Greenies

by Al Steiner

Prologue

June 30, 2131

Eden, Mars

Laura Whiting was a politician and she was doing what politicians were expected to do at times such as these. She was "touring" the area of devastation. Whenever something was devastated — be it by war, by industrial accident, or by acts of divinity — an elected official was expected to tour it, to see the damage firsthand. As to why they needed to perform this tour, as to what possible good was being accomplished with their presence, the answer to that depended upon whom you talked to. Most politicians would answer that they needed an "eyes-on" assessment of the damage in order to help calculate the cost of replacing it. That sounded good on the surface, the sort of thing that played good on Internet, but of course it was not really the reason. There were engineers and insurance claims settlement specialists and hundreds of other people who were much more qualified than a politician to assess damage and calculate cost. Laura — who had the unusual political trait of brutal self-honesty — knew that the real reason was so the politician in question could give the impression that he or she cared about their constituents and their neighborhoods. Such affairs were always rife with Internet cameras. The politician was expected to look properly solemn while viewing the destruction and then give an appropriately moving speech promising aid or an end to the cause or some other such thing.

Laura, though she was only a city council member, was expert in the art and science of politics. She should be. Her father, now retired and living the life of luxury on Earth, had had a long and distinguished elected career that had climaxed with two terms as the Governor of Mars. She had begun to learn politics about the time she had begun to learn to walk. Conventional wisdom among the Martian movers and shakers was that Laura herself would follow in his footsteps by the time she was fifty. Laura was a little more optimistic than that. She hoped to take the oath of high Martian office in ten years; by the time she was forty. But she did not wish this for exactly the same reason everyone thought.

"As you can see," intoned Assistant Chief Henderson of the Eden Department of Public Health and Safety, "the blast doors that were designed into the basic structure of the city did their job very well. They activated within two seconds of the laser strike and sealed off the damaged section, preventing further loss of life and property. Without those blast doors, we would not be able to stand right here at this moment. This entire building would have been reduced to the outside atmospheric pressure."

Laura and the other two city council members who had gone on the tour with her were standing on the sixty-eighth floor of the MarsTrans building looking downward through the thick plexiglass windows. Around them rose countless other high-rise buildings, stretching upward into the red Martian sky. The high rise was the staple of life on Mars. People lived in them, worked in them, did business in them. A Martian city was nothing more than a compact collection of tall buildings that were located in a grid pattern of streets. The street level was where people moved from one building to another. All streets were enclosed by a steel and plexiglass roof thirty meters above the ground, and by plexiglass walls on the sides. This kept the air pressure inside, where it belonged, and the thin Martian atmosphere outside, where it belonged. The buildings did not actually touch each other but they were all connected to the street level complex making Eden, in effect, one giant, interconnected, airtight structure that was home to more than twelve million people. Then entire city was kept at standard Earth sea-level air pressure by means of a system of huge fusion powered machines that extracted the traces of oxygen and nitrogen from the thin Martian atmosphere and pumped it inside. This system of pressurization and air supply was what made human life on Mars possible, but it was a system that depended upon the airtight integrity of the city remaining intact.

The MarsTrans building stood across the street from the Red Towers housing complex — an upper end luxury apartment building. From their vantage point they could clearly see the large hole that had been burned through the steel of the building from the fortieth floor all the way to street level and below. Several floors of the building had collapsed from the force of the blast, burying the victims beneath tons of rubble. Many other sections had remained intact but had decompressed, smothering those inside of them. The street outside the building had also lost pressure, killing all who happened to have been walking about at that moment. The death toll from this one blast had been confirmed at more than nine hundred so far and was expected to rise even higher as more rubble was cleared away. Eden Public Health and Safety workers, commonly known as dip-hoes because of the acronym of their department, could be seen patiently digging through the debris or moving about within the building. All of them were outfitted in protective bio-suits that covered the body from head to toe. The bio-suits were the only way people could exist outside of the pressurization.

"Those blast doors and the other safety features were indeed a godsend," proclaimed Councilman Dan Steeling, a senior member and, according to the movers and shakers, the man slated to be the next mayor of Eden. He was pretending to address Assistant Chief Henderson but was in actuality talking to the group of Internet reporters who were standing clustered behind them, just in front of the group of uniformed Eden police officers providing security. The reporters all had digital image recorders with microphones attached to them and they were all pointing them at Dan. "It is fortunate indeed that, even in the midst of this horrible tragedy we are viewing, we are able to at least receive reassured proof that the safety systems in place in this great city work as they were designed. While it is true that the loss of life and property from this strike, and from the others that took place on other parts of Mars, was horrific, it could have been much, much worse."

Laura, who knew she was partially in the frame of some of the cameras, kept the proper expression of saddened, though elated agreement on her face. She nodded a few times during his statement, just slightly, just enough to relate to anyone taking notice of her on the Internet screens that she was just as torn up about all of this as everyone else. In truth, had her natural expression been allowed to come through, it would have been one of horror. As she looked at the twisted steel and exposed apartments of the Red Towers, she had to clench her fists in anger at what had happened. Eden, her city, the city she had been born and raised in, had been attacked by EastHem atmospheric craft. Attacked! They had blown holes in it, decompressing entire sections like a child popping a balloon, killing thousands so far. And it was not just Eden either. Though Eden was the largest city on the Western Hemispheric Alliance's federal colony of Mars, it was just one of twelve large cities on the surface. So far, with the war only one week old, six of them had been hit, two quite badly. Triad, the orbiting space-platform that was home to more than six hundred thousand, had been attacked particularly fiercely, with more than six thousand citizens dead up there. And what was it for? Why were all of these Martians dying?

Because of greed. Simple greed.

They were calling it the Jupiter War, although the point in dispute was actually one of Jupiter's moons: Callisto. The atmospheric gas of Jupiter, which was composed primarily of hydrogen, was used as propellant for fusion-powered spacecraft and as conventional fuel for tanks, aircraft, and surface to orbit craft. It was a substance that was vital for continuation of the space-faring society and particularly for military operations. WestHem, of which Mars was a part, currently held the monopoly on the supply of this gas. Nearly sixty years before, WestHem corporations, most notably Standard Fuel Supply and Jovian Gases Inc. constructed a large space station in orbit around Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon. From the space station, which was actually an orbiting city, collection ships made the short trip to the gas giant and dove into the atmosphere, collecting a hold full of the hydrogen concoction before clawing their way back out and returning. The raw gas would then be refined into liquid hydrogen and stored in huge orbiting pressure tanks. Tanker ships, the largest moving objects ever constructed, would then fill up and transport the gas across the solar system either to Mars or Earth.

Nearly half of this gas was sold to EastHem who, although they were bitter enemies of WestHem and had been since the end of World War III, needed a fuel supply as well. Since EastHem did not have a secure supply of its own it was forced to buy it from the two WestHem corporations at top dollar. Not only was this expensive and not only did it take EastHem currency out of the hemisphere, it also meant that their fuel supply was subject to being cut off during times of crisis, which was usually when they needed it most from a military standpoint. It also meant that WestHem held an advantage in the complex relationship between the two halves of the Earth.

Three years before, tensions between the two powers began to grow as it became apparent that EastHem was constructing the components of an orbiting fuel refining and shipment platform in lunar orbit using mined steel from beneath the surface of the moon. These components, which were loaded into cargo ships nearly as large as a fuel tanker, could only be destined for one of the moons of Jupiter. Though Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune were all gas giant planets with atmospheres very similar to Jupiter's, colonizing one of the outer gas giants was clearly impractical due to the distance involved and because such a supply line would be impossible to defend during a conflict. WestHem, realizing this, insisted in the sternest manner that the entire Jupiter system belonged to them, not just the single moon of Ganymede. EastHem, not bothering to deny its intentions, countered with the argument that WestHem had no right to claim an entire planetary system when they had no settlements on the planet in question.

This war of words went on and on as the construction process neared conclusion and the cargo ships, with an escort of heavy battle cruisers and stealth attack ships, began to prepare for departure. As the armada left lunar orbit heading for Jupiter, WestHem issued an ultimatum. It warned EastHem that if any of its ships entered the Jovian system, they would be attacked. EastHem ignored this threat and continued, probably figuring that WestHem would back down. WestHem didn't. When the first of the ships crossed the invisible line that had been drawn, the WestHem Marines attacked with short-range space fighters based at Standard City. The cold war that had been the status quo for the past one hundred and twenty years suddenly became very hot.

Mars, as a strategically placed point located between the orbits of Jupiter and Earth, was immediately bombed once hostilities commenced. The WestHem navy had a large base in orbit around the red planet with many of their ships stationed there. Aside from that, Triad, the orbiting space station in geosynchronous orbit, was home to the three major shipbuilding companies that supplied warships for the navy and for cargo transportation. EastHem forces, as they passed, had dropped off three battle cruiser groups complete with attack craft, assault landing ships, and support vessels. They were on station just outside of laser range of the WestHem battle groups, which had been forced to stay in position to counter them. It was ironic indeed that the Martian cities, which were hundreds of millions of kilometers from both the moon in dispute and from the planet that had spawned the combatants, were the most heavily damaged during the fighting. Even on Earth itself, where the two powers were separated by a mere twenty kilometers at the Bering Straight, not so much as an artillery shell or a bomb was detonated.

Laura Whiting, as she looked at the devastation that a single laser blast from a single EastHem attack craft had caused, felt an angry hatred she had never experienced before. It was not EastHem she directed this anger towards however. It was directed towards WestHem, towards the so-called government that supposedly represented and protected the interests of the Martian people, and towards the powerful untenable corporations that controlled that government.

The official WestHem reason for attacking EastHem and trying to prevent their colonization of Callisto was that they, WestHem, needed to protect their deep space defensive positions and not allow those godless fascists of EastHem a toehold in the same planetary system. They told their citizens and their soldiers that to allow EastHem to establish themselves on one of the moons of Jupiter would be as good as signing the death warrant for the glorious WestHem way of life. Within a decade, it was suggested, EastHem would have enough forces and enough equipment on Callisto to evict us from Jupiter and to strangle our fuel supply. A few years after that, EastHem tanks would come rolling into the western hemisphere itself, bent on the final takeover. The rhetoric was unwavering from its course. No EastHem ships will enter the Jovian system. No EastHem installations will be established on Callisto or any other moon. Jupiter and all that orbited it were WestHem property.

Of course it was apparent to any thinking person, and Laura White, like most Martians, certainly fit that category, what the real reason for the war was. If EastHem began gathering and refining their own fuel from Jupiter's atmosphere, Standard Fuel and Jovian Gasses and the other industries that relied upon gas refining and shipping would lose more than half of their business. The WestHem government, which imposed export taxes upon those sales, would lose all of that income from its yearly budget. In addition to the loss of revenue, WestHem would lose one of its trump cards in any future conflict. It would never again be able to threaten EastHem with a fuel embargo. That could simply not be allowed. And so, even though there was enough hydrogen in the atmosphere of Jupiter to supply both halves of the Earth and all of their colonies for thousands of generations, a vicious war erupted over the issue.

But Laura, above all, was a politician. She could not show, could not say how she really felt about the subject. She could not even say what the people she served wanted her to say or feel. She said and felt, in public anyway, what her sponsors — those who had contributed to her campaigns, who had bankrolled her election — wanted her to say and feel. That was how you stayed in the game. There had been a time when she had not wanted to stay in the game anymore, when she had not wanted to be a part of the perverse and sickening process that was modern government. That time had not been so long before. But now that Martian cities were having holes blasted in them, that Martian citizens were being killed because those corporate sponsors didn't want to lose their profit margins, she had decided it was her duty to stay in the game. She did not like the game but she would play it and she would play it well. She would kiss every ass, would spout every company line, would do whatever she needed to do to advance her political career. And hopefully one day, years from now, when she was in a position much higher than a mere Eden city council member, she would change the game.

She turned her face from the window before her, putting the view of the destroyed housing building out of her sight. The reporters approached her, fishing for a statement. Laura had a gift for public speaking, an ability to turn even the most benign utterance into a passionate narrative. She cleared her throat and began to spout about devastation and the evils of fascist EastHem and how the great people of WestHem were going to defeat the tyranny that was trying to destroy all they held dear and sacred. The reporters loved it, as they always did statements from her. All except for one.

"Ms. Whiting," said a short, Asian descended reporter from MarsGroup Information Services. "There has been much worry about the landing ships EastHem has stationed near our planet just outside of orbital range. In the event of an EastHem invasion of Mars, I was curious how you would rate our city's defenses?"

That was a loaded question and it was not surprising that Mindy Ming, the MarsGroup reporter, was the only one to ask it. All of the other reporters represented either InfoServe Internet Communications stations or SpacialNet Communications stations. Those were the two major providers of Internet media and literature in WestHem and though they pretended to be antagonistic to government and corporate motivations and elected officials, they were actually little more than the propaganda arm. Again, anyone with any thinking capacity knew this. But MarsGroup was a Mars based, independent Internet media corporation. It's owners and investors were all Martian-born who had no financial ties to any Earth-based corporations. They were often derided in the popular press and had been sued for libel so many times it would be years before all of the cases came to court. They were a constant thorn in the side of many a politician or corporation. Laura, though publicly she denounced MarsGroup like everyone else, secretly admired them greatly. MarsGroup news services, in her mind, was what news reporting should be like. They strove to find the truth instead of simply repeating what their masters told them to repeat.

"Well," Laura said lightly, as if the question were a ridiculous annoyance, "I don't think we really have much to worry about in terms of an EastHem invasion. My understanding is that our space forces in orbit and at Triad are more than sufficient to keep them from attempting such a feat."

"Really?" Mindy said, raising her eyebrows in disbelief. "Is it not true that a good portion of our space-based attack craft were destroyed attempting to repel this battle group?"

Laura feigned a sigh, as if she were dealing with a complete paranoid. Again this was just for appearances. Mindy's military source, whomever he or she was, was obviously very highly placed. Though the general public did not know it yet, both sides in the conflict had recently discovered the fallacy of trying to attack heavily defended space cruisers or stations with small attack craft. The anti-spacecraft lasers could pick them off like ducks in a skeet range. Well over three quarters of the front-line defense craft based at Triad had been blown to pieces in three separate attacks without putting a single EastHem ship out of commission. Well over half of the crews of those ships had been killed or captured.

"I am not the one to ask about military matters," Laura said shortly. "I'm just a councilwoman. I have every confidence however, that our armed forces have the situation above our planet well in hand. And as for city defenses, as you are aware by the itinerary we supplied you with, we will be visiting the staging area for the WestHem marine forces that have been assigned to Eden next."

