Cannon tracers and DEG blasts splashed all around them in a multicolored barrage of green directed-energy plasma burst and violet railgun ion trails. Another large thirty-meter-tall oak tree beside Warlord One suddenly burst in the middle from a cannon round, and wood chunks the size of a human leg were thrown asunder. Several of them ricocheted off his tank, making a loud kathunk sound against the armor plating. The large oak crashed down onto several of the marines just behind him. Flames engulfed the tree as the marines crawled out from underneath it. Their armored suits had protected them, but Warboys bet they had some serious headaches.
"Warlord One, this is Five!"
"Go, Five."
"Where the fuck are we, sir?"
"We are ten klicks south of the governor's mansion and ten klicks north of the Capitol Pentagon. We have to push north." Warboys panned the map in his head, looking at the terrain. It looked rough, and there were those damned rivers up ahead also. His lidar system took an extremely long integration time to find enemy targets through the foliage. His optical and IR sensors were marginal, but his QMs were working just fine. And what they showed was that there were more tanks and troops between him and the governor's mansion than there had been Seppy bastards that day of the Martian Exodus. It had been bad then, and he had had a squad of Marine FM-12s along for support, as well as air cover from the Navy. This scenario was probably really going to suck. It was probably going to suck big-time.
"Sir, if we were supposed to take that hill ten kilometers away, why the hell didn't we just teleport to there?" Warlord Three asked.
"According to my sensors, Three, it is way too goddamned thick with Seppies to drop in on them by ourselves. Plus, there so much goddamned EM noise around here that I'm not sure we could safely QMT any closer in. The Seppy bastards must have some kind of jamming fields around the Capitol. We draw them out, let fire and brimstone rain down from heaven, and then we punch a hole in the line and let the marines rush the end zone for a touchdown," Warboys replied.
"I see, sir."
"Besides that, it's our orders, Three."
"Yes, Colonel. But just what happens if that fire and brimstone doesn't come in time, sir?" Warlord Three asked.
"Well, Three, then we'll just have to improvise."
"Besides the fact that it is our goddamned orders, Corporal, my guess is that it is too fucking thick with Seppies up there for us to just drop in on them unannounced with no backup," Gunnery Sergeant Suez told Corporal Bates as the two of them dug in behind several large rocks. The landscape reminded Tommy of Tennessee more than any place he'd ever seen. Had he not known he was fifteen, or sixteen, or whatever number of light-years away from Earth, he'd have sworn he was somewhere just south of Knoxville. The steep hills covered with large oaks and white limestone rocks reminded him of that one time he had been to the Smoky Mountains when he had been a kid. He remembered being bored to tears as his parents drove around gawking at trees and waterfalls and bears and shit. This forest had enough going on in it, like enemy soldiers and tanks firing at them, that he didn't expect boredom to be a problem.
"Well, I was thinking that the governor might invite us in for tea," Bates replied.
"Gunny?" Colonel Roberts's voice came in through the net.
"Yes, sir, Colonel?"
"We need to dig in here for now and hold this spot. As soon as we see hell coming down from above, we'll make our push. Get your squad covered and do not let the Seppies advance on us. Watch out for those M3A16s. Those tanks are older than ours, but they're still tanks nonetheless."
"Yes, sir." Tommy checked his DTM mindview. Bates was right beside him. Howser, Willingham, and Sergeant Hubbard were dug in about fifty meters to his east, near the bank of the river.
Hey, where does this river go? he thought to his AIC.
Here is a map, Tommy. It goes right to the front lawn of the governor's mansion, where it Ys and strings outward to the nine and one o'clock positions of the Megalopolis beltway. In the other direction, the river crosses the beltway around five o'clock.
How deep is it?
The only records I have are from the local Internet connections. It looks like it has a barge channel in it, so it must be at least ten meters deep.
That would be deep enough.
Deep enough for what?
"Top, got a second?" Tommy called to Tamara.
