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CHAPTER SIX

CROSSING THE RIVER

Let us cross over the river, and rest under the trees.

—Stonewall Jackson

Alex Smith, 1 Bi-April, Mars Year vii

U.S.S. Armageddon, in Orbit Around Planet Earth

The day had at last arrived. Everything that I’d worked for during the previous years was finally coming to fruition. We were going to launch the main assault fleet in just over an hour.

This wasn’t the first manned journey to Mars, of course. During the most recent pair of oppositions between Earth and the Red Planet, we’d sent several small groups of probes and weapon ships and observation platforms there, just to learn what we could expect in response. All of the brave men and women on Expedition I had died very quickly in Bi-April of Year Five. Half of those on Expedition II had perished within months of their arrival in Bi-June of Six, and another half of the survivors had perished in the interim; but the remaining fifty or so veterans were waiting for us at their bases on the Martian moons of Phobos and Deimos.

Phobos is the larger of the satellites, and since it orbits relatively close to the planet (about 5,600 miles from its surface), it provided our forces with a fairly safe and secure hideaway once they managed to dig in. A small automated Martian observation station there was destroyed by our sappers. We also established a second, smaller base on Deimos, the outer moon. Both camps had extensive laser and missile defensive and offensive systems. Curiously, the aliens had made no attempt to assault either facility. Also, neither base had reported any additional or unusual activity on the surface of Mars in response to the construction of our fleet.

What these two previous raids had also established, however, was the type and scale of weaponry we would have to face once we arrived at the Red Planet.

The first of these was a long-range adaptation of the Martian sting-ray (essentially a souped-up laser); this development had been predicted by the engineers who had salvaged and analyzed these weapons from the great striding tripods abandoned by the aliens during the War of Two Worlds. We’d already developed our own versions of these systems, together with several possible defensive mechanisms and reflective metal shields. They weren’t regarded as a major military threat.

The second weapon employed by the Martians was a kind of cosmic pea-shooter. The atmosphere and gravity on the Red Planet are both sufficiently slight that small projectiles can actually be fired from the surface without too much expenditure of energy. In essence, the aliens were using giant cannon to pepper our spacecraft and bases with fast-moving rocks of varying sizes. Later, they employed a variation of this by shooting small cluster-bombs at our ships. These would explode before actually hitting anything, scattering dozens or hundreds of fast-moving metal or stone pellets at their targets. The result was deadly.

We were eventually able to build our own versions of these giant sling-shots on Phobos Base, and thereafter we were able to respond in kind to any alien attacks; by Year Seven we’d put all of the known launching sites on Mars out of commission.

During those initial expeditions, our forces reported seeing very few Martian spaceships as such. I suspect that these were just too valuable as primary assets to be wasted in wanton and risky attacks on our fleets.

We still didn’t know for sure where the aliens were modifying the meteor orbits to allow them to hit the Earth. Mindon believed that the Martians had one or more bases out in the Asteroid Belt, including the minor planet Ceres, and were installing their ion engines on selected rocks that crossed the Earth’s orbit. Even so, it would take many years in some instances to generate enough of an aberration in the paths of these asteroids to make them a danger to our planet.

We knew for certain of about a dozen rocks that had been lobbed in our direction, beginning with that first strike in Year Two. Several had been near misses; several others had been detected by our long-range radar, and had either been nudged sufficiently to remove them from the danger list or had been split into a number of pieces by well-placed nuclear bombs. Half a dozen meteorites, however, had actually struck Earth dead center, causing horrendous damage to our ecology and our economy.

We practically had to mortgage the planet to mount the response that was now being launched. Every nation in the world had contributed, even third-world countries. No one was left out. The cost had already reached into the many trillions of dollars. The damage caused by the Martian pounding of Earth had added trillions more. The world would forever be a different place because of the War of Two Worlds.

“Daddy,” my twelve-year-old daughter Mellie exclaimed, “look!”

She pointed to the viewscreen. We were all locked in our small cabins for the departure, on the orders of General Burgess, and were watching the proceedings through the official ship communications channel. I wondered if Mindon was enjoying “Duck Dodgers” on the Cartoon Network.

The nearby Bellerophon Orbital Defense Station was hosting the major world leaders, including the Presidents of the United States, Russia, China, the European Community, La Comunidad Latina, India, the Organization of African States, and the al-Jihadi Arab Coalition, plus the Secretary General of the United Nations, among others.

Displayed on the screen were the large space docks containing the Armageddon, the Thunderbolt, the T-Rex, the Phoenix, the Uhuru, the Yarost’, the Fléau, the Hasta, the Huracán, the Van Dine, and the Annihilation. Surrounding these were some 200 points of light representing the attack, transport, and support vessels of the fleet.

We were going to Mars to stay.

“It’s beautiful, Daddy!” Mellie said.

Then President Bush’s face appeared, the former Governor of California close by her side.

“We inaugurate this expedition to save all mankind,” she intoned. “May you go with God’s good grace and all of our blessings. The hopes and future of the world journey with you.”

The ex-Governor then stepped forward, holding a document in his right hand where everyone could see.

“General Fleming Thomas Burgess: in accordance with the authority granted to me by the United Nations and the United States of America, you are hereby requested and required to assume command of Mars Expedition III, and to proceed at flank speed to the Red Planet, where you will undertake any and all steps necessary to defeat the enemy and to secure his territory.

“Let’s go kick some Martian butt!” the politician then shouted, to the cheers of the official delegation and the watching billions around the globe.

General Burgess virtually received a copy of the proffered proclamation.

“On behalf of the men and women of Expedition III, I accept this sacred charge,” he said. “Operation Crimson Storm has now commenced. We will defeat the Martians or die trying, sir.”

Then he saluted from his station on the command deck of the Thunderbolt. I wasn’t sure that an either-or proposition was entirely suitable to the occasion.

Half an hour later the grand armada began to move, very slowly at first, but gradually, oh so gradually gathering speed as the ships’ ion engines came on line. They would continue to accelerate until the mid-point of their journey, and then decelerate all the rest of the way to the Red Planet.

Only one thing marred the departure: the H.M.S. Wells just sputtered a bit and sat dead in the water, so to speak. It would join the rest of the fleet as soon as they could find a Scottish engineer to clean out the pipes.

They let us out of our cages an hour after departure. I guess they figured that anything that could have gone wrong would already have happened by then.

The acceleration was minor enough that it had no real effect on our senses: the ship still felt like a zero-G environment. You either got used to it or you didn’t. I knew of one poor slob who spent the entire blasted trip vomiting out his insides, and was so happy finally to land on Mars that he completely forgot his basic training, and accidentally killed himself by failing to secure his helmet adequately. Oh, well, these things happen.

All in all, though, I found the occasion very positive and gratifying. To quote one of my dippier colleagues, we took a partridge from a lemon tree and shook some lemonade out of it. We were finally taking action against the aliens! I had no doubt whatever that we’d prevail.

Sometimes, though, winning a war isn’t everything.

Sometimes it doesn’t amount to very much at all.