Greenies

'Motherfucker!' Woo said, blasting the marine that had fired it to pieces with an extended burst of the SAW.

'Walker!' said a voice in Walker's ear on the command frequency. 'Everyone is down. Get the fuck out there right now!'

'Gladly,' Walker acknowledged.

'Don't forget to arm your section before you go,' he was reminded.

'Wouldn't dream of it,' he replied. He looked at Woo and changed back to the tactical frequency. 'Everyone is down. Let's get the fuck out of here.'

Woo fired one more burst, not hitting anything but forcing two marines trying to make the final dash to the entrance to dive down under cover. 'I'm down with that,' he said, pulling the SAW from the hole and picking up the bag behind him that contained the ammo they'd been able to salvage.

They moved quickly through the trenches, stepping over their dead comrades who had been abandoned there, working their way to the egress trench. When they reached it, Walker let Woo go before him and then took one look back. More grenades were exploding and more gunfire was coming in but they were quite safe from it here. He spoke a command to his suit computer, gave an access code, and a radio signal was sent out, turning on a serious of sensing devices that had been deployed throughout the trench network in this section long before they'd made first contact.

'Okay,' he said when he received acknowledgment that his actions had taken place. He threw a little salute at the unseen marines who would soon be occupying this particular position. 'The place is all yours guys. Hope you enjoy it.'

He began to follow Woo downward toward relative safety. With his departure, Hill 657 had officially fallen to the enemy.

'Targets, tanks, two o'clock, three o'clock, and one o'clock,' Sanchez reported. 'Moving fast.'

Zen didn't answer. He simply shifted his view to the nearest — the two o'clock tank — waited for the cannon to catch up, and then fired, blasting it into oblivion. He looked to the next, noting the range was less than half a kilometer now. He blew it up as well.

'I don't mean to nag or anything,' Xenia said, her voice trembling with fear, 'but how much fucking longer are we talking here?'

'We'll be pulling out any second,' Sanchez replied. 'The APCs are loaded up and moving out now. We need to make sure we keep the WestHem tanks from coming through here until they're behind Hill 701 and out of range.'

Xenia shook her head, wondering why she had been so hot to sign up for the tank corps instead of the infantry. Her hands gripped her controls tightly, ready to back them out of here and get them turned around the microsecond the withdrawal order came down.

'There coming in too fast, sarge,' Zen reported. 'I can't keep up.'

'Do the best you can,' he said, carefully controlling his own fear. After all, they needed to get beyond Hill 701 as well.

Another twenty seconds ticked by. Zen popped off two more tanks but more than fifteen were still rushing right at them, intent on revenge for the punishment their colleagues had taken. Finally, the order came.

'All right!' Sanchez said. 'It's official. Get us the fuck out of here, Xenia!'

She jerked backward on the controls, pulling them out of the barricade position and then spun them around so they were facing forward. She then put the pedal to the medal and began accelerating at top speed towards Hill 701 and safety. As soon as they started to move, however, she knew something was terribly wrong. A hideous clanking noise was coming from the left side and she had difficulty keeping the vehicle moving in a straight line.

'What the fuck is that?' Zen asked.

'The left tread!' she reported. 'It's slipping from the damage on that last hit.'

'We gonna make it out of here?' Zen wanted to know.

'The fucking computer doesn't tell me that!' she said. 'It just says it's damaged!'

Despite the clanking and the difficulty in control, she accelerated them to top speed, almost one hundred kilometers per hour. They made it about half a kilometer before the left tread snapped in half with a large bang. Everyone was thrown violently to the right as the right tread, still moving at full speed, sent them into a vicious left turn. The left side of the tank actually rose into the air for a moment from the force of it before slamming back down and sending them into something that resembled a skid. The entire tank shuddered and groaned.

'We lost it!' Xenia said, a bit of panic in her voice. 'The tread's gone!' Her hands using the controls to try to maintain something like control. They skidded, bumped, and bounced for a few seconds before she could bring them to a halt.

'Everyone out!' Sanchez ordered. 'Right now!'

They threw their hatches open and scrambled out through them, jumping down onto the Martian soil, not even bothering to grab their M-24s from the holders inside.

'Move towards the hill!' Sanchez said. 'Get as far away from this tank as you can! I'll get us some help!'

They began trotting towards the hill, which was three kilometers distant, across a horrifying stretch of open ground upon which they could be gunned down in an instant when the WestHem tanks broke through. Sanchez declared an emergency on the command frequency, explaining that their tank was disabled and they were on foot. One of the other tanks of their company immediately turned around and started heading for them.

It rolled up in a cloud of dust and came to a halt just in front of them. 'Climb up and hang on!' it's commander told them. 'The WestHem tanks are pushing through the gap right now! They'll be here in seconds!'

Xenia and Zen went up first, pulling themselves onto the body of the tank and then the turret. Xenia laid across it, grasping the twenty millimeter cannon to support herself. Zen went further up, wrapping his hands and legs around the eighty-millimeter gun, his butt resting on solid steel beneath it. Sanchez came up next. With nowhere left to go he climbed to the very top of the turret and grabbed hold of the laser cannon mount. It was very wide, too wide for him to get a good grip on but it would have to do.

'Go!' Sanchez barked on the emergency frequency. 'We're on!'

The driver of the tank didn't hesitate. He put the pedal down and they jerked forward, quickly accelerating up to top speed, trying desperately to clear the area.

'Shit,' Sanchez muttered in fear as he was bounced up and down from the uneven terrain. His grip started to slip almost immediately. He grasped harder but was unable to bring his hands together to secure himself. He felt himself slipping to the left and tried to right himself by swinging his momentum. It didn't help. His legs pulled him downward and his hands grew further and further apart.

Behind them, six WestHem tanks eased carefully through the gap and then, seeing no opposition directly in front of them, put on the speed. As they came further around they saw the Martian tank that Zen, Xenia, and Sanchez had just abandoned, sitting there motionless, its infrared signature indicating the engine was still running.

'Tank! Eleven o'clock!' burst across their tactical channel from three different voices.

They had to slow down to engage it — at top speed it was difficult if not impossible for a gunner to put his recticle on target. As a unit they slowed to forty kilometers per hour. There was no discussion about who would be taking the shot so all six of them did, all firing both laser cannons within two seconds of each other. The tank before them exploded quite spectacularly, the turret flying off, the body cracking in two and falling into pieces. A celebratory cheer went out over the airwaves.

'There's another one out there!' someone yelled. 'Ten o'clock! Moving fast!'

But everyone's laser had been discharged and needed to recharge. It would be about twenty seconds before they could engage it. They gave chase at sixty kilometers per hour while they waited.

'We need to get to the depression!' Sanchez heard Corporal Cleanburn yell over the tactical frequency. 'Half a klick, straight ahead. Get us down there and they won't have a shot!'

The driver turned slightly and Sanchez's hands slipped a little bit more from the centrifugal force. He slid backwards a little more, knowing he was about to fall, unable to do anything about it. When they hit a small boulder with the right tread the inevitable happened. The tank jolted upward and he was flung free, his hands ripped from