"Well, Gunny, other than ducking all this goddamned Seppy cannon fire and DEG plasma and watching out for these exploding fucking trees around me, I'm not that busy. I was considering taking a nap." It was the typical AEM joke. Tommy ignored it. Well, first he chuckled to himself, then he ducked and prayed as a tree just behind him crashed after it exploded about five meters up the trunk, then he ignored it.
"Well, Top, I'd hate to bother you while you're napping, but did you notice this river about a hundred meters to your east?"
"Uh, yeah, Tommy, what about it?"
"Well, Top, it has a barge channel in it, and it goes all the way to the front lawn of the governor's mansion." Tommy thought for a second, then added, "You think a tank can walk underwater?"
"Son of a bitch. Hold on, Gunny. I need to talk to the two colonels," Top said.
"What's up, Tommy?" Bates asked him.
"Danny, are you up for a swim?"
"I don't know, Mason, it might work. We might be able to go really quiet, as quiet as we fucking can, and slip right past them. Especially if there were enough resistance from the line here, it might just work. The Army armored infantry and some more tankheads could do that." Colonel Warboys listened to Colonel Roberts's wild-assed, harebrained, bat-crazy U.S. Marine scheme over the command net.
"Well, if we timed it with some help from above, I believe that might do. What do we do when we get there?" Warboys thought about it briefly as he ran his bot-mode tank through the forest, dodging trees and anti-mecha fire. He pulled up maps of the park and details of the rivers and was beginning to see a plan. "We'd be behind the lines, and they wouldn't be looking for us. A few tanks could cover you AEMs long enough to get inside and take the QMT controls. I dunno, Ramy. It's risky. But it might just work. It's a long shot your AEMs would survive."
"Hell, Mason, sitting around here like fish in a barrel ain't?"
"Good point. Shit! Guns, guns, guns!" He turned over backward to avoid incoming while returning fire in the general direction. He probably didn't hit anything but a fucking tree, but it might have at least made some Seppy bastard duck. "All right, Ramy. I'm getting tired of this shit. Our diversion strategy should still be our original strategy. The tanks and grunts on the line hold it until we get support from above. Then they try to poke a hole in the line and rush through to the mansion. By then we might be there, and we'd probably need somebody to cover our asses." Mason liked the plan. Well, it wasn't so much that he liked it as he liked it better than sitting around dodging cannon fire and exploding trees. The marine's plan was bold, daring, sneaky, and only a little bat-shit crazy. Only a little.
"I agree with that plan. We should shoot it up to the ground boss," Roberts said to the senior colonel.
"Yep. I'm a little busy over here. You want to take care of that?" Warboys dove his tank over a downed tree, taking cover from an incoming rain of anti-mecha fire. One of the tracer rounds passed just below his canopy and between the arm and torso of his mecha.
Shit that was close, he thought.
Too close, sir, his AIC agreed.
Warlord One's targeting system tracked the trajectory of the railgun rounds back to the generation-old tank that had nearly got him and then locked on with the DEG.
"Guns, guns, guns!" he shouted. The directed energy burst from the barrel atop his bot-mode tank and traced across the hillside, cutting through several oaks as it did. The DEG blast followed the enemy tank as it bounced through the woods up and down the slope until it finally hit its mark. The energy burst tore into the cockpit of the Arcadian M3A16 hovertank. The bot-mode tank exploded at the seams in an orange flash and
then fell forward, sliding to a halt into an oak tree farther down the slope. Black smoke poured from the dead tank's joints and seals.
"Ground boss likes the plan, but can't be certain when we'll get top cover. Apparently, things are tough all over up there," Roberts communicated back to him. "I tried to convince them that things were tough all over down here, too. They said they would try to get us some FM-12s for backup."
"Air cover would be nice," Warboys replied.
"How long will it take you tankheads to walk ten kilometers underwater and against a current?"
"Uh, my AIC says eighteen point six minutes. Let's shoot for twenty-five," Warboys answered the Marine colonel.
