Hey, kids! This is Jack "Combat" Calloway, your Front Line Reporter with special treat for you! This week the great folks over at First Cavalry Division arranged for me to ride along with our boys in the Raptors. These combat hovercraft dish it out to the Pansies daily, and this time you get to come along!

Our day started with a mission briefing at oh-seven-hundred, as troop pilots and gunners assembled in the briefing room. Breakfast was meager, but that didn't dampen their spirit. "We know the folks at home put in a hard day's work on a light breakfast, we don't ask for any better!" one twenty year old veteran of seven major engagements told me.

Colonel Sharpe came in and laid out the plan: the Paneuros were planning a breakthrough, and a Mark V Ogre, which they call a Huscarl, would be leading the way. Some good men and women we have working intelligence had figured out the whens and wheres, though of course we couldn't be told how. The B Troop of 2nd Battalion would be part of a spoiling attack, taking a few bites out of the Ogre to reduce it effectiveness, and hopefully cancel the attack. Without an Ogre, breaching our defenses would cost a few casualties, and the Paneuros don't have the sense of sacrifice that comes with a strong team.

Major Niles took over with the specifics: several squadrons from the 84th Fast Armor would make probing attacks at several points along the lines in the sector in front of the Ogre. Where they met resistance they hold to tie down forces, but where they found, or made, openings Troops B, C, and D would break through and race for the Ogre. We would be vectored to the openings on the way by the good folks at II Corps Control, who keep these things flowing smoothly. Once on target our priority was the guns - if we could knock out the main batteries, and maybe even some secondaries, the Ogre wouldn't have the punch it needed. It would be on its way back to Stutgart, not out of the battle, but we would have denied the Pansies the initiative in this sector. It was a well-coordinated ballet of force.

As the pilots went over details I walked out to the hangers. Technicians who had put in a long night were going over the buggies one last time. Every targeting antenna was calibrated, every fan lubricated, every windshield clean. They clearly knew the pivotal role they played.

I got strapped into number 1374, and after a careful going through the checklist Lieutenant James Washington fired up the turbine that powers the ducted fans. It was like being picked up by a giant hand. I expected it to feel like an upward moving elevator, but even though there was no side-to-side motion you could tell you were floating, not hanging from a cable. After signalling the commander, he eased the throttle forward, and we glided out of the base.

Let me tell you I was not prepared for what I felt next! Within _X_ seconds we were doing _X_ clicks. Seeing the look on my face Lieutenant Washington grinned "Those folks back in Detroit really put these things together right!" he said.

As glided towards the front we flew over rough ground that would stop an all-terrain wheeled vehicle with no more roughness than a passenger aircraft in mild turbulence. Knowing the ground clearance of these beauties I was a little concerned when Lieutenant Washington headed us straight for a stone fence at a hundred clicks. A few seconds before impact he increased power to the fans, bouncing us over easily. He wore the GEV like a pair of running shoes.

Looking out to either side and seeing the larger formation we were part of thrilled me. This Ogre wasn't facing a string of hot shots, but a cohesive swarm. This was made even more apparent when we received our course from II Corps - B Troop seperated from the formation on command and formed a single line, heading for the break through the boys from the 84th had made with their Rangers.

As we approached the line we entered the clouds of dust and smoke where shells had rained just a few minutes before. Any ordinary driver would slow when visibility dropped to zero, but that's because they'd be depending on their own eyes. Lieutenant Washington and the others in B Troop could see everything through the II Corps net: a head up display on the windshield showed them buildings and roads, drawn by the computer based on positional data collected by the intelligence folks. Blockades, wreckage, and other recent obstacles had been registered on the scanners in the heavy tanks and transmitted back to II Corps control. This data was meshed with observations from infantry men and radar from the rear, then transmitted to the computer of each GEV. This was better than clear visibility: we could also see obstacles that lay around corners, and even remaining enemy units.

We cleared the maelstrom that was the front line and penetrated into enemy held territory. Lieutenant Washington told me to hang on, but not to worry. Moments later shells started to explode around our formation, still _X_ strong. "They can't get a lock on us," he explained. "We're too fast and too far. They're hoping to get lucky, hoping to scare us away." The grond a few hundred meters directly in front of us erupted in white flame, but the Lieutenant skirted around it like a pothole.

Just when it seemed to be letting up it suddenly got heavier, and it seemed like it was closer. "That's the Ogre firing," he said. "Its fine with me if he takes these kind of shots. He doesn't get to reload."

The Ogre appeared on the windshield as a red triangle, next to targeting data. The only thing I could make out was 9000 meters. "Hang on, Mr. Calloway, this is where I do my part!" Acclerating to over 150 kph, Lieutenant Washington took us straight at the Ogre.

When I first got visual I thought it was still a computer projection. "Surely its not that big," I thought. Of course, I've seen Mark Vs before, as my regular readers know, but you never get used to them, and when its an enemy Mark V, a non-dead enemy Mark V, they seem bigger. I really respect our boys who face these things every day.

