It was this last part that caused more fear than the sheer numbers of APCs and tanks heading for them could ever hope to. Six hundred mobile artillery guns! And now there was little hope of countering them.
All of them knew that an air strike had taken place. They had been settling into their positions when the alert had gone out to all forces in the area. They had seen the Mosquitoes chasing after the hovers come streaking over their hill, clearing it by less than a hundred meters and two of the hovers returning after the strike had been shot down right in front of them, their crews ejecting and floating down half a kilometer to the west. Jeff and Drogan had been part of the hastily assembled squad that had gone out to capture them. Three had surrendered peacefully. One — a gunner — had gone the hard way and tried to shoot it out with the M-24 from his survival pack. The gunner's rounds had hit nothing. Drogan, Mears, and Jeff himself had put their rounds directly on target, blowing the gunner's chest open and exploding the compressed air tank in his biosuit. His rather messy remains had been scanned by a medic and then left where they were. The other three were marched back to the APCs and shuttled back to Eden to be interrogated and placed in a POW holding area.
What the infantry forces had not known until about four hours ago was the damage the air strike had done. Finally, right around sunset, Sergeant Walker passed down the grim news. 'We weren't told this before,' he said, 'not to put one over on anyone but to keep MarsGroup or any of the WestHem spies from getting the information. The marine air strike earlier today was successful in taking out fifteen of our twenty 250 millimeter guns.'
The troops had been pondering this news ever since, all of them becoming more worried about it by the minute. Five guns would not be enough to neutralize the WestHem artillery, at least not as quickly and efficiently as they had done it during the first battle. They would now have to endure a constant shelling when the WestHem marines came into range and during the battle itself. This news was enough to make more than two dozen soldiers in the gap walk off the line, throwing down their guns and heading for the support APCs they knew would take them home. The rest of the troops wavered on the verge of doing the same but mass desertion was nipped in the bud when General Zoloft himself commandeered a radio link and personally assured every man and woman out there that if the heat got too hot they would be pulled back.
'I will adhere to MPG doctrine even if it means we lose Eden,' he told them. 'If our position becomes untenable, if the casualties start to mount, if the arty is too much to bear, you will be withdrawn from the gap. That is my promise.'
His promise served as the fragile glue that held military cohesion together. At least until now, when the announcement of 600 artillery guns moving their way slowly sank in.
'What do you think, Hicks?' Jeff asked him on the short-range channel as they stared out into the empty Martian wastelands. 'Ready to call it a war?'
'I was ready to call it a war two weeks ago,' Hicks replied. 'But I hate to leave in the middle, you know?'
'Yeah,' said Drogan. 'If you do that, you'll never know how it turns out.'
Jeff, who had been secretly hoping that his friends would decide to leave so he could follow them swallowed audibly and nodded. 'I guess I'll hang out a little longer,' he said. 'No way in hell I'm gonna leave while a fuckin' Thruster stays behind.'
The three friends looked at each other, their eyes glowing behind their faceplates in the infrared spectrum they were using. All of them looked scared but determined.
'So,' said Drogan, 'Xenia decide she loves you yet?'
Jeff chuckled. 'Shut the fuck up, Drogan,' he said. 'I'll be in her pussy some day and you know it. Maybe I'll kiss you and give you a little taste of it.'
'Maybe I'll get in it first and kiss
They stayed. Two members of their squad did not. Across the line guarding the Jutfield Gap nearly seventy other soldiers left as well — so many of them that a line actually formed to await their turns on the support APCs that would take them back to Eden.
Eden MPG base
2235 hours
Brian was nervous. Part of it was the fact that he had been shot down and forced to eject less than ten hours ago. Part of it was that the Mosquito they'd assigned him to was not the familiar plane he'd flown exclusively for the past three years — that one was a heap of debris scattered across the wastelands west of the Jutfield Gap. Most of it, however, was the sis they'd assigned him to replace the injured Matt Mendez. His name was Xavier Goodhit and he was forty-three years old, a former security guard at the Agricorp Building who had been selected late in the process for the Mosquito systems operator position.
'So you didn't actually
'All we had left was the practical and the final,' he said, his voice trembling just the slightest bit. 'I qualified in everything but they couldn't spare any planes to complete the last portion.'
'I see,' Brain said, looking him up and down. He was moderately overweight and unshaven, his body exuding the odor of one who had not bathed in a few days. Brian had only met him an hour before, when Jorgenson had ordered all possible planes into the air for around the clock strikes at the advancing column of WestHem marines. Up until that order he'd been promised a support position until Mendez returned to active flight status. 'So how's your gunnery?'
'I had a lot of problems with it at first,' Goodhit admitted. 'I was starting to get better though — at least in the sims.'
'But in reality?' Brian asked.
'Well... there weren't any spare MPG units for us to practice on. You see, they weren't planning on deploying any of us so soon. We were supposed to be the next generation... you know?'
'Jesus,' Brian said. 'How's your navigation?'
'They weren't able to concentrate on that as much as they wanted to,' he said. 'Look, sir, I can see that you're a little uncomfortable with this and, to tell you the truth, I'm really scared to go out there. I mean... you got shot down today, didn't you? Five or six other planes got shot down too. They told us that the WestHems couldn't hit us out there!'
Brian opened his mouth to suggest that maybe they should go have a little talk with Jorgenson about all of this, that maybe he'd been put out a little prematurely. Before he could do so, however, a familiar figure stepped around the corner.
'Hey, fuckhead,' the figure said to Goodhit. 'You're in my biosuit. Take it off!'
It was Matt, looking considerably worse for wear and dressed in the same bloody shorts and T-shirt he'd been wearing when the medics had spirited him off to Saint John Paul's Hospital after the Hummingbird had landed.
'Matt,' Brian said, stepping forward and grabbing his hand. He gave it an enthusiastic shake. 'What the fuck are you doing here?'
'I'm here to do my fuckin' job, boss,' Matt said. 'That's all.' He turned back to Goodhit. 'Get out of that suit, fatty. You ain't getting my pilot that easy.'
Goodhit was simply speechless, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide.
'Come on!' Matt barked. 'There's a mission to run, isn't there? You ain't ready to run it, I am. So give me the fuckin' suit!'
'Sir...' Goodhit started. 'This is most... unusual, isn't it? I mean... I mean... we haven't got any orders to...'
Brian ignored him. 'Did they fuse your ass back together, kid?' he asked.
'Yeah, they fused it,' he said. 'Hurt like a motherfucker too. I'm all ready for some action.'
'Did they clear you for flight status?' Brian asked.
Matt grinned. 'I always hated going through the official computerwork, you know what I mean? Let's just say I made my way back here so I could go back to work.'
'Let me see your ass,' Brian demanded.
'Hey,' Matt said. 'I'm not that kinda guy. I told you that shit.'
Brian didn't grin. 'Let's see it,' he said. 'Turn around and drop 'em.'
Matt sighed and turned around. He pushed his shorts down, revealing his bare ass. There was a bloody
