The flight to the target area takes thirty minutes. The seat I’m sitting in is comfortable enough that I could take a nap if I wasn’t wired with the anticipation of the upcoming drop, my third one today. I am bone tired, but the adrenaline keeps me afloat mentally, and I know that my life may depend on how well I know the systems of this battle taxi, so I learn what I can while I have time. The remote weapons turret can be operated from any of the three seat positions, although the driver would have to stop the Weasel to shoot the guns. The weapons pack in the turret contains a fifteen-millimeter machine gun, a much smaller bore than our autocannons, but more suitable for precise fire at long range. It also has a semiautomatic grenade launcher alongside the machine gun. I check the ammo load for both weapons. Twelve hundred rounds for the gun, one hundred twenty rounds for the launcher.
For a vehicle of its size, the little Weasel can put down a pretty good ass-beating on infantry, although the weapons load is not exactly optimized against Lankies. The gun rounds are dual-purpose rounds with tungsten cores and explosive payloads behind, and the grenades are an almost even mix of fragmentation and dual-purpose rounds, with ten thermobarics in the magazine as well. I would not feel underarmed taking this little death buggy into battle against the enemies Eurocorps usually face—belligerent smaller nations on Earth, or the occasional armed insurrectionists—but the invisibility of the Weasel will be much more valuable against the Lankies than its armament.
“Very German,” Dmitry comments on the armament configuration.
“How so?”
“Small gun. Accurate. High rate of fire. Is made for precision. Russian guns are opposite. Not so accurate, but bigger shells. For bigger bang.”
We put down in a narrow valley a few kilometers from our observation-post site. The Euro drop ship touches down and opens the tail ramp, and the crew chief remotely unlocks the safety clamps holding us to the deck. Lieutenant Stahl backs the Weasel out of the cargo hold smoothly and with obvious practice. The drop ship is back in the air before we’re even fully turned around, and we’re on our own in the semidarkness of the Martian evening.
“Whoa. This thing can really move,” I say when Lieutenant Stahl takes us out into the fading light at full speed.
“Need to steal one,” Dmitry agrees. “For taking home. Maksim would enjoy.”
We drive out of the valley and onto the plateau at the foot of our target hill, and Dmitry and I turn on the DAS system to get all-round vision. The sensors automatically amplify the light outside, and the computer stabilizes the optical input to smooth out the bumps we hit. It’s like I’m a disembodied 360-degree camera gliding above the ground at two meters of altitude. I scan the horizon for Lankies and don’t see any, so I fire up the gun turret and get used to the targeting system in case we have need for the guns later. Lieutenant Stahl didn’t lie—the systems are very easy to figure out, and the computer does most of the work anyway.
“This goes faster here on Mars,” Lieutenant Stahl says jovially from the driver’s seat. “Less gravity.”
“Just make sure you remember that when you have to brake or make a sharp turn,” I say.
The German lieutenant gives me a thumbs-up without taking his eyes off his heads-up display.
We climb the target hill at low throttle, carefully and with the polychromatic-camouflage mode engaged in case we stumble into a pack of Lankies on the hillcrest. But the top of the hill is empty, just a relatively flat peak two hundred meters above the surrounding surface. When we crest the hill, I can see our objective in the distance—the strange latticework structures of a Lanky settlement. They usually remind me of coral reefs a bit. I’ve always wondered whether “settlement” was an accurate assessment of their function. They are too airy to keep out wind and weather, but that’s where the Lankies congregate, so that’s what we called them when we first encountered them on colony planets.
I send a burst transmission to the forces that are now making their way to this map grid from Olympus Spaceport and waiting for our update.
“Ground Force Red, this is Tailpipe Red One. We are on station at OP Promontory. We have eyes on objective Lima.”
“Tailpipe Red One, copy that,” the reply comes. “Armor is rolling. ETA three hours, thirty minutes.”
I relay the information to Dmitry and Lieutenant Stahl, who both mutter soft curses in their mother tongues.
“We will keep watch in shifts,” Lieutenant Stahl suggests. “Thirty-minute watches. One of us can sleep while two are keeping the watch.”
“Sounds lovely,” I say.
“You go sleep first,” Dmitry tells me. “I play with gun system and fancy computer. We wake you if trouble comes.”
Lieutenant Stahl voices his assent—I must look much more tired than I thought—and I nod and recline my seat. Then I close my eyes. With the adrenaline from the drop subsiding, it takes me no time at all to fall asleep.
We each get in two shifts of thirty-minute naps by the time the armor arrives to the southeast of us. The fleet has managed to land a full armor company, three line platoons with four vehicles each, and the command platoon with two mules bringing up the rear. Overhead, we have close-air support as well, several flights of drop ships and attack birds from three different alliances. We hold the strings up here in our hilltop OP, and it’s time to start yanking on them.
“Team Yankee coming up on your eight o’clock,” the company commander sends. “Damn, you guys are well hidden. I can’t even range you with the laser.”
“That’s the idea,” I reply, still shaking off the sleep from the last nap I took. “Still got eyes on objective Lima, still no movement. Repeat, no LHOs in evidence.”
“We will proceed to max firing range and start putting rounds into Lankyville. Get ready to call down the thunder.”
“We’ve been ready,” I reply. “Go ahead and advance. We have the overwatch.”
The light tanks fan out into a long battle line with small gaps between each four-vehicle platoon. Fourteen mules advance across the plateau to our left toward the Lanky village. At this range, our near-field TacNet works, and I won’t even have to call out targets for the tanks to be aware of them. They’ll see what I see the moment I spot something.
The thirty-five-millimeter guns on the Bastard mounts have an effective range of five kilometers in direct fire. The battle line of mules rolls to within four and a half kilometers of the Lanky village. By now they are past our vantage point on the hill, and whatever is going to unfold now will happen in front of and below our elevated position. The mules all halt their advance and bring their gun mounts to bear.
“Engage enemy structure at twelve o’clock, twenty-round burst,” the company commander sends. “Weapons free, weapons free.”
Fourteen large-caliber autocannons start thundering. The muzzle blasts light up the valley floor, and hundreds of tracer rounds fly out and tear into the Lanky structure.
For a few long moments, nothing happens. Then there’s movement in the structure, and a couple of seconds later, it’s like someone hit a wasp nest with a broomstick. Dozens of Lankies come pouring out of the south side of the structure. Even from my elevated position, I have no real idea where they were hiding just a minute ago, in a structure so irregular and airy that you can see clear through it in places.