“Nautilus Flight Control, Nautilus Aurora Tactical One requesting permission to disengage and render assistance to the Mars Base ground troops, over.” Hutch swung around Nautilus’ bow as he hailed Flight Control. There was a momentary pause before he received a response.
“Nautilus Aurora Tactical One, Nautilus Flight Control. The Admiral has granted permission for Scarecrow to lead the Nautilus air wing to engage the enemy on the ground. CAG, you’re instructed to stay in orbit and lead the remainder of the Solar Warden attack wing to continue mop up operations. Inform Scarecrow that Major Cooper’s company is on the left flank. Happy hunting, over.”
“Tactical One copies. Will inform Scarecrow. Out.” Hutch switched to the squadron common frequency. “Nautilus Air Wing, Aurora Tactical One. Form up on Scarecrow. You have a go to assist the Mars Defense Force Marines on the surface. Have fun ‘gator’ hunting, Scarecrow. The Nautilus Marine Company is on the left flank, over.”
“Tactical Two copies,” Scarecrow replied. “Thanks for the intel. All right, Nautilus Air Wing, form up on me. Let’s rain down fire and brimstone, over!”
The attack wing took up formation on Scarecrow and arced towards the planet’s surface. Once they entered the atmosphere, they dropped onto the deck, and the delta formation swept across the Martian terrain at low altitude towards the conflict, approaching Mars Base at hypersonic speed. Scarecrow focused on his tactical display, assessing the situation in the few moments they had before they were on top of the action.
In the midst of the confusion on the ground, the comm clicked.
“This is General Patrick to all company commanders! Be advised, we have incoming spacecraft approaching our position from the southeast, coming in hot, over!”
“Have the snakeheads called in air support, General, over?” Cooper replied.
“Verifying now. Standby, over.”
The seconds ticked away like years as everyone held their breath. If they were enemy aircraft, their fight could be over. There was no way they could withstand an aerial assault, even within the safety of their shield canopy. It was possible the Mars Base’s battery barrage would miss some saucers, who might survive to engage them.
Finally, the comm crackled with the General’s voice. “That’s a negative! They’re ours! Eighteen TR-3Bs. They have Nautilus’ transponder signal. It’s the Nautilus Air Wing. I say again, they’re friendlies, over.”
A cheer went up along the entire MDF line as General Patrick ordered the recall of the ISR drones.
That’s my flyboy … go get ‘em, tiger. Cooper turned up the gain on her comm. “All right you leathernecks! Just because a bunch of stick jockeys show up you think you can lie down and have a siesta? We’ve got incoming. We hold this position or we die in the attempt. Now let’s show these scaly brutes what MDF Marines are made of!”
Over five thousand voices joined in unison to shout a massive “OOH-RAH!” that even in the thin Martian atmosphere, was sure to be heard as far away as Elysium Mons. Every Marine on the line redoubled their efforts, startling the enemy and stopping their advance.
“Well said, Major,” General Patrick said on a secure channel. “Spoken like a true Marine, over …”
“There’s a lot of enemy ground troops down there, Sir,” MacPherson said to Scarecrow. “Tens of thousands, against less than 6,000 of our own. They can definitely use air support.”
“Yippie-ki-yay,” Williams said as he prepped his targeting scanners.
“It’s not the ground troops I’m worried about at the moment,” Scarecrow said as he scanned the enemy assets. “It’s those snakehead tanks we need to deal with first.” He switched his comm to the squadron common frequency. “Nautilus Air Wing, Nautilus Aurora Tactical Two. The MDF troops are taking heavy fire from the enemy armor. Target the tanks first. Secondary target is their artillery. Then target enemy ground troops, over.”
“Tactical Two. Confirmed, over,” came 17 replies.
“Nautilus Air Wing, Nautilus Aurora Tactical Two. Initiate plan. Avoid committing friendly fire, over.”
The attack wing sounded off once more and began painting the alien tanks.
“Scarecrow, Nutcracker. They’ve spotted us,” Lieutenant Commander Gibbons said. “Their armor is turning to target us, over.”
“Nutcracker, Scarecrow. I see it,” Scarecrow replied. “Nautilus Air Wing, Tactical Two. Ensure shields are at full strength, and stealth is engaged. They’ll have a hard time painting us. All birds, fire at will, over.”
The attack wing opened up with a deadly salvo, destroying dozens of enemy tanks almost immediately. The reptilian armor leapt up into the air as they were split apart by the air wing’s directed energy and particle beam weapons. The resulting explosions sent shrapnel in all directions, shredding any reptilian troops within range, much of it ricocheting off the MDF shield canopy. The Nautilus air wing darted back and forth above the battlefield, not allowing the tanks to respond with cover fire. They fired blind, unable to achieve a single hit. Armor exploded into massive balls of flame, and 15 minutes later, all the enemy tanks were destroyed.
“Nautilus Air Wing, Nautilus Aurora Tactical Two. Commence targeting artillery at the enemy rear, over,” Scarecrow ordered.
The enemy had redirected their artillery fire at the TR-3Bs, providing the MDF ground forces with much-needed relief. But like the enemy armor, they were unable to achieve a single strike on the attack wing. The TR-3Bs now sped back and positioned themselves behind the artillery and out of their line of fire.
“This is a turkey shoot, over!” Sheena laughed as her female WSO decimated and entire row of enemy mortars. In a matter of minutes, the reptilian artillery was silenced forever.