The two strong-willed women locked eyes for a moment. Laura could see the contempt Mindy held for her reflected in those brown orbs. Sell-out, those eyes said to her. You're nothing but a corporate, WestHem sell-out. She ignored the look. She had seen it many times before and would see it many times again. Though it still hurt a little, though it still bothered her to be seen as a traitor to her people, to their ideals, to be considered a tool of oppression, she was getting used to it.

The staging area for the 103rd WestHem Marine Battalion, the battalion responsible for defending the city of Eden in the event of an EastHem invasion, was a city park located just on the edge of the city perimeter. The park was the showpiece of the business district and was nearly five square kilometers in size. It was surrounded on all four sides by towering high rises, the biggest on the planet. The Agricorp building itself stood across the street from the eastern entrance to the park grounds. It was the tallest building in the solar system at 325 stories. The park itself was mostly grassy fields, groves of trees, and winding walkways that snaked in all directions. There was a zoo and a golf course as well as football and baseball fields and a large duck pond. The roof of the city, which was usually ten meters above the ground over the streets, rose to more than a hundred meters above the park grounds. In addition the roof here was mostly plexiglass instead of a mixture of glass windows and steel support beams. This allowed the pale Martian sun to shine brightly in the park during the daylight hours instead of being broken up into shadow.

Usually the park was filled with a mixture of business types taking lunch hour walks through the nature areas, daycare providers walking groups of children to the play equipment, and unemployed lower-class thugs and gang-members. But that had been during peacetime. Now the marines had occupied the sports fields, the golf course, and every other piece of open land in the park. They had set up inflatable tents in geometric clusters near the west side. Near the south side were a collection of mobile command posts and latrines. In between, a calisthenics and jogging area had been fashioned. Near the north side entrance, the closest entrance to the actual edge of the city, was a storage depot for weapons and bio-suits. Off duty marines could be seen walking everywhere through the park, most dressed in the blue shorts and white T-shirts they wore inside of a protected area. Most were between the ages of twenty and thirty years old and, since they were combat troops, all were men. They gathered in clusters of two, four, six, sometimes more. They walked to and from the mess hall. They exercised in the calisthenics area. To the uneducated eye their numbers appeared generous indeed, more than a match for any EastHem invasion force, particularly when you considered that nearly a third of them were on-duty outside of the safety of the city, out in the Martian wastelands.

Their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Ron Herald, greeted the tour of Eden city council members personally. He was dressed the same as his men, in a pair of blue shorts with the marine emblem upon the leg and a white T-shirt with his name and rank on the breast. His hair was short, as were all marines' hair, and his body was trim and fit. He looked like that kind of man that you would like to have in charge of your city's defenses. He practically oozed confidence.

He greeted each council member personally, addressing him or her by name and offering whispered reassurances that their city was perfectly safe in the hands of his men. "Landing here and attacking this city," he told Laura, "would be the worst mistake those EastHem fascists ever made. My battalion would eat them for breakfast."

"That's good to know, Colonel," Laura beamed right back, putting the reassured expression upon her face.

Herald gave them a tour of the staging area, leading them around from place to place and pointing out every cluster of tents. Of course the entourage of reporters followed along behind, Mindy Ming included. They saw the inside of a typical tent, in which squads of marines were housed on small inflatable mattresses. They were shown the primitive latrine facilities where the marines took care of their bodily functions. They walked through the mess hall, which was full of empty tables and filled with the smell of dinner being constructed. Finally they were led to the staging area itself.

A large guarded reinforced tent housed the marine equipment. Herald led them past two armed guards out front and into the interior, which was mostly a huge locker room. Rows of gray plastic storage cabinets sat before rows of plastic benches. The smell was that of locker rooms solar system wide; of stale sweat and dirty clothing.

"It is in here," Herald explained, "where the marines under my command change into the biosuits which allow them to operate outside of the pressurization of the city. The biosuits are completely self-contained and supply oxygen, food paste, water, and even excretory containers for the soldiers wearing them. With the supply carried within the suit the soldier can stay outside the safety of this artificial environment for twelve hours at a time. The suits are somewhat bulky of course but modern WestHem engineering and manufacturing have managed to keep the fully loaded weight down to less than forty kilograms. That is five kilograms less, I might add, than the standard EastHem biosuit. This weight advantage, which translates into increased mobility in the field and the ability to carry more equipment, is but one advantage that my soldiers have over their EastHem counterparts."

He then led them to the other side of the room, towards another guarded opening to the tent. This one led to the park's exit and the wide, heavily traveled 3rd Street, a major downtown movement corridor.

"From here," the Colonel continued, "each company of soldiers, after donning their suits and gathering their personal weapons, will march down 3rd Street to the airlock complex in the city corporation yard. Just outside of those airlocks is the staging area for our tanks, armored personnel carriers, and hovers. Upon deployment most of the soldiers will enter the armored vehicles and proceed to their defensive positions near the approaches to the city. Others will climb into the hovers and be transported to the artillery emplacements or antiaircraft bunkers. Of course I cannot give you the exact locations of these defensive positions for security reasons, but rest assured that they are formidable."

The tour wrapped up a few minutes later with Laura and Dan Steeling both giving inspirational speeches to the Internet cameras about how safe they felt in the presence of Colonel Herald and his marines. Steeling even managed to throw in a pitch about buying war bonds. There were only two pointed questions from Mindy Ming and Herald, though new to such blatant inquiries, handled them very well. Everybody thanked the Colonel for his time and for the steadfast watch he was providing. The Internet reporters, with nothing left to report on, quickly left the scene.

Herald, his work done, excused himself and asked his aide, a young lieutenant, to lead his "honored guests" back to the entrance of the park and their police department security detail. Halfway there, as they were passing a group of marines doing push-ups on the trampled grass, a voice hailed Laura.

"Ms. Whiting?" it called, it's owner trotting over from his position near the physical training leader. He was an African-American descended man of about thirty and Laura had already placed him as a Martian born person based on his accent. A better look revealed his identity. Though she had not seen him in well over ten years, she had once known this man very well.

"Kevin Jackson," she said, putting her politician's smile upon her face. She stepped towards him, holding out her hand for a shake. "Or should I say, Captain Jackson," she corrected, reading the insignia upon his shirt.

Jackson had been a college classmate of hers at the University of Mars at Eden. She had been going for the required degree in political theory prior to law school and he had been working on his military science degree. The very fact that he had been admitted to an institute of higher learning had spoken volumes about his family connections and intelligence. In modern WestHem society less than two percent of those who graduated high school were admitted to college. Most young men and women of the working class were doomed to self-funded technical schools that taught them the specific job skills they were striving for. She had shared several general education and history classes with Jackson over the years and they had developed a very close friendship that eventually led to a brief love affair. They had parted amicably enough after both had been advised by betters of the potential career damage their relationship might cause. Though interracial love affairs carried no stigma in Martian culture, they were still considered an anomaly in WestHem culture and those who participated in them were deemed to be somewhat less than normal. Though the physical aspects of their affair ended, their friendship had continued until graduation. From there they had parted. Jackson had gone on with his career in the corps. Whiting had gone on to law school and her political career.

"Captain as of five days ago," he told her, grasping her small hand in his large one and shaking vigorously. "Easy promotions are the one fortunate aspect of wartime."

Laura, ever the lady, made the required introductions to her colleagues. Hands were shaken and kind comments were passed between Jackson and Steeling and the others. Laura saw that despite their jovial expressions her fellow councilmen were impatiently awaiting the end of her conversation. She put an accommodating look upon her face and told them to go on without her, that she would find her own way back to city hall.

"But, Laura," Dan Steeling said worriedly. "What about security? Surely you're not thinking about walking back to city hall alone, through downtown?"

This was a legitimate concern, and not just because she was an easily recognized person. With Martian unemployment at approximately twenty-two percent, the crime rate was frighteningly high. Large, well-organized street gangs roamed about with near impunity in certain parts of the downtown Eden area. "Have one of the police wait for me," she told him. "Tell him I won't be long. Captain Jackson is an old friend from school and I'd like to talk to him for a few minutes."

Steeling reluctantly agreed to this plan and took his leave, heading across the park towards the entrance.

"So," Jackson said, his smile warmer once he had gone, "you're making quite a name for yourself in the political arena, aren't you? I've heard stories even down in Argentina about the charismatic Eden city council member."

Laura smiled. "I have a gift for making myself known to the right people," she told him.

"You always did, Laura, you always did."

"And yourself?" she asked. "You say you were in Argentina. I hear it's pretty nasty over there."

He shrugged a little. "Poorly armed fanatical nationalists who have never accepted WestHem rule. They love to hide in the mountains and shoot at us with old World War III era weapons. It's not that dangerous as long as you have a little common sense and don't venture far from the base. The worst part is being in that hellish environment. For someone who grew up on Mars where the temperature is always the same and it never rains, it takes a little getting used to, I'll tell you."

"I'll bet," said Laura, who had never been to Earth before and had therefore never experienced anything but the constant 22 degrees Celsius of the artificial environment.

"Do you have a few minutes?" Jackson asked her. "Maybe we can go over to the mess hall and scrounge up a cup of coffee or something."

Laura sensed that his offer entailed a little bit more than simply catching up on old times. However, it did not seem that renewing their romance seemed to be his goal. That could only mean that he had news for her; news that she might not otherwise hear. Never one to shun a potential source of information, she agreed to join him.

They talked of inconsequential things as they wandered through the calisthenics area and to the large mess tent Herald had shown her earlier. It was still empty of soldiers and still filled with the aroma of cooking meat spiced with onions. Jackson led her to a mess table in the center of the room, within easy sight of the entrances, and bade her to sit. She did so and he disappeared behind the serving counter, reemerging a few minutes later with two steaming metal cups. He rejoined her and they sipped the strong brew as they appraised each other.

"So how do you find the political life, Laura?" Jackson asked her, seemingly lightly but obviously very interested in her answer.

Laura hesitated before answering him. During their past friendship they had been as close as two people could be. They had spent many a night sharing their views of the solar system over coffee or beer or marijuana. Jackson was one of the few people in existence she had discussed her peculiar ideas about an ideal government with. Was that what he was thinking about now? Was he trying to equate Laura Whiting, the idealistic realist, with Laura Whiting the politician? "I find it," she told him carefully, "pretty much as I always expected it would be back in college."

He gave her a pointed look. "You used to say that politics was the most corrupt, soulless profession in existence; that it was worse than working for a law company or a corporate management team."

She returned his look. "Yes," she said. "I did say that."

"So that's how you've found the life to be?"

She took a deep breath. This could be a set-up of course. In the world of politics you could never discount that possibility. But her instincts, which had always served her well, told her it wasn't. Jackson was just trying to see if his old friend and lover was still the same person she had once been before he talked about whatever was on his mind. Finally, she nodded. "That's how it is," she told him. "And I hate every minute of it. I've almost quit in disgust a few times."

"So why do you stay if you hate it so much?"

"I believe you remember our past conversations," she replied slyly. "The ones about why I needed to go into politics." She smiled a little in fondness, remembering the closeness that accompanied those talks. "You used to think I was crazy, remember?"

"I remember," he said warmly, remembering the same thing. Yes, this woman before him was the same person he had once loved. "But I also remember being impressed by the complexity of your ambitions. I wish you the best of luck in them."

"I appreciate that, Kevin," she told him.

"But in the meantime," he said, turning to business, "there's this war going on."

"So I've noticed," she answered. "I toured the blast site in the Calvetta district today. It's rather frightening to see what one blast of an EastHem laser can do. One tenth of a second of energy release from eighty kilometers away and more than nine hundred people are dead. And that wasn't even one of the bad ones. Those are up on Triad."

"Triad is getting the shit beat out of it, that's for sure," he agreed. "But the laser blasts are not the concern here."

"The invasion fleet?" she asked softly.

"Yes," he answered. "I saw the briefing by Admiral Graves of the navy on an Internet terminal earlier. He did a good job of blowing smoke up the asses of all the citizens here."

"And the citizens believe him about as much as they do anyone else in such a position," Laura put in. "That's the biggest failing of Earth natives when they deal with Martians. They assume we're just as easily cowed by reassurances as people in Denver or Buenos Aires."

"Underestimation," Jackson said with a nod. "You always said that that was the key to your plans."

"And it still is," she assured him. "If we can survive this war, that will still be the key. So tell me. How much at risk are we? I know we're in danger of invasion from that fleet up there, but I don't know how bad it is. You do, don't you?"

He leaned back a little bit, taking a quick glance around the room, searching for eavesdroppers. Seeing none, he leaned forward a bit and lowered his voice. "They have three divisions of combat troops up there," he said. "Those landing ships are loaded with heavy equipment and troop carrying landers that can be down on the surface in less than an hour with every last one of those men as well as their tanks, their APCs, their artillery, and enough hovers to guarantee air superiority over an advance. If they left the landing ships right now, they could be in occupation of all the Martian cities except Triad in three days."

"Three days?" she asked, feeling fear coursing through her body. She had known it was bad, but that bad? "What about your marines? You won't be able to hold them off at all?"

"Our presence here is nothing more than a public relations tour," he scoffed bitterly. "We make the public feel better and we look good parading around the park in our shorts. See, Mr. and Mrs. Greenie? You're nice and safe on your planet. The marines are here to protect you from those evil EastHem fascists."

"But surely you can hold them back for a little bit?" Laura asked nervously.

"We're a goddamned battalion, Laura," he said, letting a little of his own fear show now. "A battalion! That's four companies of soldiers. Twenty platoons! We have thirty tanks, forty APCs and a few artillery guns we managed to scrounge up. We have six anti-tank platoons and one anti-air squad. If the EastHems land here they're going to throw at least a division at Eden, complete with hover support. The battalion we have as a defense here would be nothing more than a warm-up exercise for them. It's even worse in New Pittsburgh and Proctor. We weren't even able to spare complete battalions to defend those cities. They have no artillery at all and only a few tanks. This planet is virtually defenseless."

"Christ," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "It's much worse than I thought. And I'm a realist. How did this happen, Kevin? How is it that the most valuable planet in the solar system, the planet that grows more than half of the food for WestHem, that supplies ninety percent of the steel, that generates trillions in profits for all of those corporations, was left wide-open to capture? How?"

"I think you know the answer to that," Jackson replied.

"Money," she spat.

