"Guns, guns, guns! G.o.dd.a.m.n, I'm hit!"

"Count off the cadence loud and strong!"

"Take that, you Seppy a.s.sholes!"

"Warlord Seven is down, Colonel!"

"For where'er we go,"

They charged into the sea of enemy tanks.

"s.h.i.t! Three, watch your a.s.s!"

"Guns, guns, guns! Five's. .h.i.t!"

"You will always know..."

"Look out, One!"

Mason could see the AEMs bouncing just ahead of them...and ahead of the closing enemy line to the north. The marines were only meters from the mansion. The Army had done its job.

"Fox three!"

As they were engulfed by enemy tanks, the remaining Warboys' Warlords bellowed, "...that the Army goes rolling along!" "...that the Army goes rolling along!"

Chapter 27.

July 1, 2394 AD Ross 128, Arcadia Friday, 3:45 PM, Earth Eastern Standard Time "Break left, Goat! Climb, d.a.m.nit, climb!" Lieutenant Colonel Caroline "Deuce" Leeland yanked the HOTAS left and back and clamped her teeth down on her mouthpiece, thirsting for that shot of stims to hit her system. The compression layer of her armored g-suit crushed against her at over nine gravities. Her grunts, muscle squeezes, breathing techniques, and rapid cussing were barely enough to keep her from tunneling out. She stomped both right pedals and spun her mecha around with a one-hundred-and-twenty-degree yaw, and then she added some pitch and roll that let her track across the bowl at the remaining Gnat. Her radar tracking X went from green to yellow then to red, and a tone sounded in her mind and in the c.o.c.kpit. "Guns, guns, guns!"

The DEG locked on, and a wash of blue-green directed energy ablated armored hull plating off the right wing section of the enemy fighter that was on her eight o'clock. As the hull ablated away, plasma burst out of the fighter and then flashed bright as if it hit something that burned hotter. Then the beam cut into the power system and the enemy plane burst open into a million pieces along its trajectory. Deuce didn't have time, and she didn't really give a s.h.i.t, to look if the pilot ejected or not.

"Warning, enemy targeting radar detected! Warning, enemy targeting radar detected!" The voice of her b.i.t.c.hin' Betty rang through the c.o.c.kpit.

"Deuce, we've got to pull out of this climb or we're sitting ducks!" Goat warned her over the pilot's tac-net channel.

Deuce's vision spun as she yawed back around into a dive, and then she killed the throttle briefly and stepped on the left upper pedal to yaw her around not so abruptly. Once her fighter was facing downward, looking at the enemy supercarrier, she pushed the throttle all the way down. She held her line toward the ship as both AA fire and tracers from a bot-mode mecha on the hull of the ship continued to try and lock her and Goat up.

"s.h.i.t! Watch the AA, Goat!" she grunted and tossed her mecha into a barrel roll over Goat's line. Bile rushed up her esophagus, and her stomach retched a bit, but she managed to force it down.

"Warning, enemy targeting lock imminent. Warning, enemy targeting lock imminent!"

"Look out, Deuce!" Popstar shouted as she and Jawbone strafed through the line of fire, but both of them missed the enemy bot. It did confuse the thing's radar briefly.

"Fox three!" Goat shouted. His missile went wide of the bot but hit the AA box, knocking it out.

"s.h.i.t! I'm locked up!" Deuce jinked and juked and did everything she could as she saw a missile fire out of the bot's torso missile tubes. "Fox three! Fox three!" she shouted as the unlocked missiles jumped out in front of her. She tracked the tailpipe of her own missiles with the upper and under forty-millimeter cannons. "Guns, guns, guns!"

Her tracers tore through the a.s.s-end of her mecha-to-mecha missiles just as the enemy's missile began spiraling up at her. Her two missiles exploded into a fireball, confusing the enemy missile, which lost lock and spun out of control through the plasma in front of her. Deuce rolled her fighter, and the enemy missile tumbled centimeters past her. She yawed herself one hundred and eighty degrees and tracked the tumbling missile with her cannons, blasting it out of the sky. She pitched back over to orient her nose back into the line of travel and was now c.o.c.kpit-to-c.o.c.kpit with Goat as they barrel-rolled around and around each other.

