from the hillsides to the south and blasted four APCs into oblivion. The first to fall was the one that held Stagway and the squad with him.
The dance of the WestHem marine's artillery battalions was an intricate and well-rehearsed affair. They spread out all across the valley, forming up by battery, each of which contained six guns. The commanders in charge of each battery had a map on their screen which indicated firing positions they were to head to after each firing sequence. Each battery had more than twenty such positions pre-programmed in as waypoints on the