“Nautilus Air Wing, Nautilus Aurora Tactical Two. Begin targeting enemy ground troops,” Scarecrow said, swinging over to the MDF left flank. “Focus targeting scanners for a wide spread. Commence firing, over.”
The attack wing swept over and began blanketing no man’s land with weapons fire. In no time 30,000 enemy troops became 20,000, and then 10,000. After a half an hour, the enemy force was reduced to just 2,000 troops, all of them too close to the MDF position to be safely fired upon by the TR-3B attack wing.
“Nautilus Air Wing, Nautilus Aurora Tactical Two. MDF ground troops now have the upper hand,” Scarecrow said. “MDF artillery and their armor are still intact. Take up position above the MDF line to ensure superiority, over.”
The attack wing complied and spread out over the MDF ground troops, hovering just above the dome of the shield grid.
Scarecrow situated his bird as close to where he thought Cooper’s position was located and tilted his bird forward to appear as menacing as possible. Regardless, the reptilian force continued to engage the Marines, who were in a desperate struggle in their attempt to keep from being overrun. Many of the huge lizards still outside the MDF shields turned their weapons on Scarecrow’s bird and fired, but their small arms were no match for his TR-3B’s shields. They may as well have been throwing pebbles at him.
“WSO, what is that?” Scarecrow asked as he scrutinized his scan display.
“What’s what, Sir?”
“Right above that Marine on the ground directly beneath us. Sensors only identify it as some form of blue light. I can’t get a solid reading …
“SO, can you tighten up the scan a bit, and see if we can get a more concise reading on what it might be?”
“Where exactly is it, Commander?” Stacey asked.
“It’s hovering outside the MDF shields.”
“Got it …” MacPherson was silent for a moment. “Transferring data to tactical! WSO, you know what that is. Target it and fire!”
“Stacey …?” Scarecrow was still ignorant of the nature of the tiny blue light.
“WSO. I say again, target and fire!” MacPherson shouted into the comm.
“Targeting now …” Williams replied. “Firing …”
A directed energy beam flashed from the front of Scarecrow’s TR-3B, and the tiny blue light popped and disintegrated, but not before it transmitted an emergency signal to its masters, very far away …
“Can somebody explain to me what just happened?” Scarecrow asked.
“Sir,” MacPherson replied, “we see those little blue lights all the time–”
“They’re probes,” Williams said. “The enemy uses them to identify humans they want to abduct. They search for a particular DNA profile, then when they find it, they tag the human with a biometric marker. When the opportunity arises, the human is abducted by an enemy saucer.”
“Sir, it may have already tagged someone,” MacPherson said. “If so, and if the enemy gets a chance, they’ll abduct them. Sometimes they single out individuals for attack. Like an assassination. If it tagged someone, they may now have the equivalent of an enemy bounty–a price on their head.”
“The Lieutenant’s right, Sir. Unfortunately, there’s no way to tell if they’ve actually been tagged. Our technology, as advanced as it is, can’t identify the marker. All we can do is hope that we destroyed the probe before it had an opportunity to tag them.
“Whoever they are.”
Scarecrow ached to land his bird. To jump out and join the conflict on the ground before him. But reason won over emotion, and he refrained. He was a pilot, not a Marine. He longed to find Cooper and drag her back to the safety of his TR-3B, but he knew that was impossible, for a number of reasons.
At last, bit by bit, the enemy force began to give way and fall back. As the reptilians withdrew to a safe distance for him to fire without injuring his own people, Scarecrow ordered Williams to begin unleashing a salvo into their ranks, annihilating them, while several of his pilots who were nearby joined the assault. He scanned the battlefield beneath him, hoping to catch a glimpse of Sandy, but all the Marines were wearing body armor over their environmental suits. It was impossible to distinguish any one person in the press.
As he surveyed the ground below, Scarecrow noticed a large group of Marines had engaged the enemy in hand-to-hand combat, for what reason, he could only guess. They were holding their own against the much larger reptilians, but barely.
As the enemy withdrew from surrounding positions, more and more Marines joined to reinforce their comrades in the hand-to-hand fighting.
Then, much to the surprise of the Mars Defense Force, the enemy line fell back in a rout, and the MDF tanks and artillery did the rest. Many of the Marines on the ground turned their faces up to the attack wing above them and waved in thanks.
“Nautilus Air Wing, Nautilus Aurora Tactical Two. Alright ladies and gentlemen, I think they’ve got things under control down there,” Scarecrow said. “Let’s head back to the barn, over.”
He rocked his bird back and forth a few times at the troops on the ground before he led the attack wing up towards Nautilus in orbit. The Solar Warden fleet had moved away from the massive debris field caused by the recent engagement, and was now in geosynchronous orbit over the Mars Base. As they ascended above the thin Martian atmosphere and approached Nautilus hangar bay, Scarecrow peeled off. Hutch observed as the Nautilus air wing approached and witnessed Scarecrow’s maneuver.
“Tactical Two, Tactical One. Stay in formation, over,” Hutch ordered.
“Hutch, Scarecrow. If it’s alright with you, CAG, I’m going down to the base and check on our Marines, over.”
“Tactical One copies,” Hutch replied. “I’m sure she’s fine, Scarecrow, over.”
Scarecrow didn’t reply, but sped back to the Mars Base and requested approach vectors for their primary hangar bay.