"You got it," he said, nodding. "The WestHem government did not want to spend the money to station a defense force here. Why should they? It's never been invaded before, has it? The only soldiers that are ever on the planet are the ones who occasionally come to train at the extraterrestrial proving grounds. And even then there's usually only a few battalions and they only have outdated equipment because the armed forces do not want to spend the money to transport front-line tanks and APCs here. They always figured they could transport troops here from Earth if EastHem ever made a move. After all, the EastHem troops have to come from Earth as well, don't they? But they never figured on a two front war. The possibility that those troops might be needed on one of the Jupiter moons apparently never occurred to them. And now that EastHem has made landings on Callisto, the forces that were slated to prevent an invasion of Mars have been sent there and they only left a token holding force here."

"That doesn't make any sense," Laura said. "Callisto is of no real strategic value to them. It's only worth is as a staging body for a fuel refining operation."

"That's true," he agreed. "But that's what you get when you have politicians on Earth, acting on behalf of Standard Fuel and Jovian Gasses, making the military decisions. The executive council ordered all available troops to the Jupiter system to eject the EastHem marines from Callisto. General Kensington, who's in command of this particular clusterfuck, practically begged them to reconsider and allow him to reinforce Mars first and foremost. But they wouldn't listen to reason. Standard Fuel and Jovian Gas want that EastHem refining operation destroyed and those EastHem marines off of Callisto. They don't give a damn about Mars. All they're concerned with is preventing EastHem from becoming self-sufficient in fuel."

"But if EastHem invades Mars," Laura said, unable to keep the exasperation out of her voice, "WestHem loses their food supply, their steel supply, and most of their shipbuilding and armament industries. The entire economy of WestHem could very well collapse if those things are lost. At the very least EastHem would be the one with the power. They would be able to strangle us."

"And do you want to know the real irony of all this?" Jackson asked, sipping from his coffee.

"What's that?"

"That battle group that has been sent to Callisto, the one that was supposed to defend Mars, it's going to be slaughtered when it tries to eject that landing force. There's no way in hell it's going to be able to retake that moon if the commander of the EastHem forces is even halfway competent at his job."

"What do you mean?" she asked him. "You said that they would have been able to keep EastHem from invading Mars. Why won't they be able to take back a moon? What's the difference?"

"The difference," he explained, "is that here on Mars that battle group would have been the defenders. They would have dug in and set up their forces and just waited for the EastHems to try and make a move against them. But on Callisto, the situation is reversed. The EastHem forces were able to make the landings. It is now they who will be dug in, their tanks and artillery all set and pre-positioned in the optimum places. In any battle the advantage goes to the defender. A military rule of thumb is that it takes three times as many troops and equipment to dislodge a position than it does to hold it. The EastHem forces on Callisto are roughly equal to the forces that will be trying to retake it. They're going to be massacred."

"Christ, Kevin," Laura said. "Do you have a lot of friends among that group?"

He nodded. "Hundreds of men I've trained with and served with everywhere from Ganymede to Cuba. Most will probably be killed during the assault phase. Others will be captured and sent to an EastHem POW camp. The lucky ones will be those who are just wounded and pulled from the battle area. They might just live through the war. Not that we have it much easier here. If EastHem makes landings here we'll fight them as hard as we can but we'll all be killed or captured within a day." He snorted a little. "They'll probably write songs about us and make Internet shows and erect monuments to us, just like the Snoqualmie defenders back in World War III. That'll make my mother real proud, won't it?"

"Is there a solution?" Laura asked, knowing that Kevin had to have a reason for telling her all of this.

"Not for the current crisis," he said. "Like I told you, if EastHem wants to take this planet, then it's theirs. But there is a chance they won't do that."

"Why wouldn't they?" she asked eagerly.

"EastHem doesn't really want this war," he explained. "At least that is my impression as a military historian. I know that all the Internet channels and the news services are telling us that EastHem is the aggressor and that they are bent upon ruling the entire solar system, but I don't really think that's the case. They just want Callisto and they felt they had a right to colonize it. Whether they are right or wrong is not the issue here. The fact is that they just want to become self sufficient in fuel so they don't have to pay WestHem corporations for it. All they were trying to do was set up a fueling operation on Callisto and we attacked them for it."

"But why wouldn't they invade Mars though?" she asked. "I'm not a military expert or anything, but I know that in an all out war like this, doctrine is to press any advantage you have. Invading Mars and cutting WestHem off from their food and their steel, as well as denying them a strategic staging area between Earth and the Jupiter system, would certainly seem advantageous to me."

"It is," he agreed. "And I'm not sure they will be able to resist the temptation now that those idiots have left us wide open, but I'm quite sure that occupying Mars was not one of their original goals. They positioned that invasion force here only as a diversionary tactic, figuring, as any sane commander would, that WestHem would then have to reinforce Mars which would draw troops away from Callisto and therefore give them more time to dig in there. To tell you the truth, I'm pretty impressed by the way EastHem has fought this war so far."

"We should have such leadership," Laura observed sourly.

Jackson dismissed this thought. The situation was what the situation was. "In any case," he went on, "EastHem has Callisto now and we're not going to be able to take it back from them any time soon. With any luck they will be satisfied that their war goals are met and try to push for an armistice instead of drawing out the fighting by landing troops here. If that is the case, then that invasion force will stay where it is for now."

"Will WestHem consider an armistice with them though?" she asked him. "This is edging into my area of expertise now. If politicians are controlling this war on behalf of their corporate sponsors, then they won't give a damn how many marines die trying to take Callisto back. They'll keep sending wave after wave of troops there to try again."

"I have no doubt about that," he told her. "And that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about."

"Oh?"

"If WestHem does not sign an armistice soon, if they keep trying to retake that moon from EastHem, then EastHem is eventually going to have to invade this planet in response. Whether they want to or not, they will have no choice. I think you can help prevent that from happening though."

"Me?" she asked. "What can I do? I'm just a city council member."

"You're a politician, Laura," he reminded her. "And as a prominent, upward moving lawmaker, I'm sure you have established certain connections with certain powerful people in the Martian corporate world."

"Sponsors," she said. "Of course. You can't get elected to the PTA board in this life without a corporate sponsor to donate money and tell you how to vote. But I don't have any sponsors from Jovian Gas or Standard Fuel. I only have connections with corporations that operate on Mars."

"That's my point," he said. "Would Agricorp be one of those sponsors?" Agricorp was the owner of the majority of the Martian agricultural industry, which was considerable. Martian crops, which grew in huge greenhouse complexes that surrounded the equatorial cities like Eden, made up the bulk of the exports from the planet. It was an industry worth trillions and Agricorp was easily the most powerful of all of the WestHem corporations.

"Yes they would," she said. "One would not get very far in one's political life, either here or on Earth, without Agricorp's consent." She started to gleam a little of what he was getting at. "So you think that they'll be able to... influence things?"

"If they understand the seriousness of the situation," he replied. "Agricorp wields a whole lot of political clout, as I'm sure you're aware. Especially with the executive council. If someone could impress upon them just how serious this threat of EastHem invasion is, how easily their entire industry and holdings could suddenly be in EastHem hands without any sort of compensation, then I'm sure they'll see to it that defensive troops are sent here to prevent that invasion. Agricorp has more pull with the council then the gas refining industry, don't they?"

"Yes," she said. "Nobody has more pull with the council than Agricorp. They have their fingers in everyone's pocket. The question is whether or not they will listen to me. Remember, I'm just a city council member right now. I have a reputation as a future force to be reckoned with, that's true, but right now the lobbyists I deal with are pretty low level."

"I think you need to try, Laura," he said. "If they don't listen to you then they don't listen to you. But you have to try. Be persuasive."

She smiled a little. "Now that," she said, "I know how to do. I'll get online with my contact as soon as I get back to my office. Can I mention your name?"

"You can," he said, "but I don't know how much good it will do. I'm just a greenie like you, remember? Corporate haunchos probably won't have a lot of respect for what a greenie has to say. Remember, we're all the descendants of welfare sucking losers who were chased off of Earth. I think you'll do better mentioning the name of Colonel Herald."

"Colonel Herald?" she asked. "Does he know you're talking to me?"

"He gave me his permission to have this talk with you," Jackson confirmed. "Herald is a halfway decent guy for an Earthling and he's just as worried about the strategic situation here as a non-Martian can be. He'll tell your people what I've told you as long as he's assured that it remains in confidence."

She nodded slowly. "So he'll face to face with them?"

"He will," he confirmed. "If they are brought here and if they are of high enough level to make a difference. Don't bring your low level lobbyist down here, bring the guy who can whisper in the ears back on Earth. Herald will be taking a pretty significant risk by talking. It doesn't take much in the armed forces to completely derail a career, believe me. So make sure the risk is worthwhile for him."

"Right," she agreed. "I'll get right to work on it."

They sat in silence for a moment, each contemplating the conversation that had just taken place. Finally, Laura said: "It's kind of ironic in a way, isn't it, Kevin?"

"What's that?" he asked.

"That I have to enlist the aid of the most powerful corporation in existence, that I have to utilize the very power of corruption I hate so much in order to save the planet they are desecrating."

He gave her a meaningful look. "The solar system is full of ironies," he told her. "The best you can do is use them to your advantage. Look at me. I'm utilizing the same process of manipulation of the military that has left us in this mess in the first place. Does that make it wrong?"

"No," she said. "Sometimes the ends really do justify the means."

"Sometimes they do."

April 2, 2132

Eden, Mars

The view from Riggington's Restaurant was impressive. The four-star facility sat atop the 230 story Emmington Group building in the heart of downtown Eden, right at the very edge of the city. From the picture windows near their table, Kevin Jackson and Laura Whiting could see the rolling red plains of equatorial Mars stretching off into the setting sun. The landscape was framed by the towering Sierra Madres foothills to the south and by the geometric squares of the greenhouse complexes stretching to the north. On the other side of the room, out the far windows, the other high-rises of Eden, including the Agricorp building, crowded the sky around them, their lights just beginning to shine. It was truly a commanding view and one that Jackson was sure to enjoy, Laura figured. That was why she had chosen this particular location for their discussion.

Martians, as a culture, did not stand too much on glittery displays of status. For that reason the dress code in Riggington's, as in most Martian facilities, was quite casual. The majority of the diners were dressed only in shorts and light cotton short-sleeve shirts of varying colors. This was the favored casual wear in a world where the temperature never changed and where weather conditions were never a concern. This was how Laura was dressed, though as a politician she usually pained herself to wear Earth-style business attire when out in public. It was expected of such a station in life. But today she did not wish to call much attention to herself; an endeavor she seemed to have been successful in.

The two friends had just come from the Eden Spaceport where they had been a part of the crowd greeting the returning POW's from the Jupiter War. The armistice had been signed nearly two months before and the first group of those naval and marine personnel who had been taken prisoner during the Callisto battles or the space battles had finally made it back to WestHem soil. They had emerged from the C-10 surface to orbit craft onto the tarmac of the spaceport's airlock where the Martian governor and two members of the executive council had greeted each one with handshakes and warm words of meaningless thanks for their sacrifice. The ceremony itself had actually been quite moving, even for a hardened politician like Laura or a hardened military commander like Jackson. After so much death and destruction during the bloody course of the war, seeing survivors, seeing those that had been thought lost returned was enough to trigger powerful emotions. There had been hardly a dry eye among the assembled crowds as wives, parents and children greeted their loved ones after all of those long months away. The ceremony was capped with patriotic speeches and flag-waving and horns blowing and a mass singing of the WestHem federal anthem. To see the portrayal, to feel the emotion of it, one could almost forget that the entire war had been for nothing.

More than twenty thousand WestHem marines had been killed in three separate attacks on Callisto. Twice that number had been wounded. More than ten thousand naval personnel had been killed and more than thirty front-line ships had been destroyed by enemy torpedoes. Though Mars itself had escaped invasion, thanks in part to the efforts of Laura and Jackson back at the beginning of the conflict, all of its cities had been bombed without let-up and more than thirty thousand citizens ultimately lost their lives. And despite all of this fighting and bombing and death, the EastHem fuel refining operation on Callisto was still there and was producing at high capacity. EastHem was now self-sufficient in fuel and the two major WestHem gas production corporations were in the midst of laying off tens of thousands of workers and mothballing dozens of their tankers.

Of course the WestHem government's position was not that it had lost the war. WestHem, the greatest democracy in the solar system, was incapable of losing a war. No, what WestHem had done was "negotiate a settlement" to the dispute. They claimed that the settlement reached was consistent with their original war goals. They had been misunderstood back at the beginning of the conflict when they stated those goals as being the unconditional withdrawal of all EastHem forces and civilians from the Jupiter system. All they wanted was to keep EastHem from attempting to expand their holdings in Jupiter and from attempting to impede WestHem fuel production. EastHem had agreed to this in writing so the war was over. The goals were met. Everyone was happy, right?

Laura had never been to Earth and did not know the extent of the Earthling's stupidity in such manners. Did they really believe all of the bullshit their government was laying upon them? She thought it entirely possible they did. But on Mars even the most common citizen knew the truth. WestHem had gotten its ass kicked and kicked royally. And Mars had been damn lucky to avoid a brutal enemy occupation.

"So what's the occasion, Laura?" Jackson asked her as they sipped from glasses of white wine imported from Earth (Mars had very little wine or alcohol production). "You didn't bring me up here to get me drunk did you? You seem too serious for that."

"I'm concerned about the pull-back of the marines from Mars," she said, nibbling on a piece of bread. "I understand the withdrawal will start next week."

"That's correct," he said. "The mechanized units will start loading up their equipment onto the landing ships for return to orbit. The troops will all be sent back to their bases on Earth after that."

"And we'll be defenseless once again," she said.

"Not completely," he corrected. "It's been decided by the powers-that-be that a division of marines will be permanently stationed at the training base outside Eden. Their heavy equipment will be stored in a group of heavy landing ships which will be kept at anchor at Triad Naval Base."

"So they're going to kick loose a little bit of funding for us huh?" she said cynically. "How rankin' of them. Will a division be enough?"

"It could potentially be enough if it was used correctly, but you have to understand that this division, though it will be stationed here, is not specifically intended for the defense of Mars."

She raised her eyebrows a little. "It's not?"

"No," he told her. "It will be a fast reaction force that is capable of being moved away from here in less than twenty-four hours. Its primary function will be to respond if there are any other problems in the Jupiter system. It has been suggested that the reason we were forced to 'negotiate a settlement' in the war was because we were unable to respond quick enough with enough troops and equipment to prevent the occupation of Callisto."