"Got it. I'll work the plan. Assuming we get approval, let's be ready to move in five minutes. Pick your team and start moving them to the river without looking like you're moving them to the river."
"Roger that, Ramy. Let's do it."
"All right, folks, listen up!" Warlord One broadcast to all the tanks, AAIs, and AEMs. "Our mission is to take the governor's mansion. That is where the controls for that QMT facility are supposed to be, so we can't just blow it up from space. We have to march in there and take it away from the bastards standing there. Let's go show them how the United States of America plays king of the hill."
"Hoowah!"
"Oorah!"
The Warlords totaled twelve state-of-the-art M3A17 transfigurable tank mecha. There were two squads of AEMs and three squads of AAIs. Warboys's DTM view of the battlescape showed him at least fifty enemy tank mecha and more than a thousand ground troops, and that was just in the near vicinity. His long-range sensors showed a much larger mass of troops just beyond the main line between them and where the control center for the orbiting QMT facility was.
"Warlord Two, you and the rest of the even numbers will stay here and lead this attack. I'll take the odd-numbered Warlords and a few AEMs for a swim," Warboys ordered his second-in-command.
Chapter 23
July 1, 2394 AD
Ross 128, Arcadia Orbit
Friday, 3:38 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time
The Utopian Saviors had been ordered to hit the Seppy supercarrier closest to the planet with all they had. The Demon Dawgs were backing them up and drawing the enemy ship's AA. Deuce and Goat, and Jawbone and Popstar had their FM-12s in bot mode, bouncing across the side of the hull of the giant armored spaceship that was presently facing the planet like fleas on a dog. These fleas were packing armor-piercing railgun cannons, DEGs, and a shitload of missiles, not to mention the hands and feet of their mecha. As they ran across the hull, they dropped HE grenades into any devices, protuberances, antennas, or any other parts of the spaceship that jutted beyond the structural integrity field that protected the hull. The strategy behind the battle plan was that the ship might be forced to die the death of a thousand cuts. The mecha attack on the one enemy supercarrier freed up the already overwhelmed fleet ships to focus their attack elsewhere. The problem was that the AA of the supercarrier was focused on the mecha, but the DEGs kept blasting toward the Madira and the Tyler. Deuce had already noted several hits. But that wasn't her mission right now. Skinny had taken several of the others around to hit the DEG battery. Deuce's team was tracking to the SIF-generator power conduits that ran along the underside of the supercarrier. And like any squad of good marines, they were creating mayhem and blowing shit up along the way.
Deuce clanked at over seventy kilometers per hour across the hull and flipped her mecha behind an AA box that was pumping out green tracer rounds into the fray around them. There was clearly some U.S. pilot in the targeting solution of the box. One of her buddies, most likely. She rose to her feet, bringing her DEG to bear on a Seppy Gnat that had been trying to lock her and Goat up. Goat flipped his mecha over her sideways and atop the AA box. Then he bounced to cover somewhere out of her visual several tens of meters behind her.
"Guns, guns, guns!" Deuce tracked across the horizon at the enemy fighter as it flew over the horizon of the ship's hull. "Shit, I missed!"
"Don't worry, Deuce," Goat said. "There's plenty more where that one came from! Fox three!" He let go a mecha-to-mecha missile that careened around a radome in front of him and twisted upward into the tail section of a Seppy Stinger that was pulling away from him. "Shit!" he shouted as the Stinger burst into a fireball.
"Goddamn, Goat, quit complaining. You got the Seppy bastard!" Popstar noted.
"I was aiming for the fucking radome! The goddamn sensor pulled off and locked up the fighter!" Goat replied.
"Don't worry, Goat," Deuce grunted. "There is plenty of shit to shoot at!" She ducked for cover behind an exhaust vent that jutted out of the deck behind the AA box as the Gnat that had vanished over the horizon of the ship screamed back up, going to bot mode. The Gnat hit the hull running at top speed and serpentined across the hull of the enemy ship toward her. The Seppy splashed her with DEGs but missed. The directed energy beam cut through empty space and kept on going and continued to track onto Deuce right up until she took cover. Then the Seppy Gomer cut the DEG off just in time to keep from blasting a hole in his own ship.
