“All set, Staff Sergeant,” he replied. “Watch your step, though. It’s a long way down.”
A moment later, Ostrowsky’s bulkily armored form appeared in the open cargo hatch. Knox braced himself across the opening as she carefully attached her own harness restraints. “Well, Gunny?” she asked. “Ready to party?”
“Yup. Let’s rock and roll. Hand me your ATAR.”
She unhooked her rifle from her suit and handed it to him. He switched on the imaging system and raised it to his shoulder. The inset TV picture on his HUD showed a magnified image of the base, half-buried external tanks, microwave mast, scattered Mars cats and wellheads, fuel farm and landing pad, assembly crane and storehouses and all the rest of the clutter attending Man’s first large-scale exploration and exploitation of another world.
He touched a control, increasing magnification. He could just make out the UN troops now, tiny, red-brown figures emerging in groups of five from the Cydonian base’s main hab and scattering across the desert.
Knox shifted aim, looking south toward the black loom of the D&M Pyramid, seven miles or so south of the Fortress. He couldn’t see the other lobber, which should have touched down a couple of miles north of the pyramid over two hours ago. He scanned the desert between Pyramid and Fortress, looking for some sign of the major and the rest of the MMEF, but couldn’t spot them. Well, no surprise there. Their active camo armor would let them blend into the desert damned near as well as the sand and rocks themselves. It was pretty clear that the UN troops knew they were coming, though. He could see them deploying behind a low ridge a mile south of the base. In fact, they appeared to be using entrenching tools to dig in.
He switched off the rifle and studied the area without the electronic enhancement. “Incredible,” he said. “Almost halfway into the twenty-first century, and the UN is resorting to trench warfare.”
Ostrowsky chuckled. “The major sure as damn-all called it right, huh?”
“I guess he damn well did.” It seemed obvious now, but when they’d been planning this operation, Knox had wondered how Garroway could so confidently expect the Foreign Legion troops to do exactly what they were doing. In Knox’s experience, the enemy never did what you thought they were going to do.
This time, though, Bergerac and his UN troops really had no choice. If they’d tried to mount a long-range assault against the Marines at Mars Prime, they would have found themselves attacking a prepared enemy. Far better to wait and let the enemy come to you. The only real option open to them was to wait until the Marines landed nearby, then rush out and form a defensive line, blocking the Marines’ advance. If the Marines landed smack in the middle of things, the Foreign Legion troops would emerge from the habs and attack them as they climbed out of the lobber. If the MMEF landed farther away to protect the lander, the UN forces would create a defensive line…exactly what they were doing now. To Knox’s eye, it looked like about half of the blue-helmeted troops were climbing into several Mars cats parked near the habs. Those would be Bergerac’s mobile forces. Once the Marines were pinned, those cats could swing wide around Garroway’s flanks, drop off their troops, and either surround the Marines or pull an end run and go capture the lobber, the MMEF’s only tie to Mars Prime. There was no activity that he could see around the two lobbers parked at the landing pad, and that fit with the major’s expectations as well. Bergerac wasn’t likely to risk his shuttle-landers in battle.
At least, not the way Garroway was risking his.
“Hang on out there!” The engine kicked them with a hard burst, and Knox grabbed a stanchion to keep from being flung against his harness. Elliott was bringing the lobber down now, balancing against the steady thrust of the NIMF’s nuclear plasma engine. Ostrowsky, working just inside the cargo bay, picked up one of the large, plastic parts-transport containers—about the size and shape of a picnic ice chest, complete with handles and hinged lid—and dragged it over to a spot on the deck just inside the hatch. They waited, then, watching Elliott’s final approach with something more than a merely academic interest.
“I’m getting waveoffs and warnings from the base command center,” Elliott’s voice said over the intercom. “I told ’em we’re a scientific explorer team returning from Utopia Planitia, but I don’t think they believe me.”
The story about a science team had been concocted as a means of buying time. Bergerac couldn’t be sure he had up-to-date information on all of the research teams on Mars, and it was at least plausible that one, overlooked, had been camping out on the other side of the planet since before the UN troops had even arrived.