One minute later the threat indicator went read. We were being targeted by all fourteen of the Ogre's main weapons! It took me a moment to realize that it was not just the craft I was in that was meant, but the whole troop. A threat to one is a threat to all, and the electronics and close-in weapons that defend the Raptors coordinate automatically. Three weapons were target on this specific GEV, but it was thought that an Ogre that expected to be making a breakthrough later today would hold back its missiles from a spoiling attack of GEVs, so that left only one gun. On the other hand, its a foolish man who places a lot of trust in his predictions of an Ogre's behaviour.

Lieutenant Washington was all business as we broke the three thousand meter line. With me in the gunner's seat the computer would be firing the weapons, so the pilot had to give it an easy shot. I could see the fire coming from the other GEVs pouring into the front part of the Ogre, which was quickly, mercifully for me, hidden from view by the explosions. Our _X_ gun finally opened up and sent _X_ rounds into the inferno before the threat display showed the Ogre had a real lock on us. I thought we had bought it, but Lieutenant Washington pulled the craft around into a hard turn, and I mean hard.

Shells fell around us and I heard our point defenses open up with the ripping sound of _X_ rounds-per-second railguns. Through the dust I could make out Raptors on either side of us on collision course! I would have warned my pilot, so sure was I of the disaster, but I couldn't speak for fear. But course-crossing is a standard technique, it gives the ECM a greater chance to confuse the incoming rounds, provided you have pilots can think as one.

Soon we were back out at around eight kilometers. As the computer presented new data the computers back home had put together from the attack run, it was clear that _X_ Raptors had taken out the two main batteries. I felt like I had my story, and I got that sense of relief that comes when you know you've done your job, and you can go home. I wouldn't have felt that if I'd been listening to the comm link. As it was, with all the twisting and turning, I didn't realize until I saw the Ogre in front of us again that we were headed back in.

The area display in front of me showed reinforcements: Paneuro GEVs were approaching from the North, eight minutes away. If they could spare anything from the front we would have had trouble behind, as well, but the 84th was keeping them tied down. The threat indicators were all lit, the Ogre was moving towards us, and we were moving towards it.

Lieutenant Washington shot me a quick reassuring smile, but it wasn't the same as his usual grin. He trusted himself and he trusted his fellows, but this was big game.

We closed, swerving across each other's paths. My job has taken me to the front with many different types of units, and they all had something to hide behind - walls, foxholes, revetments, jamscreens, trees: a soldier uses whatever the battlefield provides. But in the Gremlins and Raptors you don't get that option - you can see them, they can see you. At 3000 meters and nearly 200kph closure the point defense guns opened up. Each GEV shot not only the shells targeted at it, but at those targeted at the others. The threat display was off the scale, and the smoke, dust and fire prevented me from seeing anything - the target, the rest of the troop, the ground, even the sun. The sound was too loud even to remember.

Then it was over. Suddenly the clear sky was in front of me, and the explosions stopped. I struggled to make sense of the displays, but all I could make out was that the Ogre was behind us, and growing farther away. I felt my heart rise, but Lieutenant Washington looked serious. He could tell I didn't know what had happened.

"We got two mains and two secondaries," he explained. "But we lost two. Rogers, Gator, Rowe, and Stephenson." He paused. "But there will be a lot more than that we won't lose later today. I don't think that Ogre is going anywhere."

II Corps sent us on a different route home. We blazed some targets of opportunity identified by the 84th Fast Armor, some infantry implacements and antenna, but it seemed like nothing more than a live fire excercise after the Ogre.

The ride home was long enough and smooth enough that I was able to shake off the fear, only to have it return when I got out of the buggy and saw the outside. Only the underside still showed the proud Combine Red. Everything else was chared black, except where grey BPC showed through. There were holes in the tail fins where hypersonic chunks of debris had punched through like a pencil through paper - how had Lieutenant Washington kept the craft in the air after an impact like that?

"The computer is constantly evaluating outside conditions, air temperature, shockwaves, control responsiveness, everything. It compensates for a lot. I'm really grateful to the guys who wrote the software. It seems to get better every month."

The loss of their troopmates sobered the whole group, ground crews and all, but they didn't go into a funk. One gunner put it eloquently when he said, "We all know what its like to be willing to give it all for the side, and we know they felt that way, too. Sure, they won't be going home, but a bunch of other guys will. Its like _X_ said, 'the greatest good for the greates number,' you know?"

Major Niles put it more pragmatically, "Teamwork and willing sacrifice enabled us to engage the Ogre on our terms, instead of theirs. This means less sacrifice overall, and we let them know that we're calling the shots in this war, not them."

I had to leave for my next assignment, but kept my eyes on that sector. Its been four days, and sure enough, not only has their been no attack, but the forces and supplies the Pansies had amassed behind the lines are being reallocated to other sectors. As long as our Raptors keep flying, the Paneuros can't move an inch!