"Guns, guns, guns!" Goat shouted. "s.h.i.t, Deuce, we're coming in too fast!"

"Prepare for QMT in five, four, three, two, one," the air boss's AIC voice chimed in Deuce's mindvoice.

"About f.u.c.king time!" Deuce killed her throttle and banked left and suddenly had a brief view of the inside of a ship and then was in very thin atmosphere about twenty kilometers directly above the Arcadian governor's mansion. Her blue-force tracker showed several other mecha all around her at safe distances, popping into s.p.a.ce. Several were already at full throttle toward the engagement zone below. Then Goat spun into existence beside her with sparks flying from his mecha. From the looks of it, he had tried to go to bot mode and something had taken the left arm of his mecha off. His DEG gun was nowhere to be seen.

"s.h.i.t! Look out, Deuce!" he shouted, but the air boss AIC had put him in at a safe distance. Unfortunately, it hadn't brought him in fast enough to prevent that Seppy fighter from getting him. His plane was out of commission.

"Toggle to fighter, Goat!" she shouted at him. The bot rolled over and tucked its legs in and expanded its wings, spinning into a fighter-mode mecha. The thin atmosphere was enough for the control surfaces to kick in and dampen out his spin.

"s.h.i.t! I've lost my DEG, and I've got systems going out everywhere!"

Jawbone popped into s.p.a.ce nearby, and then Popstar. Deuce started counting up the Utopian Saviors and sending them a signal to form up on her through DTM.

Bobby, get the message to all the Saviors as they QMT in.

Aye, ma'am.

"Do you still have SIFs and propulsion?"

"No SIFs, but I have propulsion."

"s.h.i.t, you're out of the game, Goat. They should've teleported you out first!" Deuce said it before she could stop herself. h.e.l.l, she knew that "should'ves" never do anybody a d.a.m.ned bit of good. "All right, Goat, you can't go back to the Madira Madira from here. So you need to find a safe place on the ground to hang out and see if you can stay out of trouble." from here. So you need to find a safe place on the ground to hang out and see if you can stay out of trouble."

"d.a.m.nit. Sorry, Deuce."

About that time another FM-12 spun in out of control. It was Skinny's wingman, Captain Michael "HoundDog" Samuels. The FM-12 was in eagle mode in a three-dimensional spin, and his tail section was spewing plasma and his c.o.c.kpit venting air and smoke.

"I'm hit, I'm hit!" HoundDog screamed with real pain and fear in his voice. The right tailfin of his plane blew off and a fireball started to form. "Eject, eject, eject!"

HoundDog's ejection seat cleared the fireball of his exploding mecha. The plasma and debris tossed his chair into a mad, freely falling whirl. In full gravity now, his seat started to plummet. When the sensor found enough air pressure, it would pop his chute. Unfortunately, he would land right in the middle of the fight below.

"Hang on, HoundDog!" Deuce dove her fighter over and straight toward the ejection seat. She hit the mode toggle, pulling into eagle mode. As she pulled up into an even free fall with HoundDog, she backed off her throttle to match his speed precisely and then reached out with her right mecha hand and grabbed the chair gently. "I got you."

"Goat, I've got a mission for you now!" Deuce arced back out of the free fall and leveled off. "Get HoundDog down and check on his wounds. Form up on me and take him. HoundDog, you with me?"

"Barely. I caught something in my abdomen. My suit sealed it off, but I don't feel too good," Hounddog replied. She did a quick check on his vitals. They were stable enough. Deuce had seen a lot worse come out okay, if they got medical attention soon enough. She wasn't sure why the Madira Madira hadn't QMTed him up to sickbay, unless the medi-AIC doing triage had a whole lot more wounded in worse shape than HoundDog. From the looks of the way things were going in s.p.a.ce, Deuce was pretty sure that was the case. hadn't QMTed him up to sickbay, unless the medi-AIC doing triage had a whole lot more wounded in worse shape than HoundDog. From the looks of the way things were going in s.p.a.ce, Deuce was pretty sure that was the case.

"I'm on you, Deuce. Ready for handoff in three, two, one, drop," Goat told her. Deuce let go of the chair, and it gently fell into Goat's remaining mecha hand. Then Skinny popped into s.p.a.ce.

"HoundDog, HoundDog, where are you?" Skinny shouted over the net.

