Mecha

by J. F. Holmes

  The other advantage the amateurs had was familiarity with the environment. Not to say the Earthers couldn’t adapt; Earth had sent troops to the red planet on ten-year enlistments. Many had reenlisted for another ten due to the perks they received for offworld duty. They got used to the gravity after several years, their bodies adjusting, but about a third of his drivers had been on Mars for less than two years, and still reacted like they were on Earth.

  “Mount up,” he called over the comm, heading for his own mecha. They were pretty much all the same, except for some minor variations. Four-meter-tall bipeds with two meters of leg attached to the lower torso/cockpit. Active camo was controlled by the onboard computer, making them difficult to see against both the red sands of the outback, and the concrete and greenery of the cities. The cockpits were as heavily armored as they could make them, with two centimeters of tungsten/iridium alloy over a kinetic sponge of two centimeters of pure iridium. Mars had the only large-scale supply of the super-dense metal in the system, and though they shipped most of it to Earth, there was still enough for use here, with the UN forces getting the lion’s share.

  The main weapons sat on each shoulder. The three-barrel thirty-five-millimeter railguns rested on the right shoulder, the seventy-millimeter cannon on the left. The arms each carried smaller ten-millimeter rapid-fire guns, while ending in pincers that could rip through infantry armor in an instant. A top-mounted forty-millimeter grenade launcher completed its armament. A sextet of machines were armed with rocket launchers instead of the ten-millimeters on one arm, just in case.

  The company consisted of three thirty-man platoons, each led by a lieutenant, and the five-machine company command section, giving them a TO&E strength of ninety-five machines, though he’d lost some in the city fighting they’d engaged in the week before, and they were down to eighty-three total.

  That should be enough, thought the captain as he climbed into the cockpit and buckled in. With the armored suit he wore, similar to those of the infantry and intended to give him that little bit of extra protection, it was a tight fit. Boots went into stirrups, hands into gloves. The cockpit rotated back, reducing the forward cross section. A couple of limb movements affirmed that the machine was linked perfectly to his body, while checking out the electronics was a fast procedure.

  Mecha were considered armor, but most of their drivers thought them the true descendants of the horse cavalry. A single man to each mount, using their speed and maneuverability to scout, skirmish, and charge. The unofficial designation of the battalion was the Scot’s Greys, successors to the glorious cavalry who’d fought for Wellington at Waterloo. As far as Smythe was concerned, those days of glory were long gone. Dead was dead, nothing glorious about it. War had always been a bloody business, and it was no less so for having left the confines of Earth.

  “First platoon echelon to the right,” he ordered over the com. “Second to the left. Command section tight into the rear of the forward formation. Third platoon. You’re to spread out to the rear and provide some depth.”

  The acknowledgments came back crisply, the squad leaders reporting to their platoon leaders, and those worthies reporting to Smythe. The captain checked them out on the heads-up display, satisfied that everyone was where he wanted them.

  “At the walk, move.”

  The lines moved forward at ten kilometers an hour, limbs moving smoothly. They stood at their full four meters, unable to crouch while moving, a limitation of their design. Still, their armor was proof against most infantry weapons, and even most heavy weapons would take multiple hits to penetrate anything vital. The most vital component, of course, was the driver. Without that soldier, the machine was helpless, not being a robot—but robots were limited in ways a man-controlled machine was not.

  If only these colonials could see how senseless this whole revolt is, thought the captain as his eyes roamed the terrain through his vision sensors, looking for targets. We have, after all, almost thirty billion on Earth, and we can ship as many as needed to win. They have just over ninety million, not all of them on the side of the revolt. What the hell can they hope to accomplish?

