The supercarrier's path was stabilizing and stretching as far up the mountainside as it could. If it hit near them at that speed the secondary fall of debris would kill them all.
"Is it going to hit us, Alexander?" Sehera reached out to her husband's hand and held it for a second. Her daughter was inside one of the inflatable domes with her helmet off. She had needed a little break from the suit. "Should I grab Dee?"
"Naw. Look at it. I think it is going to try and sled down the mountain over there." He pointed at the giant flaming ship. He could ask the Marine second lieutenant or one of the SARs pilots but they were busy dragging wounded around. The reporters kept their camera on the crash and had moved to a slightly better vantage point atop BIL the garbage hauler, but Moore didn't want to talk with them right now either. "Let's just watch. I'm tired of acting right now."
"You did well, Alexander. Even the great President Sienna Madira wasn't as heroic," his wife said to him.
"You're biased, in more ways than one." Alexander smiled at his wife.
"Yes of course I am," Sehera smiled for a moment; a brief moment was all the remaining grim tasks would allow. They would soon need to get back to helping with the wounded and their break from this horrible messy day would be over. "Do you think there are people still on that thing?"
"There must be. That is a controlled crash and a damned smart one," Moore said.
The supercarrier impacted at about three-fourths of the way up the easternmost side of the mountain, a side that was unpopulated. Debris and dust and smoke plumed into the sky, creating reds and oranges in the early-evening sunlight that were breathtaking against the giant Martian mountain. The tough behemoth warship tore a gouge in the mountainscape as it sledded its way through rocks and soil and then it turned westward around the mountain toward them. There were flashes of secondary explosions and occasional glints of sunlight from flying chunks of metal, but after a long arduous ride of more than a hundred kilometers down the mountain the ship came to a stop less than twenty kilometers away.
"Somebody should get into touch with them and see if they need help," Sehera thought out loud. Then they were quiet. The two of them stood there in silence holding hands looking out across the devastation, dust storms, and the giant crashed supercarrier up the mountain.
"CO Madira! CO Thatcher!"
"Goddamn it's good to hear your voice, Fullback!" Captain Jefferson answered.
"Aye sir. We've got some serious damage and there are three dozen wounded on board that need attention. But we survived, sir. And we steered the hauler away from the city." Fullback's voice was clear but she sounded gruff, much more gruff than usual.
"Goddamned if you won't make admiral before I will," the CO said. "Are you in any shape to take on crew and wounded? We've got a lot of troops on the ground that could use some help."
"I'll put out a recall to the escape pods to return to duty, sir. We can't go anywhere right now, but we most certainly can take on wounded and act as a staging ground," Fullback replied.
"Great work, Sharon. Madira out!"
"CO, the Washington has DEGs back online and the Kolmogorov and Blair have propulsion and missile batteries back up. They are going full bore on the remaining Seppy ships," the XO reported. "The squadrons have pulled back to cover for the remaining fleet and are beginning to overwhelm the Seppy bastards, sir!"
"Roger that, XO." The CO had the battlescape continuously updating in his DTM virtual mindview and knew that the fleet ships were coming back online from the fact that they were starting to reengage the enemy. But he hadn't been watching the DEG and missile battery readiness readouts of those ships at the time. It was quite a pleasant surprise to see the brilliant blue-green bolts of directed energy blasting away at the two remaining Seppy ships.
"Looks like they're on the run, Captain. Just like that time at Triton last year," the COB added. "Army Starlifters are loaded and ready to go to ground, sir. And Colonel Warboys is reporting that he thinks it's clear for SARs to drop."
"Deploy them and have them stage back to the Thatcher's location."
"Aye sir." The COB nodded at the Air Boss. The Air Boss took the information from the Army squads as the COB passed it along via the AICs and issued deployment orders to the squads.
The Fleet Angels were already in space and immediately started dropping the SH-102 Starhawks in for search-and-rescue operations. The Army Starlifter squads would drop in on the Army M3A17 tank squads and either resupply or load and transport them to the staging grounds depending on the needs of the ground commanders. Typically once the Starlifters were deployed the battles were well in hand. Captain Jefferson was glad that this battle was finally coming to a close.
"Senator. Mrs. Moore." Vulcan stretched her arms and legs as she stepped up behind them. Alexander hadn't heard the SARs pilot come up behind him and it startled him some. His nerves were shaky as hell from the events of the day.
"Shit, Lieutenant, don't sneak up on me like that." He smiled at her.
"Sorry, sir. Thought you would like to know that we've got full-up coms open again. The naval base up the mountain has been retaken and most of the Seppy forces on the ground are dead. What is left of the 34th Marine Mecha division that had originally been deployed in the northwest domes have regrouped with several Army squads and are taking the main dome back as we speak," the Starhawk pilot told him.
"What about up there?" Moore nodded toward the sky.
"The tides have turned there too. But they are still fighting."
"Lieutenant, shouldn't somebody help them out?" Sehera pointed to the crashed supercarrier.
"Unbelievably, ma'am, they are in pretty good shape. In fact, what I came to tell you is that we are about to move this staging area to there. That ship has a full hospital facility in it. There are no doctors there but they are on the way." Vulcan pointed to the east at the swarm of escape pods that were descending on the crashed supercarrier and about the same time several Starhawks screamed overhead, flying westward toward the dead-mecha-littered battlefield.
"Then we should go with you to help," Sehera told the young rescue pilot.
"Thanks, ma'am. Don't take it the wrong way, but there are trained professionals landing there now that can work more efficiently without you," Vulcan said. Sehera looked as if she were about to let the young pilot have it, so Alexander stepped in.
"You're right, Lieutenant. But we might can help with morale and to keep the press at bay. Although, now that the long-range is back up, that will soon get to be a full-time effort. We should go with you," Senator Moore said with Southern politician's charm.
"Yes, sir."
Chapter 27
2:47 PM Mars Tharsis Standard Time
"Don't move a muscle," Vincent warned his friends. The railgun fire into the sea of Mons City residents that had been corralled into City Park was continuous and relentless. The screams of victims were getting worse and worse as wounded piled up. The force fields continued to push inward on the remaining survivors and had collapsed to an area smaller than a football field. Vince, Rod, Carla, and several others lay helplessly but unharmed for the moment at the center of the mess, playing dead. At first people had scattered from the gunfire and left the pockets of dead and wounded lying about the park, but unfortunately the collapsing force field was pushing them toward the center where Vincent had led them. Soon they would be overwhelmed with terrified people trampling over them. Vince and Rod could probably handle that, but Carla's unborn baby most certainly could not.