.....and as the sun came up, there was a glint off the squat round shape
that had settled right in the center of the river. There was motion
around it, but the jamming and distance made it near impossible to get
any details. So we were called up.....
"Harrison! Tighten up that formation! This is no time to start slacking..."
"Yo sir!" barked Harrison, as he tightened up his vee of three GEVs. All three vees, nine vehicles, were my responsibility, and I wasn't about to let details get us killed by whatever was out there. Yeah, sure, I had seen the video people, silly news dogs, "It surely is peaceful, theres been no hostile action taken, we should talk to them, etc etc" Yeah right, and if my mother stuck a fan under her skirt, she'd be a GEV. We had been tasked with scouting out the perimeter around the, well, the whatever. The news dogs were calling it the "Mother Ship", I called it a hostile target. It had landed two days ago, after all our satellite coverage had been creamed, how it couldn't be hostile I'll never know. Anyway, it landed, and all we knew for sure was that all our sensors were jammed to badly to get a bead on anything close in, though visual drones had been able to send back a few low quality pics of some sort of small vehicles moving about outside it. Oh, yeah, I'm Marcus, Captain James Marcus, commander of Marcus' Marauders, a wedge of nine light scout GEVs, part of the Sheffield Megaplex Armed Forces. We had been rushed across the Channel when this had come down in the old Normandy region, and now we were heading out to see what was what.
"Okay people, stand by to execute pattern gamma.......execute"
Nine GEVs spread out from a wedge formation into a wide line abreast, cruising at around 100 kph. We started to swing round the enemy (hey, what else should I call 'em?) when it started.
"Palance to Leader, I've got some movement about 16 klicks off my port side parallel at 80 kph. Some fast movers, looks like they have GEVs too. You want we should put a little squeeze on them?"
"Leader to Palance, negative Jan, I don't want to be known as the one who started anything. But stay sharp, I do want to be known as the one who kicked tail when it becomes necessary."
Jan was my best vee leader, she had graduated the class after mine, and had almost as much experience as myself. She was tough, and steady, so I had put her on the pivot point, closest to the, whatever.
"Leader to Palance, how many bogies?"
"Palance to Leader, two of 'em James, they're holding parallel.....wait one....they're turning into us, they just went to 120 kph, Leader I'm getting radars! Looks like targetting gear, Palance vee, swing left to 039, max throttles, unmask your batteries sweethearts. Leader, I'm responding to possible hostile action, over"
"Leader to Palance, go"
It was all I could say.
"Leader to Marauders, form up, swing port on Palance's point......execute."
The line reformed into three vees again, and two of those swung around as if hinged on Palance's point. They were well trained, thank God.
"Palance to vee, wait for 'em."
The two blips on my screen moved closer to Palance's three. Time seemed to stretch out, and I watched it start.
"Palance to vee, almost in range, stand by, stand by, *(&*^&*( Leader! INCOMpsshhhhttttttttttttttttt........."
"Leader to Palance, Jan what is your status? Leader to Palance. Come in Palance."
On my screen, Jan's blip went from green to yellow, then blinking yellow, then red. I heard her two wingmen move in....
"Leader, we lost Jan, the bastards got Jan, moving in. Daley, break left, lets hammer us some ET, eh?"
"Right on you boss. Pedal to the metal."
One of these days I've gotta look that comment up, though I think I understand what he meant. The rest of the wedge swung in hard now, full throttle, closing on the two blips that were now merely circling. What were they doing? We'd find out soon enough. Jan's truncated vee moved in, fired, and split left/right. I watched as the fireballs cleared.
"GOOD LOR.......DO YOU SEE THAT DALEY? THEY'RE STILL THERE! WHAT THEpssshhhhhhttttttttttttt........."
...and another GEV went down.
"Alpha to Marauders. Marcus, whats going on, what happened?"
"General, we've been fired on, Jan's gone, Taylor's gone. Looks like GEVs, but they pack a mean punch. We're moving in now. Marcus out."
I led the rest of the wedge in, screaming past a jinking Daley. Six to two, we opened up and then scattered in a classic hit and run pattern. We should have at least killed one and disabled the other, but no luck. The two machines appeared out of the fire and steam and flying debris, and killed another Marauder, Harrison this time. Now I finally got a good look at our opponents. They moved like GEVs, but packed a punch like a heavy tank. And they didnt have skirts, least I didnt think so. They seemed to float like, about a meter off the ground. Whatever they were, we were outmatched.
"Leader to wedge, break off, break off. We're out matched, break off, break off."
So we scattered and ran for home. The two enemy, GEVs? tanks? turned and headed back to their base. I had a bad feeling that we had just been tested, and found lacking......