We catch up to the armor column just as the last tanks of the company roll through the gap in the Lanky structure. The experience of driving into one of their reef-like edifices is disconcertingly vivid through the many lenses of the Weasel’s DAS sensors. I’ve gotten close to Lanky structures before, but I’ve never actually been inside one. The structure is much bigger on the inside than it looked from a few kilometers away, or maybe it just feels that way because of scale, because the armored vehicles look almost insignificantly small inside. Whatever the Lankies use for building material looks a lot like bone, but it’s so airy and transparent that the searchlights from the mules shine through the structure and light it up from the inside. The scale reminds me of walking through a cathedral. There are many irregular arches and openings in the walls. It looks like a discarded carapace or the plaster cast of an organ more than a building, and the Lankies have never seemed more organic and biological to me than right now.
We roll through the structure slowly and carefully, weapons swiveling on their mounts as the gunners look for targets.
“I take gunner seat, we have nothing to shoot,” Dmitry says with a tone of genuine disappointment in his voice.
The structure is several hundred meters across, and subdivided into smaller sections with those strange, semitransparent interior walls that look like they wouldn’t keep much out or in. We should probably stop and take samples of the stuff, but I find that my curiosity has its limits. Any second, I expect the Lankies to spring some sort of unexpected trap or ambush, because that’s what they seem to do whenever we feel like we have the upper hand for once. But we make it through the edifice and out of the other side without spotting a single Lanky.
There are dead Lankies on the other side of the structure where the drop ships strafed the retreating group. I count a dozen bodies, some still smoking from the bombardment. The armored column re-forms by platoons, and Lieutenant Stahl gooses the engine of the Weasel to take the lead. We’re faster, and our sensors reach further, so we’re playing eyes and ears again.
We’re too far out, I think. On my TacLink screen, our column is a small cluster of blue icons halfway between Red and Orange Beach, and it’s 150 kilometers to safety no matter which way we turn out here. Our air support is circling overhead and giving me some reassurance, but I’m very aware of just how far we’re sticking our necks out right now, and I keep scanning the darkness outside with the green-tinged night vision of the Weasel for the blade that’s sure to drop any minute now. But with every passing moment, we put more distance between us and the Lanky structure, and nothing is jumping out of the darkness at us.
Let’s hope our good luck lasts for just a little while, I think, knowing good and well that it never does.
The ride through the nighttime Martian landscape has a surreal quality to it, and not just because of the green tinge from the low-light magnification. Lieutenant Stahl pulls ahead of the column until we are almost ten klicks in front of the pack, far enough out to provide ample warning to the tank company once we find trouble.
“Whatever you did, it worked,” Brigade Command sends. “Orange Beach is reporting that the Lankies in their sector have stopped their push. They are moving southeast from LZ Orange and heading your way.”
“Copy incoming from the direction of LZ Orange,” I reply. “Do we have a head count?”
“They report several hundred individuals,” C2 replies. “Be advised that Ground Force Orange is too depleted to pursue, and they have lost most of their close-air support. They’re staying defensive for now, so it’s all on you. Make contact, and give them something to chase south, but don’t get into prolonged exchanges. You don’t have the numbers to stem that tide.”
“Copy that,” I say. The tank-company commander sends back his curt acknowledgment as well.
“You’re our tripwire,” the company commander tells me. “You make contact, we’ll get into blocking position, and you lead them back to us. No heroics.”
“Not interested in any above-and-beyond shit today, sir,” I send back, and he laughs.
“We’re still looking good. Seventy percent ammo, sixty-five on fuel, and another half hour of close-air coverage. We may yet make it out of this in one piece.”
CHAPTER 19
47 NORTHING
The terrain works in our favor. It’s flat enough for the optics to pick up the first elements of the Lankies coming toward us from several kilometers away. They stride across the plains with purpose, but in no terrible hurry, kicking up puffs of Mars dust with every step.
“Incoming hostiles,” I report on the company channel. The TacLink screen starts painting orange icons at the very edge of our visual detection range. “Bearing two-ninety degrees. Five thousand five hundred and closing in.”
“All platoons, halt and assume defensive posture. Reload your magazines from the spares while you have time. We fire from max range and fall back two klicks. Shoot and scoot,” the company commander orders.
The tank company halts and forms up in a long firing line. I see the icons of individual soldiers emerging from the vehicles as the troopers get out and set up firing positions in the spaces between the mules.
“Here we go,” I say to the other two members of the Weasel’s crew. “You’ll finally get something to shoot at, Dmitry.”
“Maybe this day will be some fun, after all,” Dmitry replies. He grabs the control stick of the gun mount. I hear the mechanical ratcheting sound from the machine-gun mount on top of the vehicle as Dmitry cycles the bolt remotely and readies the gun for action. He seems to need very little instruction when it comes to operating large-caliber weaponry.
“Two-thousand-meter range on the main armament,” Lieutenant Stahl reminds him. “I will try not to get closer than fifteen hundred.”
With the Weasel’s polychrome camo, we could probably get much closer to the Lankies without being spotted, but this is about getting their attention, not staying hidden. Lieutenant Stahl aims the vehicle at the center of the advancing line of Lankies and goes full throttle again.
“Remember, Mars gravity!” I shout. “Don’t flip this son of a bitch.”
“Eurocorps has purchased comprehensive insurance on this vehicle,” the lieutenant replies.
Dmitry laughs. “German humor,” he says. “I did not think it exists.”
The gap between us and the tank company opens as we race toward the approaching Lankies at top speed. We are thirteen kilometers in front of the mules and their guns, and we have to coax the Lankies to within five thousand meters. I keep my eyes glued to the distance readout. The gap between us and the Lankies shrinks too fast for my comfort. Three kilometers, two and a half, then two. When the distance readout shows 1,800 meters, Lieutenant Stahl hits the brakes and swings the Weasel around.