This Gomer has a hard-on for me.
Yes, ma'am! Her AIC started plotting possible trajectories for the enemy mecha.
And I still want to take out this fucking AA gun behind me.
Well, then, do it!
Right.
"Deuce! On your six!" her wingman warned her. Another enemy Gnat was starting to get a drop on her.
"I got it, Goat! Guns, guns, guns!" She leaped backward, firing both shoulder cannons and the giant DEG gun she held in her left armored mechanical hand into the AA box. She held the trigger in place until she saw the AA barrels stop firing, and then she carried her motion through a backflip with her feet thrusters at full throttle over the second enemy bot-mode mecha that had snuck up on her. Deuce went to missiles for it, and guns for his wingman that had been putting the pressure on her. "Fox three! Guns, guns, guns! Take that, you Gomer motherfuckers!"
She hit them both, but only took out the one in front of her. The Gnat that had been behind her managed to break out of her firing solution, and it got off a round of mecha-to-mecha missiles that were tracking in on Deuce's position way too fast at that short distance. The missiles arched upward from the mecha just as her guns had taken out the enemy fighter in front of her. As the missiles arched up and then back over, they acquired a radar lock on Deuce's FM-12, and the enemy fighter that had been behind her gave her the slip.
"Fuck! Goddamnit to fucking hell!" She rolled onto her back, firing at the incoming missiles with her DEG, triggered her electromagnetic countermeasures, burst some chaff, and then kicked her bot up into a full run using the ship's structural features for cover. "Eagle mode!" she cried as the missiles twisted and turned around the structural outcroppings of the Seppy supercarrier's hull. Deuce's fighter rolled over into eagle mode with the forty-millimeter cannons above and below the fuselage of the fighter and the DEG still in the left hand. The main drive of the fighter now was capable of flying the vehicle at top speeds and to outmaneuver the missiles. But just as she jinked around an outcropping on the ship's hull and was about to go full throttle and out of the missile's lock, an enemy Stinger twisted overhead and exploded, throwing fragments in her path that slammed into her nose. The impact of the unexpected explosion tossed her eagle-mode fighter tail over nose toward a sensor-array platform just ahead of her, and the missiles still had her locked up. Twice she managed to soften her tumble by putting her hands down, but the fighter was spinning beyond recovery.
"Hold on, Deuce! Fox three! Fox three! Guns, guns, guns! I got you." Jawbone's voice came through the net just as Deuce felt her eagle-mode mecha jerk into a completely different direction, throwing her against her restraints painfully.
Shit, I think that broke some ribs!
Stay with me, Colonel! Breathe! Hit the bite block! her AIC told her. Deuce chewed her TMJ bite block for a fresh load of stims and oxygen.
Jawbone had dived in between Deuce and the incoming while letting loose two missiles. Just as the missiles pulled out from her mecha, she gunned them down herself, creating a fireball of hot plasma and shrapnel between their mecha and the enemy missiles. The enemy missiles exploded behind them, as Jawbone then used the momentum of her jump and the force from the explosion to carry her into Deuce's path to knock her free of the sensor array.
"Shit! What the—" Deuce attempted to shake her head clear, but her mecha still spun wildly. Jawbone held fast to the right leg and arm of Deuce's eagle-mode mecha with both hands of her bot-mode FM-12.
"Just hang on. I'm spinning you down. Letting go in three, two, now!" Deuce could see Jawbone's mecha breaking off and bouncing back down on the deck, firing its DEGs into some other part of the spaceship.
"Fuck!" The Marine lieutenant colonel grunted and bit down on her TMJ bite block again, this time even harder, as the eagle-mode fighter steadied itself out of the spin. The effect of the stims washed over her, boosting her energy level from beyond exhausted to just really fucking tired.
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