"That's a bunch of bullshit," Laura said. "We had all of the troops that were supposed to protect Mars in orbit around Ganymede when the war started. They were there long before the EastHem marines occupied Callisto."

"Right," Jackson agreed. "That was because WestHem didn't believe that EastHem was really going to try to forcibly install troops on Callisto. They thought it was all a big bluff. Since they thought EastHem was bluffing, it was decided that our marines shouldn't be landed there in advance. Another stupid political decision made against the advice of the commanders. That one was probably the worst one of all. If we had had those troops down there, the entire momentum of the war would have been on our side instead of theirs." He shrugged lightly, as lightly as one could when one was talking about a flawed decision that had cost twenty thousand men their lives. "What can you do?"

"What indeed," Laura agreed sadly.

"But in any case," he went on, "that is the excuse our political leaders have settled on for why we could not evict those EastHem forces from Callisto. So, in response to that, they've kicked loose enough funding to form this fast reaction division. It will be stationed here because it's too expensive to station it on Ganymede. They would have to build an entire base on the surface in order to do that. God forbid they spend a couple of billion of the budget for that."

"So will these troops be of any value to Mars whatsoever?" Laura wanted to know.

Jackson offered another shrug. "They could theoretically help defend us in the event of an attempted invasion but they would only be able to hold for a little while before reinforcement became necessary. Reinforcement from Earth, as I'm sure you're aware, takes anywhere from four to twelve weeks depending on planetary alignment. Worst case scenario is that EastHem hits us with a surprise invasion when Earth and Mars are on opposite sides of the sun."

"A surprise invasion?" she asked. "I thought that was impossible. Wouldn't we see the ships coming from the moment they left Earth?"

"Not anymore. Now that EastHem has a supply line stretching from Earth to the Jupiter system, it would be relatively easy to launch a surprise attack upon us during certain times of the year."

"What do you mean?" she wanted to know.

"Well," he told her, pouring each of them a little more wine, "they could hide their invasion force in specially modified fuel tankers. When Jupiter and Mars are approaching alignment we would be accustomed to seeing groups of EastHem tankers passing within a few hundred thousand kilometers of us. We wouldn't think anything about it. But suppose a few of those tankers contained not fuel but a dozen assault landing ships apiece. They're easily big enough for that. The EastHems, if they did it at the right time, could have two or three divisions of troops secure in their beachheads before our marines even had a chance to get their own heavy equipment on the surface."

"Unbelievable," Laura said, shaking her head. "If you want to hear a doomsday scenario, just ask a marine commander."

"And ask you did," he said. "And that's just one surprise attack scheme. I can think of five or six others just off the top of my head."

"Has any of this been brought up to the executive council or congress?" she asked.

"It's been suggested that a permanent force of soldiers dedicated completely to Martian defense would be a good idea," he explained. "But the suggestions have only come from the command level. Once the suggestion moves into the offices of those idiots in Denver, it gets shot right down as being unnecessary and too expensive."

Laura sighed in disgust. "Money," she said sourly. "That's what it always comes down to. We don't want to spend the money right now to prevent a crisis later."

"It's the way of the solar system," Jackson agreed.

Though Laura was morally upset with the situation her planet was being left in, she was also elated. Though Mars would be left nearly defenseless in the short term, it did open up an entire new aspect to her long-range plans. The idea she had been mulling over ever since she heard of the impending pullback of the marines began to click more firmly into place.

"Tell me something, Kevin," she said, lowering her voice just a little. "What if there was a Martian planetary guard? A force made up of volunteers from Mars itself and equipped with modern weapons. Could such a force be trained efficiently enough to repel an invasion?"

He mulled that over for a second. "A planetary guard huh? I suppose such a force could be drilled and trained enough to cause EastHem quite a headache. I would even venture to say that a good number of Martian citizens would participate in such a program if you had one. But where would the funding come from? You have the same basic problem as stationing professional marines here. Nobody wants to pay for it."

"The Martian citizens could pay for it," she suggested.

Jackson blinked. "Come again?"

"A voluntary income and sales tax increase," she explained. "Say an extra two percent on sales and maybe an extra three percent on income. I haven't done the exact math but that would generate in excess of two billion every year. With two billion a year allocated for equipment and training expenses, you could buy a lot of tanks and artillery and guns, couldn't you?"

"Yes, you could," he said. "But you don't really think the people would volunteer to tax themselves that much do you? We already have ten percent sales tax in effect and we already pay more than forty-five percent in income taxes to the feds, not to mention an additional six percent to the planetary government."

"On the contrary," Laura retorted. "I believe the citizens would vote overwhelmingly for such a thing as long as it was for planetary defense. Remember, we were hit very hard during the war and most of our citizens know it was because we were largely undefended. Trust me on this. If there's one thing I know how to do, it's read the mindset of our citizens. They would vote this in."

"I'll have to take your word for it," he said doubtfully. "But that's not the only factor involved in such a thing."

"No," she said, "it's not. It would also require the approval of congress and the executive council. But if the funding was available, what possible objection could they have to it? Their prize moneymaker will be protected from invasion at no cost to them. It would also require the approval of the various corporations that control this planet. They would be concerned about an additional income tax affecting their Martian sales. Granted, with only seventy million people on the planet, Martians amount to only one percent of any WestHem corporation's paying customers, but you know corporations. If they think they'll lose ten cents a year, they'll kill the measure and they'll spend billions killing it."

"Do you think they would approve of such a plan?" Jackson asked.

"If it was presented to them in the right way. That would be my job and I think I can do it. Now that I'm a member of the planetary legislature and not just a council member, my contacts have become more powerful — a little higher up the ladder. You have to remember that the corporations were particularly nervous during the war. After all, us citizens only had our lives to lose, they had their very holdings put in jeopardy."

"You seem to have this all figured out," he observed. "What do you need from me?"

"I need a military expert to draw up plans for such a force," she told him. "I need minimum staffing recommendations, minimum supply recommendations, and minimum deployment recommendations. I need facts, figures, and presentations to show just how such a force would be used and to explain to those complete idiots of the corporate boards and congress just how it would be an effective deterrent."

"I see," he said slowly.

"I would put you in touch with various auditors, accountants, and lawyers from the various corporations that supply the equipment so you could develop estimations for both initial start-up costs and yearly operational costs. Most of the military hardware manufacturers are based here on Mars. That should make things a little easier. We wouldn't have to deal with shipping costs."

"No," he said, his head spinning with the request. "I don't suppose we would."

She took a deep breath. "And most of all," she continued, "if such a project were approved, I would need someone to lead it."

There was silence as he digested her words and tried to grapple with all of the ramifications of it. "You would want me to lead it?"

"I cannot think of a better person," she replied. "Of course, unlike the bulk of the members, you would be paid a salary for your position and you would be expected to devote your full-time energies to it. You would be allocated a command staff and a training staff, the composition of which would be your discretion. The governor would have to appoint you to the position and the legislature would have to confirm you, but I'm pretty sure that if I can get things that far it will not be a problem. A few whispered words to the right people would be all that was required. For instance, I could assure Alexander Industries that you would buy your tanks from them if they pressured the politicians they own to vote for you."

This was all moving too fast for Jackson. "I would have to resign from the marines in order to accept your offer," he said. "I would have to give up my rank, my pension, and everything I've worked for over the years."

"Yes," she said, not pulling her punches. "You would. As I said, you would be paid for your position and given all of the perks you would expect from it. Comparable salary, medical and lawyer insurance, and travel expenses would all be covered. But you would have to leave the marines behind."

He took another sip from his wine, swallowing it slowly. "You're asking a lot of me, Laura."

"I know," she said, wondering if she should tell him the rest of her plans for this force. To do so would be a horrible risk. If her instincts about his planetary loyalty were the least bit wrong... But on the other hand, he would have to be told eventually, would have to agree. And there was no one else that she could even begin to trust with what she had in mind. There were undoubtedly others who would do it, but she had no way of picking them out. Though her political connections were many, her military ones were almost completely limited to this one man.

"Look, Laura," he said, intruding upon her train of thought. "I'll be happy to draw up your plans for you and provide any manner of expertise that I can offer. I'll even take an unpaid leave of absence to help you get it up and running. But as for giving up my commission... well, I'm not sure that I can..."

"Kevin," she said softly, making her decision. "Why don't I explain a few other things to you?"

"Other things?"

She nodded, feeling her hands wanting to tremble as she laid her proverbial cards on the table. "I'm going to be governor of this planet someday," she said. "Probably within twelve years."

"I'm sure you're right," he said. "But..."

"Listen to me for a minute," she interrupted. "Listen to me very carefully. I want to be absolutely sure that you do not misunderstand anything I'm about to say."

That got his attention. He snapped his mouth shut.

With that, she began to talk.

Jackson listened to her, his eyes widening as the story developed. When she was done he only sat there, stunned.

"So what do you think?" she said at last. "It's certainly a risk, I'll be the first to agree. But it's a risk worth taking and I think that together we can pull it off."

"My God, Laura," he finally intoned. "What you're suggesting is... is..."

"I know what it is," she told him. "The question is, will you help me?"

He scratched his head a little and took a few breaths. Would he help her? Would he risk not just his career but his very life? He could easily imagine the consequences of failure. But at the same time he could imagine the rewards of success. They would be the greatest rewards a people could imagine. "I'll help you," he said at last. "You get me a planetary guard established and I'll lead it."

She smiled, holding her hand across the table. "Welcome aboard," she said as he shook with her. "Someday they're going to name cities after you."

"Yes," he said, feeling both elation and fear at what he had agreed to. "They do that after you're dead, don't they?"

Chapter 1

January 8, 2146

Eden, Mars

Lisa Wong drove the black and white police cart slowly down 5th street, cursing as she had to detour around city hall. Uniformed Martian Planetary Guard squads, part of Governor-elect Laura Whiting's security detail, had closed the streets to all traffic for a block in each direction in anticipation of an inauguration party that would be taking place all day tomorrow, after the new leader of Mars was sworn in tonight in New Pittsburgh. They had erected plastic barricades and were standing by with M-24 assault rifles slung over their shoulders. Combat goggles were settled upon their faces. The soldiers and the police department usually got along well together — after all, a good portion of the police force served on their days off — but not well enough to invite the cart to pass through. They had their orders, direct from General Jackson himself.

"Fuckin' politicians," Lisa groaned to her partner as she turned onto 16th Avenue, winding her way through a group of pedestrians that were watching the soldiers. "There won't be a single fuckin' dignitary down here until tomorrow afternoon, but they're closing everything off tonight. What the hell is up with that? Sometimes I think they have all that security as a goddamn status symbol instead of out of any real need. Who the hell would want to kill a politician anyway? All they'd do is elect another one."

"Yep," Brian Haggerty replied from the passenger seat of the cart. He took a drink from a large bottle of soda and then belched loudly, as if to express his opinion. "If there's one thing there's no shortage of, it's elected officials. They oughtta use all of those troops to come out here and run some of our calls for us. Maybe that could cut us down to eight a shift instead of twelve."

"And maybe let us get a chance to eat lunch once in a while," Lisa agreed, honking impatiently at a group of gang members that were taking too long to clear out of their way. On Martian streets it was generally the pedestrian that ruled since walking and the elevated trains were the principal means of transportation. But what little vehicular traffic did exist — police carts, dip-hoe carts, delivery trucks — was legally given the right of way. Apparently this street gang had not been briefed on that particular provision of the municipal code. Two of the gang members raised their middle fingers to the black and white without even glancing at it. Two others did glance at them but only long enough to make eye contact while they contemptuously grabbed their crotches.

"Fucking vermin," Brian said sourly, glaring at them through the reinforced mesh wire that covered the windshield. "I'd like to cram my tanner up their back doors and crank it up to full."

"They'd probably like it," Lisa replied, finally achieving enough room to maneuver the four-seat electric cart around them. She picked up a little speed and continued down the avenue, turning at the next block and circling back around to 5th Street once more.

Lisa and Brian were uniformed patrol officers of the Eden Police Department. Both were nine-year veterans of patrol services and both had recently been assigned to the downtown division. Downtown Eden was not exactly the most desirable district to work. Once away from the office buildings and the expensive housing complexes, which were patrolled by high seniority foot patrolmen anyway, the streets were as dangerous as anything in the ghettos. Downtown was rife with armed gangs of welfare class youths that trafficked in dust — a cheap, illegal drug that was synthesized from stolen agricultural chemicals. Dust was the intoxicant most favored by the lower classes when they ran out of or grew bored with their monthly allotment of marijuana and alcohol. Those who chronically used dust were prone to fits of violent paranoia while on a binge. Between the sellers, the manufacturers, and the users, all of whom were concentrated in high numbers in the welfare housing buildings of downtown, the district was a busy, dangerous place to work. Downtown forced patrol partners into a sometimes fierce protective bonding with each other.

"What's this bullshit for again?" Lisa asked, referring to the latest call that they had been dispatched to. She knew she was heading for the lobby of the Apple Tree public housing complex at 5th Street and 65th Avenue, but aside from that she had not heard the particulars.

"Assault in progress," Brian told her, reading from the terminal mounted between their seats. "A young man of Asian descent is apparently beating upon someone with a piece of lobby furniture."

"So what the hell do they want us to do about it?" she asked, shaking her head. "Those fuckin' animals are always beating the hell out of each other. We haul them off to jail and they're out two hours later beating on someone else."

"Maybe he'll kill him," Brian said with a shrug. "At least that way he'll spend a few months in the slam."

"And give us more reports to compose too," she pointed out, slowing up for another group of gang members that were ambling from an intoxicant store across the street to the entrance of their housing complex. They all carried bottles of Fruity — the potent concoction of fermented waste juices from the bottling facilities. It was the favored drink among the welfare class because it was both cheap and powerful. One bottle of Fruity was more than enough to give a person of average weight a therapeutic alcohol level. Though the taste was horrid, it was very economical. This group of gang members seemed to be in a better mood than the last. Only one of them flipped the bird at the patrol car and one of them, an African descendent, actually blew a kiss at Lisa.

"It's good to see public support for the police, isn't it?" Brian asked, grinning at his partner.

"Yes," she said, shaking her head in amusement. "It makes me all warm inside."

