After getting a solid taste of American mech-grade knuckles, the opposing mixed forces clearly lost their nerve. They fell back like a retreating tide, pulling back nearly a hundred klicks. This godforsaken patch of Ganymede"s icy wasteland held nothing now except the Australian base—standing like a punch-drunk boxer missing a few teeth—and the surrounding, utterly leveled mining outpost ruins. David leaned against a maintenance gantry, watching the ground crew replace the worn joint bearings on his Gladiator. He figured the most dangerous, pants-shittingly terrifying part of this mission was probably over. Follow-up reinforcements had arrived in earnest: two more companies of US Stellar Army grunts, heavier fixed defenses, and two bulky transport ships that huffed and puffed their way thr
