Free Peace World by Steven L. Hawk

Minith.  His mind reeled with possibilities and choices.  As each one entered his mind, it was discounted.
    Retreat to the mothership?  Can't, the Minith have taken it by now.  And even if we recaptured it, could it take off?  And if it could, where would we go?
    Send the reserve carriers ahead to the target?  Too late for that.  You should have done that twenty minutes ago when there was a chance of success, but you blew it.
    Surrender and hope to save as many of your men and women as you can?  Never. The Minith would kill us all anyway, so we might as well die fighting.
    Keep pushing on?  What else can we do?  Reinforce those on the ground and push until we can't push any further. 
    Keep pushing on.
    Grant opened a comm line to all forces.
    "Listen up, everyone.  A slight change of plans!  I want us to concentrate all of our forces on only two streets.  All forces proceeding along street one, work your way east and link up with the forces on street two. Then proceed north as planned.  Similar order for all forces on street four.  Work your way west and join with the forces on street three.  Forces on streets two and three, keep pushing north.  All reserve carriers, unload accordingly and support the push.  It's going to get rough, folks, so fight hard and fight smart."
    Grant received acknowledgement from the unit commanders regarding the new orders.  He then ordered the pilot of his carrier to drop them near Titan and the Telgorans.  The alien team was already on street three.
    "We're in for a fight, huh, General?"
    Grant looked back at Sergeant Conway.  He had forgotten he had company in the carrier.
    "Yeah, Conway.  We're in for a helluva fight."
    "Don't worry, General.  We'll be watching your back when the shit gets heavy."
    Grant considered what waited to the north.
    "It's not my back I'm worried about."
    Thirty seconds later, the door swung open and the team exited the quiet cocoon of the carrier.  As Grant expected, he was immediately assaulted by the sights, sounds, and smells of battle.  No matter how many times he joined a battle already in progress, the first thirty seconds on the ground always seemed a strange mix of the real and the surreal.  The sudden, combined rush of adrenalin, fear, and awareness took his mind and body to a new level of consciousness—one he had forgotten he possessed until this moment.
    After years of sleep, he was suddenly awake.
    His first thought as his boots hit the ground was, I'm on another planet.  Again.  
    His second series of thought were, Move to the front of the carrier.   Where's the action?  What are the threats?
    His feet carried him around the carrier and he surveyed his surroundings.  He was in the middle of the wide, extraterrestrial street.  Although the materials that made up the street and the surrounding buildings were somehow different , it was not all that much different from a street back on Earth.  With one exception.  It was buckled and broken from the artillery barrages that preceded the movement of his forces.  He registered the explosions of additional artillery rounds a hundred meters to the front.  The sound comforted him, and he knew without looking that the source of those explosions was still behind him. 
    Twenty meters to his front, he spied several of the orange-clad Telgorans.  They were moving quickly to the north.  Twenty meters ahead of them, through a thin cloud of smoke, Grant spied the lumbering forms of the two tanks assigned to this street.  Their turrets and automatic weapons were pointed ahead and firing regularly.  An occasional pulse of dim red light reached out toward the tanks as the Minith returned fire.
    A jet screamed overhead at a height of roughly fifty meters.  It was heading north, toward the mass of Minith soldiers that waited.
    On a secondary level of awareness, he recognized that Conway and her team were assembling to his sides and he somehow knew they were waiting for him to determine