As they continued on their path towards the Apple Tree, their talk turned to the upcoming inauguration. Lisa was of the opinion that Laura Whiting, whom she had voted for, was not quite as corrupt as the others of her species. "I mean, I actually voted for her," she said. "Me. I haven't voted for anything since I was twenty years old because it seemed like a complete waste of time and mental effort. But there's something about her that's... well... different. I just can't explain it, you know?"

Brian was a little more cynical. "She just had a better campaign manager," he said. "She's smart enough to realize that we Martians are not as dumb as the Earth politicians and the corporate assholes seem to think we are. She just played to our intelligence a little. You watch. She won't be any different. Remember how she got to where she is."

"I know," Lisa said. "By cramming her nose up every corporate ass that's been stuck in her face since law school. I'm not saying that she's going to make a real difference or anything. I'm just saying that she seems to have a little empathy for us working folks."

"Hmmm. So you seem to be of the opinion," he paraphrased, "that she won't totally fuck us, that she'll just partially fuck us?"

"Right," Lisa agreed, chuckling. "She'll put on a little bit of lube before she sticks it in."

The two partners were still mulling over that analogy when Lisa pulled to the sidewalk a half a block from the Apple Tree main entrance. They opened their doors and stepped out onto the street, taking a moment to adjust their weapons belts and resettle their Kevlar armor upon their torsos. As part of the standard patrol load out they had blue and white, bullet resistant helmets upon their heads with combat goggles mounted to the top, where they could be pulled down for easy use. Their belts contained 5mm pistols with thirty round clips in addition to three pairs of handcuffs and a tanner, which was a one-meter metal club capable of delivering an incapacitating electrical charge. They had military style M-24 assault rifles in their possession but these were usually kept under the seats of the cart and rarely taken out. On their lower bodies they wore blue shorts but their knees were protected with Kevlar guards and their feet were encased in steel-toed boots.

"Shall we do it?" Lisa asked, slamming her door shut. She pushed a button on the patrol computer/communicator on her belt and the door locks clanked into the locking position. A chirp indicated the alarm system was active.

"We shall," Brian agreed with a sigh.

Above them the red Martian sky, which was visible through the dirty plexiglass roof, was darkening with sunset. Soon the stars would be out and shining in all of their brilliance. The ninety story low rent building, most of its windows darkened, rose above them, somewhat cutting off the view. On the street before them there was not much activity. A drunken group of youths, not quite badass enough to be considered a street gang, were sitting on a planter in the middle of the street passing a marijuana pipe back and forth. The youths watched the two cops impassively, hardly seeming to notice them. Brian and Lisa gave them a once over and then turned their attention forward. They walked carefully to the entrance of the complex, keeping a wary eye on everything within view. The police department was not terribly popular with members of the welfare class and ambushes by gang members or just plain crazy people had been known to occur. Despite the armor they wore and the weapons they carried, an average of thirty patrol officers were killed each and every year in Eden alone. It was a dangerous profession where Darwinism ruled.

The main entrance to the complex consisted of glass panels reinforced with steel bars. Two sets of automatic sliding doors allowed access to the lobby area. An elderly man lay curled up and snoring next to the closest door, an empty bottle of Fruity next to him. He smelled strongly of urine and stale sweat. The two police officers stepped over him and sidled up to the door, peering through into the lobby. It was best to get an idea what you were walking into before you went and walked into it. The lobby of the Apple Tree, like the lobby of any housing building of the welfare or working class, was typically used as a gathering area for the residents. Any Internet packages or grocery shipments were delivered there before being carried up to the rooms. A large crowd of fifty or so people was gathered around the bank of elevators on the far wall. They seemed very upset and excited.

"I hate crowds," Lisa said, trying to see what the focus of the excitement was about. "A group like that could stomp us both to death in about a minute flat."

"I'm sure these fine citizens wouldn't do something like that," Brian joked, a little nervous himself. Having those that a police officer was trying to help suddenly turn on him or her was an all too frequent phenomenon in modern law enforcement. The welfare class hated the cops and the cops hated the welfare class.

"Well," Lisa sighed, stepping forward to activate the door sensor, "let's get it on."

"Right behind you, babe," Brian replied, taking up position.

The glass door was badly in need of a routine maintenance regiment. It rattled and clanked its way open with agonizing slowness, ruining their hopes of a quick, unobtrusive entry. Finally it provided them with an opening big enough to walk through and they stepped inside. The lobby was covered with various bits of trash that overflowed from the garbage containers and seemed to spread out from there. Everything from empty Fruity bottles to empty marijuana packages to empty food containers lay in piles on the carpet and the lobby furniture. The smell was of poorly ventilated air scented with sweat, urine, vomit, and even a hint of feces. It was a smell that both had long since ceased to notice, they smelled it so often.

"Yo, motherfuckers!" screamed a middle-aged Caucasian man from the rear of the crowd as he saw them enter. "Git yo asses over here! They killin peoples!"

"Yeah!" yelled an elderly Asian woman standing next to him. "Motherfuckers is dusted out!"

Hearing the words: "they" and "dusted out", both officers drew their tanners from their belts and charged them. Dusted out was street slang for dust psychosis, the paranoid, violent state of mind that came from a two or three day binge of the powerful amphetamine. One strange effect of such psychosis was that it often encompassed more than one person. If two or three or even five people binged together over a period of days, they would all tend to dust out at the same time and with the same paranoid fantasies.

"How many 'theys" are we talking about here?" Lisa, still in the lead, asked the elderly Asian.

"They's two of 'em!" she yelled. "They fuckin' killin' people! Do somethin' 'bout it goddammit!"

They could hear cusses and screams coming from within the crowd now, and the occasional thump of an object striking a human body. They began to push their way through. "Police!" they barked. "Move aside, let us in!" Reluctantly the crowd parted, more in deference to the charged tanners the two cops were waving than out of any respect for authority. As the onlookers parted, the scene became visible. Lying on the ground were two elderly men and one middle age female. One of the men was obviously dead, his skull split open and the bloody gray matter of his brain clearly visible. He lay in a twisted heap next to a broken lounge chair. The other man was alive but unresponsive. He was on his back while a young Asian male, shirtless and sporting multiple tattoos, kicked him repeatedly in the body while hitting him in the head with a piece of firm plastic that had once been the lounge chair's armrest. About two meters away the female, who was African descended and in her forties, was being choked by a Caucasian man in his twenties. He too was shirtless and bore an impressive array of both jailhouse and professional tattoos upon his torso. The woman he was choking was still struggling weakly, her arms beating ineffectively at his head and chest.

"I'll get the left, you get the right," said Lisa to Brian as she stepped forward.

"Sounds good," he replied.

They moved in, gripping their tanners in their left hands, keeping their gun hands free in case the tanners proved not to be effective. Sometimes with dusters the electrical charge didn't work all that well.

"Drop it, asshole," Lisa barked at the man with the armrest.

He didn't even look up, he just continued to kick and hit with a fury, sending little sprays of blood upward with each blow. He was yelling at the man as he went about killing him. "You wanna spy on me, motherfucker? You wanna spy on me?" he demanded, over and over. Yes, this guy was dusted all right. He and his friend had probably gotten it into their heads that these three welfare class public housing residents were members of "them", that shady group those in dust psychosis always convinced themselves were after them.

"Put the club down, asshole," she yelled a little louder. "And I mean now!"

Again the man did not even seem to hear her. Mentally sighing she stepped forward, cocking the hand with the tanner backward. She had to be careful to not actually shock the assailant while he was touching the victim. If he were, the electricity would course through the victim's body as well. Granted, the electricity would not actually hurt the victim any worse than he was already being hurt by the piece of plastic, but cops were not allowed to inconvenience or cause pain to anyone that was not a suspected criminal. Years of civil law precedence had been established in that manner. A cop that caused pain to someone, even in the act of saving them, could be sued successfully. It was insanity but it was modern reality.

"I hate this fucking job," Lisa muttered, as she swung the tanner sharply into the man's right knee. It struck right at the junction, hard enough to cause the leg to buckle but not hard enough to cause any physical harm. If she actually broke the man's knee he could sue her for excessive force, pain and suffering, and a civil rights violation. She did not key the tanner as it struck him, using it as a club only. The man did not fall but he stopped hitting the victim and surged just enough off balance to allow her to step forward and, holding the tanner with one hand at either end, give him a shove. He stumbled backward three steps and then hit the broken lounge chair, falling into it and breaking it even further. Plastic splinters went spraying out across the room.

"You bitch!" the man screamed, a mad glint in his eyes as he tried to scramble back to his feet. "They was followin' us! They was fuckin' followin' us!"

"Lay on the ground!" Lisa barked, backing up a step and holding her tanner out before her once more. "Get down on you stomach or I'm gonna zap your ass!"

"No!" he returned, continuing his efforts to stand up. He was hindered by the fact that he was tangled up in the chair. "Them motherfuckers was followin' us. Gotta kill 'em, gotta fuckin' kill 'em!"

She yelled at him to get down one more time and when he failed to obey her she put the end of the tanner against his chest and pushed the discharge button. Thirty thousand volts surged out of the end and into his body, overpowering his nervous system. Whatever damping effects the chronic use of dust had did not seem to be present in this case. He stiffened up as if in seizure and then crashed to the ground, his hands splayed out before him.

"Could use a little help over here, partner," Brian grunted from her right side.

She turned and saw him struggling to pull the other duster off of the woman. He had his tanner wrapped around the man's neck and was trying to yank him backwards but the duster would not release his grip on her. Again the easiest, sanest course of action would have simply been to zap the man right there where he stood but the contact would have resulted in a liability incurring shock to the victim.

She gave a nervous glance towards the man she had just dropped — there was no telling how long he would remain unconscious — before hurrying over to assist her partner. If was for damn sure that none of the concerned bystanders were going to help him. They would stand and watch impassively as the two dusters tortured and killed him, drinking Fruity as they did so.

"Get his arms, Lisa!" Brian barked. "Get his arms and I'll be able to pull him free!"

She bent down next to the victim and put her hands on the duster's forearm, yanking at it with all her strength. Like most cops that worked the dangerous areas, Lisa was a physical fitness fanatic. Her work-out regiment was augmented by her own volunteer work with the MPG, who's physical agility requirements, even for non-combatant positions like Lisa's, were stringent. The duster, though quite a bit larger and in the midst of psychosis, was no match for her. His arm popped free into hers, releasing its grip upon the woman's throat. She twisted it upward, putting it into a lock with her right hand so she could make a grab at his other hand. Before she could do this however, the duster released that grip on his own and swung his fist upward, striking her sharply in the face.

Pain exploded in her head, centered on her nose, and she staggered a little, seeing stars. She felt wet blood running down her face.

"Motherfucker!" she yelled, jamming the elbow of her free arm into the duster's stomach hard enough to cause tingling in her funny bone. The duster coughed and gasped as the air was expelled from his lungs and fell backwards, pulled that direction by Brian. Lisa kept her grip on his arm as Brian spun him around and slammed him to his stomach onto the filthy carpet of the lobby. She twisted the arm up further on his back while kneeling down and placing her knee on the back of his neck to keep him from rising up. Brian, releasing his grip on his tanner and allowing it to roll to the side, kneeled on the man's back. He grabbed the free right arm, which had been flailing around trying to strike something and twisted it up to join the left one.

"I got the cuffs," Brian told her, reaching to the rear of his belt and pulling out a set. In the last hundred and fifty years of law enforcement technological advances, the basic set of wrist restraints had changed little. Though they were now unlocked not with a key but with a command from the arresting officer's belt computer, the mechanism was the same as cops in the early twentieth century had utilized. He snapped the bracelet first on the wrist that he was holding and then the one that Lisa was holding.

They stood up, each breathing a little harder than normal with the effort. Brian picked up his tanner and holstered it. The duster, dismayed to have his arms immobilized and still trying to refill his lungs with air, began to kick his feet up and down, desperately trying to make contact with one of them.

"Chill out with that shit," Brian told him, "or I'll hobble your ass too."

The duster, though not exactly in his right mind, whatever that might be, was coherent enough to know that he did not want to have his feet tied together and attached to the handcuffs. More than likely he had experienced that particular form of restraint before. He let his feet lie still.

Lisa looked over at the first duster, the one she had zapped. He was moaning now and beginning to stir. Picking up her own tanner and holstering it she hurried over to him and kneeled down on his back.

"You got him okay?" Brian asked, taking a few steps in that direction.

"Yeah, he's still pretty much out of it," she replied, quickly grabbing his twitching left arm and applying a cuff to it. She twisted it up behind his back and then grabbed the right arm, bringing it into position and joining it to its companion. He offered no resistance.

Done, she stood back up. Her face was throbbing rhythmically, with the beat of her heart, from the blow she had received. She brought her fingers up to her face and touched the nose. Her fingertips came away bloody. "Asshole," she spat, wanting to go over and deliver a kick to the restrained duster, knowing she would do no such thing. A cop could end up bankrupt and in prison for doing something like that.

"You okay, Lisa?" Brian asked her as he ran a scanner over the prone body of the first duster. The scanner was low-yield ultrasound device that identified and inventoried everything in the possession of a suspect.

"Yeah," she said, reaching down for the transmit button on her belt computer. "It's just a bloody nose. I'll make it." She keyed her radio. "Four delta five-nine," she said into it, speaking to the dispatch computer back in the communications center, "we have two in custody, three victims down. Send us two dip-hoe carts for medical treatment of victims and a full homicide assignment."

"Copy that four delta five-nine," said the cheery female voice of the computer. "Two suspects in custody. I'm responding two health and safety carts and a homicide assignment right now."

"And," she added, "inform the watch commander that physical force was required for the arrest. One subject immobilized with a tanner and one struck with an elbow."

"Notification will be made," the computer assured her.

Lisa shook her head in disgust, hating herself for feeling worried about the blow she had given to the scumbag duster and hating the department for making her feel worried about it. Any use of physical force at all required a report and notification of the watch commander. That was routine. But any use of force that was not outlined in the field training manual — and blows to the stomach were most assuredly not outlined — were subject to intense scrutiny by the department brass and the internal affairs division. Cops had been suspended, fined, fired, and even criminally prosecuted for such things.

"Good thing it's Lieutenant Duran tonight," Brian, who had overheard the transmission, told her. "You know how that prick Wilson rants about excessive force."