"I'm here, Major," he replied.

"s.h.i.t, Marine, I thought I'd lost you," Skinny said. After a brief pause, she added, "You need to hit the immun.o.boost soon."

"My suit is handling it."

"All right, Saviors, listen up," said Deuce. "Several of the other squadrons are popping in and are starting to form up. We're all here minus Goat and HoundDog. Skinny, old girl, looks like you're with me."

"It'll be just like old times, Deuce!"

"Let's. .h.i.t the deck and help out the tankheads. Use the DEGs as often as you like, but conserve the ammo on the cannons. Don't know about all of you, but my counter is getting pretty G.o.dd.a.m.ned low. Blue-force tracker shows a small group of marines and tanks making a push to the governor's mansion. Let's help them A-S-f.u.c.king-A-P. Maximum velocity with maximum ferocity, Marines!"

"Oorah!"

Fish was glad as h.e.l.l to get out of that s.p.a.ce ball. It was too one-sided with Seppy Gnats and Stingers. They were every-f.u.c.king-where. Her squad had been whittled down to seven out of the initial ten. Those were very bad numbers for the G.o.ds of War. Lieutenant Commander Penika "Hula" Moses was dead. Lieutenant Junior Grade Geoffrey "Fireball" Julias was out of commission with critical wounds. And Lieutenant Commander Charles "Stinky" Allen was barely managing to keep his plane in the air. He was also carrying Fireball's ejection chair with him.

She could see in her DTM that the Saviors and the Dawgs had taken some casualties, too. The Dawgs had suffered the worst, losing half their squad.

"Deuce, Deuce, this is Fish."

"Go, Fish."

"We're forming up, ready to help out. I see you're on the way down. We'll be right behind you."

"Roger that, Fish. Looks like Poser is the senior of you squid pilots."

"I heard that, Deuce!" Poser's voice chimed in. Fish could see her in the DTM, forming up near the G.o.ds of War.

"Take her cues, Fish," Deuce advised her.

"Roger that, Deuce," Fish acknowledged.

"Poser, Fish, we need to clear out the enemy line on the south side of the governor's mansion and hold it. And, Fish, the fight is on the ground there for now, but you need to be my eyes skyward."

"Understood, Deuce." The FM-12s the Saviors flew were more suited to close-in fighting on the ground and other surfaces, like carrier hulls. The Ares-Ts were designed for top cover and fighting in open s.p.a.ce, but that didn't mean that ace Navy aviators couldn't fight on the ground as well. That was the main reasoning for Navy procurement officials to decide on a new Ares model that could transfigure into bot mode.

"Poser, you got the middle ground if we get Gomers. Otherwise, both of you take it to the surface dwellers." Deuce said. "We didn't do too good turning the tide up top, but we have to turn the tide down there."

"Roger that."

"See you in the s.h.i.t. Deuce, out."

"Demon Dawgs, Demon Dawgs, form up on the G.o.ds of War! We are regrouping here," Poser announced.

Fish and Poser went through the losses and started pairing off pilots with missing wingmen. They ended up splitting into six fighters in each group. Fish was still the designated squadron leader of the G.o.ds of War, and Poser kept the Demon Dawgs.

"Let's go shoot some tankheads," Poser ordered.

"Roger that," Fish said. "Okay, G.o.ds of War, here we go."

"Look out, Warlord One!" Deuce dropped in first on the line, burning through three different tanks as she boomed overhead at treetop height. She pa.s.sed the line at over nine hundred kilometers per hour causing the tall oaks to sway almost to the snapping point. "Guns, guns, guns!"

"Holy h.e.l.l, I'm glad to see you mecha jocks!" Warboys replied. The screaming fighters overhead were enough of a distraction to the enemy troops that the Warlords managed to take a breath, regroup, and fight their way back to their feet.

"Fox three!" Deuce said as she rolled up into a long loop-over to bleed off some of her velocity. She hit the mode toggle as she came back around to the five o'clock position of her looping trajectory, going to bot mode. Skinny was right on her wing, following suit. The two mecha twisted and turned in midair like ballerinas.