  That last thought, along with his subconscious use of colonials, brought a tight smile to his face. Wasn’t that true of the American revolution of five centuries past? Outnumbered against a professional force that controlled the seas, they’d fought a campaign that had brought their freedom. Only they’d had the French fleet on their side. What the hell do these people have that can challenge us in space? Of course the Martians had knocked down the UN satellites in orbit over the world, removing the eyes in the sky. There were still aircraft in use, but the Martians had shown an alarming aptitude at avoiding them when possible, and shooting them out of the sky when avoidance wasn’t a thing.

  “We’re receiving fire over on the left flank,” reported Lt. Churchill of the second platoon. “Nothing to worry about so far. Small arms. We’re returning fire. Jolly good,” exclaimed the young officer in a voice filled with the excitement of the young engaging in life-or-death games, and winning. “Taking the rebels under fire. We’re blasting them to bits.”

  “Calm it down, Lieutenant. Pay attention to the task at hand, or they may surprise you.” In a manner you won’t like. Me as well, if I have to write a letter to your parents.

  That his parents were comfortably off was a given. All officers came from privilege, unlike the enlisted, whose parents were most likely on the dole and barely getting by. Soldiering paid well, and most were here only for the ability to send money home. The oligarchs weren’t willing to spend on social programs, but paying for the enforcement of their will was another thing.

  Smythe cringed slightly as something hit the cockpit of his machine with a hard thump. It was immediately followed by a burst, someone ranging him with a single shot, then sending in as much as they could. The captain checked his schematics and breathed a sigh of relief as he noted nothing was damaged. His suit showed him the location of the shooter, eight kilometers ahead and slightly to the right. With a thought, the thirty-five-millimeter loaded high-explosive rounds and sent off a burst. The camera following the shot showed a small figure, only the head and part of the shoulders, behind a large rifle—just before said head and shoulders blew into a red mist, and the rebel was no longer a problem.

  “We have a railgun firing from the left,” another trooper called out.

  Smythe located the weapon immediately, a heavy ninety-millimeter that could cause them untold problems. Unfortunately for the rebels, it was an outdated design, and the sights weren’t up to the task of taking on fast-moving targets. Tracers zeroed in on the weapon, obliterating the gun and crew.

  The fire intensified, rounds coming in from hundreds of locations. Mortar rounds started to drop, raising mounds of Martian soil. That gave the brigade’s artillery something to shoot at, and rounds screamed in to hit the mortar pits and silence them. A heavy laser hit one machine, taking off an arm. A second later, every mech was releasing their anti-laser aerosols, and light-amp was no longer a problem.

  “Sound off,” the captain yelled out as some icons started blinking red on his HUD.

  “Jenkins’ machine is down, but he’ll be okay,” one of the squad leaders replied.

  Thank God for that, thought Smythe, breathing a sigh of relief. Machines could be repaired, while troopers couldn’t always, and there was no bringing them back from the dead.

  “Cooper’s had it,” called out another voice. “Direct hit to his cockpit by a magrail round.”

  That was a shame, and a bit of bad luck. The rebel weapons weren’t what one would call accurate, but a fast-moving round had to go through some space. It was also bad luck if said round hit the cockpit at the proper angle to penetrate and kill the driver. Again, it happened. It might happen again, but Smythe had to hope that the enemy heavy weapons were now out of the picture, or soon would be.

  The HUD was showing seven kilometers to the enemy lines. Half a league, half a league, Half a l
eague onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the guns!” he said. The words of Tennyson’s poem rang through his head. It was about three leagues by the old measures, a little less. He had less than six hundred, and the enemy didn’t have the stolen guns the Russians had used to kill the British cavalry. Still, the cavalry of the day had carried it, and he had no doubt his would do just as well, with much fewer losses.

  ***

  “Are you ready?” asked Captain Nathan Kurtz over the landline they’d strung out for secure comm. “Because if you aren’t, they’re still coming.”

  “We’re ready on your command,” the tremulous voice of the vehicle commander came back.