Lieutenant Wilson was one of two watch commanders that they dealt with on a weekly basis. He, unlike his counterpart Lieutenant Duran, was firmly in the loop for a rapid climb up the administrative ladder. As such, his every action was designed to show that he was in control of the cops he commanded. Duran, on the other hand, was an older cop rapidly approaching retirement age. She had capped out her climb up the ladder long ago and all she asked of her subordinates was that they not screw up enough to get her fired before her pension was secure. She had also spent many more years working the streets as a grunt before achieving her promotions. This tended to make her much more sympathetic in use of force cases.

"I don't know," Lisa said worriedly. "Duran or not, you know how they feel about hitting people. Those fuckin' personal injury lawyers have a field day with that shit."

"I wouldn't sweat it," Brian said soothingly. "He hit you in the face. That was the only way you could react to the situation."

"If they'd just let us tan those assholes instead of making us wrestle with them," she said, taking out her scanner.

"I know," he told her. "And if ten percent of the working population weren't lawyers, we wouldn't have to worry about any of this shit."

"But the solar system is what the solar system is," Lisa said fatalistically, repeating an often heard motto in those times.

"Goddamn right," Brian agreed.

Once their suspects were searched for weapons and dragged off to the side, the two cops took a look at the victims of the attack. The man with the brains leaking out of his skull was of course beyond salvation and the man next to him, the one that Lisa had rescued with her tanner, was not looking terribly well either. Though there was no actual brain matter visible his entire face was a bloody pulp. One eye was fixated off to the right while the other stared unblinkingly forward. His breathing was ragged and irregular, sometimes racing along frantically, sometimes slowing to almost a halt. The woman who had been choked was in a little better shape. Though she was gasping for air and having a little trouble getting her throat and lungs to work properly, her eyes were open and she was at least able to nod or shake her head to questions.

Now that the excitement of the fight was over, the crowd of onlookers began to react in a predictable manner. "Y'all took yer fuckin' sweet time gettin' here, didn't ya?" A middle aged man asked angrily. He was a Caucasian descendant and looked like he had put away more than his fair share of Fruity over the years. His bare, hairy stomach bulged alarmingly over the waistband of his shorts and his jowls jiggled with each word he spoke. "If you'd a been here when we called, them fuckin' dusters wouldn't a killed Jeff!"

"Yeah," added an Asian descendant woman next to him. She was smoking a cigarette and dipping the ashes on the floor. "I bet if it'd been someone that had a fuckin' job that'd called, your asses woulda been over here for we got off'n the terminal!"

The other members of the crowd quickly picked up the thread of this argument — a common one in such places. Within a minute the angry shouts and accusations intensified to the point that Lisa and Brian began anxiously looking for the arrival of the two additional patrol carts that were being sent to assist with the homicide investigation. Crowds like this, in which many of the participants were either drunk on Fruity or a little dusted themselves, had a way of getting out of hand very quickly.

"They got fuckin' cops on every goddamn corner down in the Garden," a drunken African descendant shouted. She was referring to the Garden Grove area of Eden, just outside of downtown, where most of the wealthy and elite resided. "A duster wouldn't a been able to even get within a klick of one of them buildin's, let alone go an' kill someone in one!"

"Yeah," added a companion, a Hispanic descendant this time. "But with us it just: 'be there when we get 'round to it!' Shit, we lucky you showed up at all!"

Lisa, working hard to maintain her composure, faced the crowd with a blank expression on her face. "I hate this fucking job," she mumbled to herself for perhaps that tenth time that shift, the hundredth time that week. While it was true that response times to the ghetto addresses and public housing buildings were considerably longer than they were in the areas where employed people lived, this was not due to any apathy on the part of the cops. When a call appeared on their screen, they went to it. It was the same with the other patrol units. The simple fact was that the ghettos were just not staffed adequately enough even though they were the busiest districts in the city by far. Eight out of every ten calls to the police department originated in one of the ghettos. But did the ghettos contain eighty percent more cops? Not even close. The ghetto was staffed with no more units than any other section of the city, except of course for Garden Grove and other areas like it. By contrast, the areas where the elite lived enjoyed the highest per capita ratio of cops to citizens. As the drunken African descendant had so delicately pointed out, there were foot patrol teams on damn near every corner. It was, without question, a serious misallocation of resources that was based upon money and social inequality. But was any of this Lisa's fault? Was it Brian's, or any of the other rank and file cops'? Was it the fault of those high seniority cops that worked in Garden Grove? No. But the inhabitants of the ghetto, who were perpetually plagued by violent street gangs, drug dealers, and poor response times when they needed help, perceived that this problem was because of the line cops. After all, the line cops were the only cops they ever saw. They could not take their complaints or frustrations to the city council or the department brass. So they blamed the most visible members of the organization and in the most angry and sometimes physical ways.

Lisa and Brian were both experienced enough in the realities of their job to know that trying to explain any of this to the crowd pushing in at them would be useless. They did not want to hear explanations or excuses. They wanted to vent. The best the two partners could hope for was that the crowd would stick to verbalizations to achieve their venting and not resort to physical stress relief. Things would get real ugly in a real hurry if that happened.

"'Get yourself assigned to downtown', the lieutenant told me," Brian was muttering to himself, although his words were easily picked up and transmitted to Lisa through the tactical radio link they shared. "'It's a lot mellower than Covington Heights, ' he says. 'The Agricorp building is downtown. Nothing bad could happen near the Agricorp Building, could it?'"

"And why the fuck ain't you helpin' those people now?" a Caucasian near the front of the crowd demanded of them. "First you wait a fuckin' hour to show up and then, after you beat up on the people doin' it, you just fuckin' stand there! Them people's hurt!"

"We have the dip-hoes on the way," Lisa intoned mechanically, thinking to herself that the Caucasian, who was about her age, though looked ten years older, was going to be the first one she zapped if push came to shove. He had the biggest mouth. "They'll take care of them and get them to the hospital."

"Yeah right," the man said in disgust, taking another step forward. "And they'll sit there in the fuckin' hall whilst the doctors treats people that have jobs first! They'll let 'em die out there in the hall whilst they take care of people with stubbed toes that have insurance!"

"Yeah," agreed several members of the crowd. "You tell 'em, man!"

Neither of the cops bothered to dispute this point. Both knew it was true, had seen it happen just that way more than once. "That's not my department," Lisa told him, putting her hand on her holstered tanner. "But I do need you to step back out of the crime scene!"

"Or what?" he demanded. "You gonna zap me too? You gonna send me to jail? Fuckin' do it why don't you? I'll eat better and live better if'n I's in jail!"

"Goddamn right!" added the Hispanic who had spoken earlier. "Them motherfuckers in the jail get private rooms, room service, and better pot. They even get them premium Internet channels! They live like them pricks in the Garden. What kinda fuckin' punishment be that?"

"Step back, now!" Lisa said, raising her voice and locking eyes with the Caucasian. She gripped the handle of her tanner and pulled it upward a little.

The man spat on the ground at her feet, barely missing her boot with a yellow wad of phlegm, but that remained the extent of his defiance of her authority. At last he stepped backwards. The crowd took a step back with him. Lisa and Brian both let a small sigh of nervous relief escape their lips. Though the crowd continued to shout insults and accusations, they kept their distance. In the world of modern law enforcement, that was perhaps the best that could be hoped for.

The first of the two-person emergency medical teams from the Department of Public Health and Safety arrived a moment later. They were dressed almost identically to the two police, lacking only the combat goggles and the weapons belts. The design on their blue helmets and on their bulletproof armor was a little different — it featured a star of life instead of a police oval — but except for that they were virtually indistinguishable from their law enforcement counterparts. Lisa and Brian watched as they wheeled in a stretcher upon which blue bags of equipment were resting. As soon as the medics came through the rickety front door they paused, eyeing the obviously hostile crowd nervously. The ghetto class often verbally and physically abused the dip-hoes as well, and for much the same reasons; misallocation of scarce resources and widespread abuse by other aspects of the medical system.

"It's okay, guys," Lisa called to them before they could slink away. "It's safe. C'mon over."

Plainly trepidatious, they nevertheless approached and went to work. They pronounced the first of the victims, the one with the exposed brain matter, officially dead. The second victim, the one that had been beaten with the arm of the chair, they paralyzed with a stasis drug and then installed an artificial breathing mechanism. By the time they were done doing that the second team had entered the building and gone to work on the woman that had been choked. As they performed their duties the crowd stayed at a reasonably safe distance, only shouting the occasional accusation about how if they'd been employed people they'd be getting better treatment.

"Fuckin vermin," Brian said softly into his throat microphone as he kept a wary eye on the crowd.

Lisa, who was watching the two suspects on the ground (they were stirring around and shouting insults of their own now) heard him but did not respond. Though most cops, like most employed people in general, disliked the welfare class immensely; Brian's hatred of them was unique in its fury. Six years before, his pregnant wife had been raped and killed by a group of welfare class thugs as she got off of the public transit train in the notoriously dangerous Helvetia Lowlands section of the city. Mandy Haggerty had been twenty-eight years old at the time and working as a fifth grade teacher in one of the public schools of the Helvetia district. She had dedicated her life to teaching the welfare class children and had been quite good at it. But some of the welfare class youths in the neighborhood, emboldened by a combination of Fruity and dust, had spotted her one morning on her way to work and that had been the death of her. Brian had long since gotten over the grief of her loss but his flaming hatred of the vermin, as the derogatory term for those of the welfare class went, had never so much as flickered in its intensity. Lisa, who had yet to marry and produce her one legally allowed offspring, knew that she could not fathom the depth of his feelings. But at the same time she knew that working among the very people he hated so much ten hours a day, four days a week, was poisoning his mind.

By the time the DPHS teams carted away the two surviving victims of the attack the homicide investigation, such as it was, was in full swing. Two additional patrol units had arrived and were questioning members of the crowd (and taking a lot of verbal abuse) about what had transpired. They were just going through the motions of course. The answers were all the same, no matter who was talked to. "I didn't see nothin," was recorded for the reports more than twenty times. Though everybody present had seen what had happened, nobody would admit it. They all knew that the accused murderers had a right to face their accusers in court. Bearing witness against dusters or street gang members was not a healthy thing to do in the ghetto. It went without saying that no matter how ironclad the case against them was, the two dusters would not spend more than a year in prison. There simply was not room to lock up every duster that killed a piece of vermin in Eden, not for very long anyway. Those rooms in the prison had to be kept free for more serious criminals like those who pirated software that was produced by the media corporations or those who illegally distributed commercial music or video files.

Sergeant Franklin, their immediate supervisor, arrived a few minutes later. He brought in a digital camera, which he used to photograph the crime scene just in case the two dusters did not cop a plea or were not set free due to lack of evidence. Lieutenant Duran, the watch commander, showed up right behind him. She was not part of the standard homicide investigation assignment but her presence was required to take the use of force report. She was a tough, battle-hardened cop in her mid-fifties that had seen a little bit of everything during her twenty-five years on the job. She pulled her two subordinates aside, out of earshot of the suspects and the crowd, and offered each of them a bottle of flavored water.

"Thanks, Lieutenant," Lisa said, opening the plastic bottle. The label identified it as "Raspberry Surprise", produced and bottled by JuiceCo, a subsidiary of Agricorp. She took a large drink, soothing her parched throat.

"Yeah," Brian agreed, opening his bottle of Apple Delight. "This'll help wash the taste of these vermin out of my mouth."

"Watch your language," Duran intoned gently. "You wouldn't want to get caught using a forbidden term now, would you?"

Brian snorted in disgust. The use of the word vermin, as well as many other derogatory slang terms, was deemed a firing offense by the public relations oriented department. General terms such as "asshole" or "dirtbag" were considered distasteful though acceptable, but specific slurs having to do with social status were not. The distinction dated back to a civil court case more than fifty years before in which a third generation unemployed man had successfully sued the New Pittsburgh Police Department for referring to him as vermin during a physical altercation. "You know something, Lieutenant," he told her, taking a drink of his juice. "Every time I come into a place and run a call like this and deal with a bunch of... people like that, the idea of losing this shitty job seems like less and less of a threat."

"I know what you mean," she soothed, patting him on the shoulder. "But remember, if you get fired from here, you'll be unemployed too. You'll have to move to public housing and live off welfare donations. You'll be considered vermin along with everyone else that's unemployed."

"And you'll have to quit the MPG," Lisa added, a little worried about her partner's mental health. "You won't get to fly your Mosquito anymore." It was this argument that would carry more weight with him than anything else. Unlike Lisa, whose MPG assignment was administrative, Brian, as a male, was a member of the elite air guard portion of the service. He flew the winged attack craft that had been developed by New Pittsburgh Enterprises and were specifically designed for operation in the thin Martian atmosphere. Though the WestHem armed forces considered them to be quaint, useless wastes of money, the pilots who drove them and the ground forces they protected considered them to be the finest piece of military engineering since the stealth attack ship. Brian was no exception to this. His one great thrill in life was climbing into the cockpit of his Mosquito and rocketing down the runway.

"I know, I know," he said, frowning a little. "Sometimes that's all that keeps me here. I don't know why the hell I didn't listen to my old man and spend my career training money on engineering school instead of the fuckin police training school. I could be workin at the damn water plant or the fusion plant or the air production plant instead of dealing with these animals every goddamn day."

"Well you're stuck with us now," Duran told him, "so you're just gonna have to hang in there. Keep your sanity intact another four years or so and you'll be able to transfer to a working class neighborhood."

"I keep that vision before me like it was expensive pornography," he told her, seeming to lighten up a little. "Imagine, dealing with people who have jobs every day, who don't suck the money right out of my pay before I ever see it. It would be like paradise."

"It will be paradise," Lisa, who kept the same image at the forefront of her brain, assured him. "Four or five more years of hell, and you're in."

Now that Brian seemed to have calmed himself a little, Duran proceeded with her investigation. She questioned each of them regarding the events that led up to the use of force and as to why they thought the use of force was needed in the situation. Their answers were recorded and instantly transcribed by her investigation computer program. Both were veterans of such investigations and kept their voices neutral and professional, not allowing any sort of emotion to leak through.

"Can you think of any other option to the situation," Duran asked Lisa near the end, "other than striking the homicide suspect with your elbow?"

"No ma'am," she replied. "As I stated earlier, the suspect was quite agitated and was refusing to release his grip upon the victim's throat. Furthermore he had struck me in the face with his free hand at that point. Due to his contact with the victim and with my partner I was unable to apply electricity to him with my tanning device. It is regretful that such violence needed to be employed to diffuse the situation, but I saw no other option."

Duran smiled and clicked off the recorder. "Very good, Lisa," she told her. "I particularly liked that last bit about it being regretful. If your asshole ever sues for excessive force, that'll play well in court."