"Fox three!" Skinny shouted. Her bot-mode mecha overshot Deuce slightly, but intentionally. Deuce could see her bounce to the ground, running and flipping over enemy mecha, slamming down on the Arcadian tanks with her armored feet as she did so. Deuce was right behind her.

"Guns, guns, guns!" Deuce washed the line with her DEG, blasting a tank off the back of Warlord Nine. After firing her mammoth handheld DEG, she turned and rammed the mecha's left elbow through the c.o.c.kpit of a tank behind her. The enemy tank grabbed at her, pulling her backward and almost off balance. With right pedal and manipulation of the armature controls, she rolled off the enemy tank and took her bot through a handspring over the top of it, then tucked into one of her trademark judo rolls. She followed through the roll by putting the elbow of the forearm of the mecha down first and then the back, b.u.t.tocks, legs, and then back up to her feet, firing away with the shoulder-mounted auto-cannons. Her DEG in her left hand waved back and forth, looking for targets to either shoot or smack.

"Warning, enemy targeting system is acquiring lock. Warning..."

Still a little dizzy from her roll, Deuce used her DTM targeting system, focusing on the vehicle that was targeting her. It wasn't a vehicle at all, but instead a mobile AA and anti-tank turret firing away at her. She kicked at two of the pedals on her left side and yanked the stick, sending the bot spinning like a figure skater.

She couldn't get a lock with her DEG, and she was way too close for missiles. She decided to go with the DEG anyway. "Guns, guns, guns!"

The DEG directed a plasma burst of energy that tracked across the AA box, burning away one of the barrels of the cannons. The missing barrel caused the box to misfire and explode on itself, destroying the box.

"Where are you, Skinny?"

"I'm behind you, Deuce." Skinny shouted over the net, and Deuce spotted her on the right and behind her. "Look out, Warlord Three! You've got one on your three-nine line!"

Deuce launched herself in the air with a giant leap, and she kept her mind on that d.a.m.ned tank. She rolled over at the crux of her jump and slammed feet forward into the upper torso of the bot-mode tank like a martial artist doing an aerial double frontkick. The two mecha clanged together briefly, but Deuce's forward momentum sent the enemy tank flailing over backward and through a middle-aged fir tree. The tree snapped off at the base of the trunk. Warlord Three pounced just in time to pick up the tree and stab it through the c.o.c.kpit of the Arcadian mecha. Pieces of fir tree flew everywhere and erupted into flame in a ball of smoke and ash.

"Thanks, Deuce!"

"Welcome, Three." Deuce continued forward and out of the way as Skinny came in behind her, settling up to her mecha back-to-back fashion. The two of them scanned for more targets. There were plenty. It was more of an issue of which one to go after first.

"Two o'clock, Deuce!" Skinny shouted and pounced away toward another bot-mode enemy tank, her auto-cannons firing off forty-millimeter rounds as she launched over it in a full throttle leap. She pitched forward over Deuce's head, firing her DEG from the hip into the tank's wingman before it even realized what had happened. But the shot wasn't a kill shot, and the enemy wingman turned on Skinny and started to raise his cannon to track her.

"I got it!" Jawbone b.u.t.ted in as she landed on top of the bot, squashing the torso to the point that metal reached its elastic limit and gave way. The knees of the enemy mecha faltered, and one of the Army tankheads put a round through the c.o.c.kpit of the thing just to be sure.

"That's what I'm talking about!" Jawbone said through the grunts and growls that the g-load had forced her into. "Popstar, watch your four o'clock, girl! Guns, guns, guns!"

"Great work, Saviors. Let's keep it frosty!" Deuce shook her head to clear the spins. More radar warnings pinged at her, and she tossed an oak tree down that she had been wielding in her right hand as a club. Cannon tracers pa.s.sed by her on the left, and then something pushed her over. She started to fight back until she realized it was a blue-force vehicle that hit her.

"Look out, Marine!" Warlord One rolled off of her and onto his back, firing upward at two enemy tanks leaping on top of them. "Fox three, fox three!" He let loose two missiles that hit home dead center on the two tanks. They blew apart from the torso, scattering mechanical arms and legs in every direction.

"Thanks, Warlord One." Deuce rolled over and searched for her wingman in her DTM. Then she settled down and located the rest of the Saviors as they scattered around the Warlords. They needed a plan that was a little less random.

"Anytime, jarhead."