  And who can blame him for being scared? thought the bank manager-turned-rebel company commander. He was so scared he thought he might shit his pants. The captain had already pissed himself when the enemy had opened fire and two men down the position from him had flopped back into the trench—or at least their lower torsos and legs had. The upper parts of their bodies had been pureed, despite the body armor both wore.

  Why the hell did you have to come here? thought the officer, watching the oncoming mecha through the video projected onto his HUD. After seeing his men slaughtered so gruesomely, he wasn’t about to stick his head into the open just to get a look. When it came time to fire, he’d risk it, but not until then.

  He knew the answer the Earth troops would give. It was their job; they’d been paid. That the oligarchs who gave the orders were in the wrong wouldn’t enter their loyal little minds. That they couldn’t see the way those men treated the people of Earth was a given.

  Kurtz was Martianborn, third generation. Tall at just over two meters, thin to emaciation as compared to the Earthborn, he was a true son of Mars. The oligarchs would say they paid for Mars, and in some ways, that was true. They’d funded the ships that plied between the worlds in Hohmann transfer orbits. They’d funded the initial habitats. But the immigrants, like many others before them, had built the world. The domed cities, the outlying villages. The biodomes where crops were grown. The atmosphere plants, each of which added a couple of cubic kilometers of gas to the atmosphere every day.

  The oligarchs couldn’t keep their hands off, and the UN had passed laws mandating all Martian industrial concerns have at least half Earth ownership. Draconian laws clamping down on freedom of speech and the press had been enacted. Worse, from the Martian viewpoint, had been the taxes they’d been forced to endure so Earth could ship its unwanted to the Red Planet. The scum, the criminals who hadn’t committed crimes violent enough, at least not against the powerful, but who were considered too dangerous to be let out of prison. They were shipped to Mars in their tens of thousands to work in the mines. Cheaper and more versatile than robots, they kept the Earth-owned mines, places no Martian would willingly work, going. And, after their ten-year terms were done, they were dumped into the city streets of Burroughs and other Martian metropolises, forming the gangs that tormented the hard-working citizens of the planet.

  Oh, they weren’t all bad. More than eighty percent became honest citizens, working for a planet that offered them more potential than Earth ever would. But that twenty percent was a terror, and only armed Martians kept them at bay…

  Until the UN had decided that the same restrictions against privately-owned firearms that had been enforced on Earth for generations would be a good idea for Mars. Mars, where the average citizen didn’t have a chance in hand-to-hand combat with the Earthborn. Only with self-defense weapons did they stand a chance. And the oligarchs had ordered the soldiers to take them away.

  Didn’t go so well for you, did it? thought the captain.

  At first it had gone very well for the UN troops tasked with rounding up all personal firearms, facilitated by the gun registration lists the Martian government had been forced to maintain. The first sweep of shocked citizens had yielded many firearms and very little resistance. There were some arrests, a couple of shootings, but the UN troops had moved quickly and efficiently. The second sweep hadn’t gone quite as well, and some now informed citizens had fought back. The result had been more dead citizens, with very few casualties among the occupiers. By the time they’d conducted the third sweep, things had changed. They found two types of responses. Either the citizen had fled to seek refuge with friends and neighbors, or a unit of rebels was waiting in ambush. The casualty ratio was still in the favor of the UN at two-to-one, but they couldn’t afford losses like that. Not with the next transfer window a year away, and the torch ship fleet too small to carry the mass of reinforcements a war of attrition would call for.

  After that, the city fighting had devolved into a slugfest, one in which the professionals had lost most of their advantages. Ambushes with explosives and flammables resulted in heavy losses to the invaders, and though there was a price to pay, the Martians had been willing to foot the bill. The fighting was still going on in the major cities, the people fleeing to the underground and daring the soldiers to come after them.

  The fight in the countryside, among the hundreds of thousands of single dwellings and the smaller domes of towns and villages, had been different. The professionals still had a task trying to fight people who knew the planet, but heavy weapons like the mecha coming at them today gave the UN the advantage. They’d been waging a campaign of terror, using aircraft and munitions, including nukes, to destroy domes and burn our homesteads. They were taking no prisoners, killing every living thing; men, women, children, even the companion animals of anyone who offered even a hint of resistance.