"Shit," she said, "he'll have to get in line." Lisa, like most cops, had more than thirty abuse of force suits pending against her in various stages of negotiation. Thank god there was a such thing as lawyer insurance and lawsuit insurance. True, the premiums for such coverage for law enforcement officers were almost as high as they were for doctors and lawyers themselves, but without the policies Lisa would have been bankrupt ten times over.

"So what do you think, lieutenant?" asked Brian. "Is Lisa gonna get banged for hitting that piece of shit, or what?"

"It'll go to internal affairs of course," Duran told them, informing them of nothing they did not already know. "But I wouldn't worry too much. They tend to go with the investigating command officer's preliminary report and my report will be favorable to you. I honestly don't see anything inappropriate about elbowing that shitheap in order to get him to let go of the victim. In fact, I'm going to put a note on the end of my report stating that I thought the both of you exhibited admirable restraint for not kicking the crap out of both of them."

"Thanks, lieutenant," Lisa said gratefully.

"But in the future," she cautioned, "I would watch what I was doing if I were you. If Lieutenant Wilson had been the watch commander today, you probably would've found yourself under suspension by now. Wilson spent about twenty minutes or so working patrol before he got promoted into management so he doesn't really have much of a shake on how things work out here on the streets. Nor does he care how things work on the street. His interest is in making deputy chief before he's forty. Right or wrong, good or bad, Wilson thinks that collecting two-week suspensions for excessive force is putting him in favor with the brass. You get too many two-weeks under your belt and you'll find yourself on the fast-track to vermin status, if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean, lieutenant," Lisa said. "I'll try to watch what I'm doing in the future."

Duran sighed a little. "That's just the thing, Lisa," she told her. "You shouldn't have to watch what you're doing. Not like that. Those assholes in city hall charge us with protecting the public and then do everything in their power to see to it that our hands are tied behind us and that our authority is mocked at every turn. Then they wonder why crime is so fucking high." She shook her head. "I don't know sometimes. Laura Whiting says she's going to empower the police when she takes office. Maybe she's our savior." The sarcasm of her last remark was quite evident in her tone.

"Yeah right," Brian said with a cynical laugh. "She'll make it easier for us to go after those farm workers that steal apples and oranges and marijuana buds from the Agricorp greenhouses. What the hell else did they fund her campaign for?"

"The solar system is what the solar system is," Duran told them with a shrug. "And we're the ones that get paid to shovel the shit."

Lon Fargo brought the electric truck to a halt near the southern end of greenhouse A-594. The truck was about ten meters long and featured a thirty-meter extendible hydraulic boom that was currently retracted. At the end of the boom was a portable airlock that allowed a person to pass from inside of the pressurized environment of a greenhouse building onto its roof by utilizing one of the access panels. One such panel was directly above the truck now.

Lon and his fellow agricultural complex maintenance technician, Brent Shimasaki, stepped out of the cab and onto the dusty macadam surface of the narrow access road. This particular greenhouse, one of more than ninety thousand in the Eden area, was two square kilometers in size. The ground inside of it, which had once been gently rolling hills and gullies, part of an ancient wetland water shed, had been bulldozed to a nearly perfect flatness when the complex was built forty-six years before. Golden stalks of wheat, less than a month from harvest, stretched from wall to wall in all directions, broken only by the geometric rows between them and by the access roads that divided the field into grid quadrants. The air was dry and warm, kept at the perfect growing temperature and humidity by the environmental simulation machines on the roof. It was one of these machines, which were powered by a fusion plant just outside the city, that the two men had come to repair.

They stepped lightly and carefully as they walked from the doors of the truck, which were emblazoned with a brand new Agricorp decal, to the rear where a storage cabinet was mounted. The greenhouses, though pressurized and warmed, did not have artificial gravity fields in place. Inside the city buildings or on the city streets, magnetic simulation fields were sent through steel conductors that were built into the base construction. This field kept gravity at a comfortable and healthy Earth standard 1G. It had long been known that human beings could not live long term in anything less than .8G without losing dangerous amounts of bone density and muscle mass. The development of artificial gravity in the mid-21st century had been the key factor in allowing the biggest mass migration of humans in history to take place. It was the artificial gravity that allowed sixty million people to live and work on Mars and above it. But in the agricultural fields the artificial gravity was not necessary. Not only was it cost prohibitive to maintain and install, it was also somewhat of a hindrance to operations. The crops actually grew better in the considerably weaker Martian gravity. And the harvesting machines and maintenance trucks could carry more and used less electricity since they and their cargoes were lighter. But for human beings used to walking around and functioning in 1G, performing tasks in one third of that was something that had to be done carefully. It was quite easy to push a little hard during a step and suddenly find yourself a meter in the air and tumbling towards the ground.

This greenhouse, and in fact all of the greenhouses in the surrounding eight hundred square kilometers, had once been the property of Interplanetary Food Products, which had been the fourth largest agricultural company on Mars. But as of two weeks before, IFP had ceased to exist. Agricorp, thanks to a multi-billion dollar merger of assets, was now the owner of everything that IFP had possessed. It was a merger that had been much lauded in the business sections of the Internet services as being far-reaching and progressive. Agricorp stock had increased nearly fifteen percent since the merger became official.

"I hope we get this thing done real quick," Brent said as they opened the storage compartments and removed their folded blue biosuits. "It's almost quitting time. The overtime would be nice but a couple a hits of some good green at the bar would be nicer."

"Shit," Lon said, kicking off the canvas shoes he wore and tossing them up on the truck, "we can't work overtime anymore, remember? We work for Agricorp now. Overtime has to be approved by management in advance or you work for free."

"What do you mean?" Brent asked, wondering if his coworker was joking or not. "That doesn't apply to overtime we pull trying to finish a job, does it? I thought it was just for shift work."

"Nope," Lon replied. "It applies to all overtime, for anything. I checked with Jack before we came out here. He says if we're not done with this blower by the time 4:30 rolls around, to just pack up and leave it until tomorrow. Nobody is to run past their scheduled shift for anything. No exceptions."

Brent shook his head at the idiocy of that. "So they would rather have us leave a blower open to the dust all fuckin' night then pay us time and a half for thirty or forty minutes?"

Lon gave a cynical smile. "Ain't our new bosses smart? You ask me, I'm honored to work for the biggest corporation in the solar system. Their vision and frugality is something to be admired and imitated."

"God almighty," Brent said, kicking off his own shoes. "Now I've heard just about everything."

The biosuits that they wore were designed and manufactured by the same company that made suits for the Martian Planetary Guard. They were constructed of form fitting reinforced plastic that provided near-perfect insulation. An inner sleeve that formed to the body when the suit was activated served the duel purpose of maintaining the proper body pressurization — for the atmospheric pressure on Mars was considerably less than the minimum required to sustain human life — and maintaining proper body temperature — for the outside temperature of Mars, even on the equator, rarely climbed above 0 degrees Celsius. Lon stepped into his suit and pulled it tight, making sure it was properly positioned. Having a suit activate while a portion of the inner sleeve was askew could be a painful and even dangerous experience, particularly if the askew portion happened to be near the genitals.

Once things seemed to be aligned properly he pulled his helmet from the storage compartment and placed it on his head. The helmet was a lightweight, airtight vessel that would pressurize when the suit was turned on. The air supply came from a small, flat tank on the front of the suit. Attached to the tank was an oxygen and nitrogen extractor, a much smaller version of the machines that kept the air flowing in the cities. The extractor would continually draw in those two elements from the thin atmosphere and keep the tank full of breathable air. Lon, as a member of the MPG, was in top physical shape. As such, except during heavy exertion, the extractor on his suit would be able to supply the tank faster than he could breathe it down. This meant he could stay outside all day if necessary, urinating into a sponge device inside his shorts and drinking water from the small storage vessel that fed a straw in his helmet. Only the need for food or defecation would force him inside; two biological functions that were addressed in the military version of the biosuit but not the civilian version.

Lon gave his helmet a final twist, locking it into place. A small green light appeared in the corner of his visor display. This told him that the seal was intact and the suit was ready for activation. He spared a glance over at Brent, seeing that he was still struggling to pull his own suit tight over the bulk of his body. Brent was not a member of the MPG and was not particularly fond of physical exercise. What he was fond of doing was sitting in a bar or at home and smoking bag after bag of cheap marijuana, which in turn led him to eat quite a bit of food. The result of all this was that he was more than twenty kilos overweight and that he tended to draw more air from his biosuit than it could replace, even during non-exerting work. This technically placed him in violation of safety standards for an outside worker but IFP management had always looked the other way about it. As long as the work got done, IFP had not cared how it was accomplished or whether or not it was accomplished safely. But now that IFP management had been replaced by Agricorp management, who had already proved to be much more stringent and nit-picking about such things, Lon wondered if Brent's next physical exam was going to be his last. But then there was a strong possibility that neither one of them were going to even make it to their next annual exam. The blue collar workers of the former IFP force were still awaiting word on the inevitable merger-related "elimination of positions" that came every time two companies became one. Usually, especially when Agricorp was involved, it was the smaller of the two merged company's workers who bore the brunt of the cuts.

"Suit computer," Lon said into the throat microphone, addressing the voice-activated circuit that controlled the suit. It was necessary to address the computer by name, such as it was, so that it would not inadvertently mistake some aspect of normal conversation for a command. "User logging on."

"Go ahead," said the artificial, vaguely male voice that the cheap computer had been programmed with.

"User Lon Fargo. 897-78-98-9876-34."

The suit computer quickly accessed the Internet via a cellular antenna in the far corner of the greenhouse. It then accessed the Agricorp main intranet for Martian operations, searched its employee databanks and found that that name matched that social security number and that that employee was currently authorized to utilize an Agricorp biosuit. It then compared Lon's voice pattern with the pattern it had stored and concluded that they were both the same. This took a little over two and a half seconds. "Log on accepted," it told him. "Awaiting command."

"Suit computer," Lon said, "testing procedure."

"Stand by." The computer performed a complete safety check of all seals and circuits. This took nearly ten seconds. When it was done and satisfied that Lon would not be decompressed if he stepped outside, it said: "Test complete. Your suit is functioning properly."

"Nice to know," Lon muttered. "Suit computer, activate suit."

"Activation in progress," the computer answered.

Lon took a deep breath and braced himself. The activation sequence was not painful by any means, at least not if the suit was being worn correctly, but it was not exactly one of life's great pleasures either. He felt the entire surface area of his body, from the bottom of his neck downward, being slowly compressed. For a moment it was difficult to breathe at all as the plastic constricted the rise and fall of his chest. But once the proper pressure was reached, the constriction eased up, allowing free movement. No sooner had the body section pressurized than the hissing of air against his face began. That was the pressurization of the helmet portion of the suit. The air had an industrial, almost chemical smell to it that was actually caused by the delivery system, not the air itself.

"Activation complete," the computer told him when it was done. "All systems working properly."

"Suit computer, activate radio link with suit uh..." he paused to look at the number stenciled on the right sleeve of Brent's suit. He had to read it sideways since Brent, having just successfully closed his body inside, was putting on his helmet. "Five seven five nine three two... uh six."

"Link established," the computer said. "Be advised that the specified suit is not currently active."

"No shit, dickwad," he replied. The computer said nothing in return, had in fact not even heard his remark since the proper salutation had not prefaced it.

It took another two minutes for Brent to go through his safety check and activation sequence. Once he was done and had his radio link active, he looked over at Lon. "You ready," he asked.

"I'm ready," Lon said. "Let's do it."

He walked over to a control panel on the truck and opened the access hatch. A small computer screen was beneath it. He activated the screen and instructed it to link up with both his and Brent's suit computers. It asked for authorization in the form of names, social security numbers, and voiceprints. They provided this information. Once that was complete Lon instructed the truck computer to power up the airlock at the end of the boom.

"Airlock active," replied the truck computer over their radio.

The airlock was nothing more than a steel box, two meters square by two meters deep. At the top was a synthetic rubber cushion that would form a seal against the roof of the greenhouse. Lon and Brent stepped onto the back of the truck and picked up their two large tool chests, which had been stored against the hydraulic housing. Lon swung his leg over the side of the airlock first, the thin material of the suit allowing almost normal range of motion. Once he was inside, Brent handed him the tool chests, hoisting them up and over with absurd ease although, had they been in 1G, they would have weighed more than thirty kilograms each. Lon set them on the floor and Brent hefted his own bulk into the box. With the two of them inside, the quarters were a little cramped but they would only have to put up with it for a few minutes.

"You all set?" Lon asked, putting his hands on the boom controls. The glove portions of the biosuits were thin and were designed to allow as much dexterity of the fingers as possible but even so, any fine movements were awkward. As such the controls were overly large.

"Take us up," Brent told him, settling in against the wall. "Let's get this shit over with."

Lon pushed upward on the control yoke and the hydraulic boom began to extend, moving the airlock upward and outward. The roof access panel was 1.5 meters square and set into the glass of the ceiling twenty meters above the road. It was marked by an outline of black paint. The idea was to make sure that the entire outline was within the airlock before the panel was opened. If it were not, an explosive decompression would occur when the hatch was opened, causing the blast doors in the 500 meter quadrant around the hatch to come slamming upward from the underground panels in which they were housed. Though the blast doors would protect everyone beyond the immediate quadrant, those unprotected workers inside of it would die a nasty death of decompression and suffocation. Lon's aim with the boom was at its usual level of perfection. The rubber seal pressed firmly against the glass leaving the black outline in almost the exact center. A flip of a switch caused the airlock's hydraulic system to apply constant upward pressure, making the seal airtight.

"Truck computer," he said. "Decompress airlock."

"Decompression sequence in progress," the computer replied.

From below them the powerful exhaust fans began to remove the air from the inside of the lock and expel it out into the greenhouse. The airlock would not be reduced to a complete state of vacuum, as would have been the case had they been in space, but would instead be reduced to the atmospheric pressure outside. The outside air pressure was a greatly variable number on Mars. It changed constantly from day to day as vast portions of the mainly carbon dioxide atmosphere were constantly frozen and thawed and refrozen in the polar regions of the planet. The truck computer automatically established a link with the Martian Weather Bureau, which kept track of current conditions, and downloaded the latest barometric reading. Of course in addition to the constant shifting of pressure due to polar freezing, the pressure was different from place to place depending upon elevation as well. And, unlike on Earth, there were no oceans in which to base a standard 0 elevation. The MWB, as did the rest of Mars, used the elevation of New Pittsburgh, Mars' first settlement, as its standard. Since the Eden area greenhouse was nearly a thousand meters lower in elevation than New Pittsburgh, which sat atop a huge plateau, the computer had to do some adjustments of the figure it received. This was all a standard part of living and working in an environment where human beings were not meant to live and work. Most Martians hardly gave such things a thought although they frustrated Earthling to hysterics at times.