  Thank God they haven’t tried to nuke us, thought the once banker. His people were dug in deep, and their armor gave them enough radiation protection that they could probably weather the storm. But the town of Newcastle, standing right behind them, would be leveled.

  The captain snorted at that thought. The UN might not have had the available airpower, and hadn’t employed nukes, so far, but their artillery had done the job of wrecking the dome and the buildings under it. They had the power to take the town and raze it to the ground—or at least they thought they did.

  “Move it into position, but don’t fire until I give the order.”

  “Whatever you say, Nate,” said the tank commander with the notable lack of a respectful display of military discipline.

  As long as he does what I order, thought the captain. As long as the banter relieved both men of some of their anxiety.

  ***

  Willie Suarez was one of the good men who had run afoul of the law on Earth, been shipped to Mars, then decided the best thing he could do was join with the people trying to make a good thing even better. Like many such men, he resented the way Earth was trying to hold the people down here. And since he was an expert heavy machinery driver, this had seemed the perfect job for him.

  “Into the first revetment, Josh,” he told his driver, Joshua Menendez. “Try to stay out of their sight until we’re ready to engage.”

  “You got it, Sarge,” said the young man, who had learned how to drive the monster better than Willie could ever think of doing.

  The turbine engine whined, and the beast pulled up the ramp and out of the revetment, turning and heading for the first firing position. Willie grunted in satisfaction at the way the driver was following the depression. They wanted the UN to have the surprise of their lives, just before the massive machine ended them.

  The Beast was what they were calling this type of vehicle. Mars had less than forty of them, built by expert technicians who knew their business. Based on the main battle tanks of twenty-first century Earth, a weapon the home planet had given up on, it was slightly longer and wider, though no higher. The armor had been upgraded, thickened by fifty centimeters along all sides of the hull and turret. Not only thickened, but the outer layer was a nickel steel/iridium alloy as hard as anything made by humans. Under that was a solid thickness of iridium, one of the densest elements known to man, unobtainable anywhere else in
the solar system.

  Once there might have been more of the metal in the solar system, but over billions of years, most of it must have fallen into a gas giant, or onto a planet. Mars was the target of several large asteroids composed of the substance, and humans were mining all the deposits they’d found. Much was sent back to Earth, but more was mined than could be shipped, and Mars got a large share of it, which had given them the ability to make armor like the Beast.

  Josh pulled into the revetment, placing the tank in a hull-down position. Only the turret was exposed, and only the front of that structure at the moment. A camo net had been placed at the front of the position. It had been shredded by artillery fire, and hastily replaced. The revetment gave the tank total visual and radar concealment, and the fluids pumped out of the engine and onto the ground reduced its heat signature to almost nothing. They were set up on the left flank of the defense and, so far, they’d taken no fire.

  “I’m ready, Sarge,” called out Terry McMurty, the gunner. Like the rest of the crew, he was Earthborn. A Martian could operate the vehicle, but due to the discomfort factor for the taller natives, it wasn’t recommended.

  “We don’t fire until the captain gives the order,” replied Suarez, sending the short code burst to let Kurtz know they were in position. The sergeant’s mouth was dry, his hands trembling slightly. He wasn’t a coward, he was willing to pay the price to hit the enemy hard, but he also didn’t want to die, and his body was reacting to those feelings.

  “I’m slaving the main gun to my position,” he told the gunner.

  “Ah, Sarge, come on. You know how good I am with that thing.”

  Terry was indeed good, but Willie thought he was slightly better. Still, the man had reason to be irritated by the decision of the vehicle commander. “Tell you what. You take over the coax weapon. See if you can spot any of those bastards about to hit us and take them out.”