"Decompression complete," the computer told them ninety seconds after it had begun. "Airlock seal is intact. It is safe to egress."

"Got it," Lon said, looking up at the number printed on the access hatch. "Suit computer, establish radio link with Agricorp Eden Operations."

"Establishing link," the computer replied. A moment later: "Link is active."

Lon told the AEO computer that two workers would be atop greenhouse number A-594 near access panel A-594-12 for approximately one hour. He then asked the computer to open that particular panel for him. Once again he was asked for his name and social security number and once again his voiceprint was compared with that in the files. The computer then took the additional step of comparing Lon's stated mission with the work orders for the day that had been filed in its memory banks. At last, satisfied that Lon and Brent were not terrorists attempting to disrupt Agricorp operations and cut into profits, it consented to their request.

"Access panel A-594-12 is opening now," they were told.

There was a very slight hiss of mingling air as the square panel above them slid along its track. Red sand and dirt, blown up there by the constant wind that swept the planetary surface, dropped down upon them. Above them the natural red tint of the Martian sky, which had looked distinctly purple through the tinted glass roof, could be seen in all of its glory. The sky was completely cloudless. Cloud formations, while common in the higher and lower latitudes, were almost unheard of in the equatorial regions.

Lon climbed out first, stepping on the ladder that was a permanent part of the airlock's wall. He pulled himself out onto the glass roof and then kneeled down next to the hatch to pull up the two tool chests that Brent handed up to him. He set them to the side and then stood up, allowing Brent to extricate himself from the lock. This portion of the greenhouse roof was only a few meters from the southwest corner of the large building. Twenty meters below them was a paved access road that ran alongside. The road, which was used to access the roof if major repairs or renovations, those involving heavier pieces of equipment, needed to be done, had not been plowed in a while and had drifts of sand marring its surface. Back at the Agricorp operations building at the edge of the city (not to be confused with the Agricorp main building downtown — the Earthlings that ran the company certainly would not wish to work out of the same building as the common field hands) were large hydrogen powered trucks and even tracked vehicles that were used for heavy maintenance and repairs. On the other side of the road there was two hundred meters of open space — just enough to allow heavy equipment through — before the next greenhouse began. A narrow connecting tunnel near the far end joined the greenhouse to its neighbor which was in turn joined to its neighbor, and so on and so forth, all the way back to the main tunnel that led from the operations building to the first greenhouse. This allowed workers and heavy harvest machines, as well as container trucks, to get to where they were needed without having to go outside. It was through this system of tunnels and interior roads that Brent and Lon had driven their electric maintenance truck to where it was now parked.

Looking outward from the roof of number A-594, just poking upward from the western horizon, the tops of the Eden high rises could be seen some thirty kilometers distant. Aside from that the tinted blue of greenhouse after greenhouse, all a uniform twenty meters high and two square kilometers in size, covered the land like a blanket. Lon and Brent were at the near edge of the Eden area's agricultural land. They could only see to the horizon, which was not very far on Mars, so only about a half percent of the total number of greenhouses in the area were visible to them from twenty meters above the ground. And Eden's agricultural holdings, while the largest on the planet, were only twenty-two percent of the total on Mars. Eight other cities, all along the Martian equator, were centered among similar complexes of artificial growing environments. Staring out upon the sea of glass and steel and realizing that you were only looking at a minute fraction of what was actually there, one could begin to fathom why it was that Agricorp and the other food production companies of Mars were the most powerful entities in the solar system. Within those greenhouses everything from range cattle to marijuana to soybeans were produced year around, free of the perils of insects or weather. Nearly every type of food that was consumed by human beings or animals, whether they were on Mars or Earth or the Jupiter system, whether it was junk food or vegetables or meat, came from Mars in one way or another. It was hard to believe sometimes that all of this food production, which employed more Martians than anything else on the planet, and all of the wealth that came from it, most of which was sent back to rich stockholders on Earth, had been born as a simple experiment a hundred years before.

The first Martian colonists had come, not to grow food, but to exploit the rich deposits of iron ore that lay beneath the higher and lower latitudes of the planet. The supply of easily mined ore on Earth had been almost completely depleted in the early 21st century by the decade long World War III. The bloodiest conflict in human history had raged on three different continents and had killed more than two hundred million people. During the struggle, the combatants had mined iron ore at a mad pace from every available location on the planet turning it into guns, tanks, aircraft, ships, missiles, and bombs. By the time the last shell was fired and the formal surrender ceremonies were conducted, a large percentage of the reachable iron ore was gone forever, exploded into fragments that littered the battlefields of North America, China, and Eastern Europe.

Aside from wiping out the iron supply, World War III had also spawned the two spheres of influence that were now the constantly bickering entities of EastHem and WestHem. WestHem consisted of the North and South American landmasses and was ruled by Caucasians from the former United States and Canada. EastHem, the larger, though poorer of the two, consisted of Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia. It was ruled by Caucasians of the former British Isles, Germany, and France. EastHem and WestHem had been the victorious allies of World War III, defeating the Asian Powers alliance of China, Japan, Korea, and India. The Asian Powers had launched a surprise attack on January 1, 2009 into Siberia and the Middle East before jumping across the Bering Straight into Alaska, Canada, and, eventually Washington, Oregon, and Idaho. Their goal had been a lightening fast capture of the world's petroleum supplies before the opposition had a chance to gear up to a war footing and stop them. They had come very close to achieving this goal in the first months of the fighting. Only a few lucky guesses on the part of the American Army and a few instances of bad luck on the part of the Chinese Army had allowed the Asian Powers to be stopped short of the Texas and California oil fields in North America. Here, the war had stagnated into a bloody stalemate for the next eight years, with millions upon millions dying but with the lines not moving much more than a few kilometers back and forth. Only the development of practical, portable anti-tank and anti-aircraft lasers had broken this stalemate and allowed the WestHem and EastHem alliance to slowly, grudgingly push the Asian Powers back and eventually destroy them with strategic and tactical bombing campaigns against their homelands.

No sooner had the fighting of World War III ended then the long, bitter cold war between EastHem and WestHem began as each vied for superior resource development and strategic positioning. The cold war was marked by an intense space race as each half of the world tried to secure precious resources that were only available in space. It is one of the cruelest ironies in history that World War III, aside from depleting the supply of exploitable iron ore, also depleted the very resource that it had been fought over in the first place. After ten years of all-out mechanized warfare the world's supply of petroleum had been reduced to almost nothing. Thus fusion power for electricity and space flight and hydrogen combustion engines for propulsion became the rage of the future. Huge platforms were built in low Earth orbit and large, interplanetary ships — at first only for cargo and personnel, but later, warships — were constructed. An entire new method and theory of warfare developed along with the spacecraft as each side theorized and planned for the best way to fight the other if it came to that.

It was the need for iron ore to convert into steel that led WestHem corporations to Mars in the first place. Though the moon had a significant supply of iron ore beneath its surface, EastHem had had the foresight to claim the lunar surface as its own first by establishing a large mining colony there. With the development of artificial gravity and the second generation of fusion powered spacecraft, the trek across the solar system to Mars became a cost-effective endeavor. Triad Steel Mining and Refining was the lead company that struck out for the red planet. They established the beginnings of the Triad orbiting city in geosynchronus orbit to serve as an interplanetary shipping platform. On the surface of the planet, they founded New Pittsburgh, the first of four mining cities that would eventually develop.

It was only after the New Pittsburgh mines were up and running and the settlement itself was a thriving city of more than a million souls that the great experiment of Martian agriculture was attempted. A water supply was quite easy to secure on Mars since huge underground aquifers existed nearly everywhere on the planet. But food was a different story. Shipping enough food across the expanse of space to feed more than a million people was a very expensive operation. Particularly since most of what had once been prime farmland in WestHem territory had long since been converted to cities and suburban areas, leaving the entire half of the planet perpetually short on food stocks to begin with. The settlement of Eden was begun modestly, with only a few buildings and living areas made out of castaway pre-fabricated construction materials. The first greenhouses were built just to see if there was any possibility of raising Earthly crops on the surface. It was an experiment that was very controversial at first since a lot of money had been spent for it with little hope of success.

To the surprise of everyone involved, it was discovered that crops of all kinds grew extremely well in the iron rich Martian soil when supplemental nutrients were added. The greenhouses made it possible to simulate the perfect conditions for whatever was being grown. Wheat could be given a hot, low humidity environment with just the perfect amount of irrigation. Apples could be given the damp, cool, high humidity environment they favored. No matter what kind of weather, humidity, or temperature was needed, it could be provided for. No matter what the Martian soil was lacking as far as nutritional content, it could be added. Pests, if they managed to infest a particular greenhouse — something that happened from time to time — could easily be eliminated by flooding the greenhouse with carbon dioxide and displacing the oxygen. Gone was the need for fumigation. Gone was the need to worry about an out of season frost or monsoon wiping out entire crops. For the first time in the history of mankind, farmers could be almost completely assured that whatever crops they planted, they were going to harvest.

Naturally, once the profit potential of the Martian agricultural project was realized, investors immediately bought it out. Thus, the great and powerful Agricorp was born and the Martian Agricultural rush was begun. Greenhouses began to spring up as fast as the materials to construct them could be produced. Immigrants from WestHem, most of them from the ranks of the hopelessly unemployed, climbed aboard cargo ships and made the nine to twenty-seven week trip across space, lured by the promise of jobs in construction, engineering, or agriculture. Eden, in less than ten years, went from a makeshift settlement with a few thousand botanists and manual laborers to a city of five million. Soon, other cities such as Libby, Proctor, Paradise, and Newhall began to spring up along the equatorial region of the planet; each one the center of a rapidly growing expanse of greenhouses. All of this construction required extensive supplies of steel, glass, synthetics, and a thousand other resources. New Pittsburgh was simply not large enough to provide it all. And so the cities of Ironhead, Vector, and Ore City were born, popping up one by one over the next thirty years in the high latitudes to supply the mining and manufacturing demands.

For the longest time Mars was a complete paradise. It was true that an Earth-based corporation of one kind or another owned everything, but that was no different than life on Earth. On Mars, at that time, there had been no such thing as unemployment. Shipping a person through space was expensive for the corporations involved so they only did it if a job was available for that person. With no unemployment to worry about, crime was almost non-existent as well. There were the occasional fights in the bars and the occasional domestic problems, but street gangs, robberies, random beatings, drug dealing, and sex crimes were very rare. The Martians, as they began to call themselves, were living in the most modern of surroundings and participating in one of mankind's greatest endeavors. Most importantly, they were employed and making money of their own instead of living off of welfare handouts and public assistance food. To the type of person that took the rather drastic step of leaving their home planet and traveling to another in search of a job, this was a very important distinction.

But gradually, over the space of a few decades, the so-called Agricultural Rush petered out as equilibrium was established. The greenhouse construction slowed and finally came to a virtual halt as the point was reached where there was enough farmland to produce all of the crops that needed to be produced for the maximum amount of profit. To make any more greenhouses, to produce any more crops would shift the delicate balance of supply and demand upon its axis and drive down the bulk prices. And so, those in the construction and engineering fields were the first to face mass layoffs as construction company after construction company went bankrupt and closed their doors. Their former office buildings, which had once ruled empires of men, materials, and equipment were converted into the first of the public housing buildings that would soon become the ghettos of Mars. Other industries quickly followed. Though ore mining would always be a very important staple of Martian society, the end of the construction boom had caused mass layoff among mine workers and support personnel as the demand for iron ore was slashed to nearly a third of what it had once been.

On the day that Laura Whiting was to be sworn in as Governor, unemployment stood at a firm twenty-eight percent. Each year that number grew a little as corporations merged and created super corporations and laid off personnel as cost-saving measures. It was just this factor that threatened to reduce Brent and Lon from employed status to the welfare class. Those that serviced machinery were particularly vulnerable to post-merger job elimination; almost as vulnerable as middle-management employees. It was only natural that this subject and the impending doom that it implied, would continually dominate their conversation as they went about their scheduled task.

Brent, after considerable grunting and groaning, finally managed to pull himself out of the airlock and onto the roof. Wearily he stood up, already huffing and puffing and making the discharge warning light appear on his air supply screen.

"You really ought to start getting a little exercise," Lon told him, listening to the ragged breathing in his earpiece. "They have a gym in your housing complex, don't they?"

"Screw that," Brent replied, picking up his tool chest. "If I went up there and ran on a treadmill it would take time away from the finer things in life."

"You mean like smoking green and jerking off to VR porn channels?"

"And eating," he added. "Don't forget eating."

"Of course," Lon said, shaking his head a little.

"Besides," Brent said, "I might as well enjoy my food and good green and premium porn channels now, while I have a chance. As soon as those Agricorp assholes lay us all off I'll be stuck with shitty brown grass and welfare channels, just like all the other vermin. And they don't have exercise rooms in the vermin housing complexes, so why should I start an exercise program now?"

"We don't know that we're going to get laid off," Lon said with false hopefulness as he picked up his own tools.

"No, we don't know. We just strongly suspect. They won't tell us for sure because that way they wouldn't get the satisfaction of watching us stress about it before they shitcan us."

"That's depressing," Lon said sourly. "Let's talk about something else. I'm sick of talking about Agricorp all the goddamn time. It's all anyone's ever talked about since they announced the merger plans last year."

"Hey," Brent said, "it's the most progressive merger of the decade, remember? Aren't you thrilled to be a part of it?"

"Oh yes," Lon agreed. "A real boom for the business community. How could I forget?"

The environmental extractor machine they had been sent to repair was one of twelve that kept the greenhouse operating. It was located only ten meters from the hatch they had emerged from. A large steel box, twenty meters square and ten meters in height, it was part of the basic construction of the building. On the side of it that faced the hatch was a hydraulic lift that was big enough to shuttle up to four workers and five hundred kilos of equipment to the top, where the main machinery was located. Lon and Brent climbed aboard the lift and pushed the button. It ground slowly upward in a jerky motion, as if blowing sand had corrupted some of its interior parts. This was a fairly common problem with outside machinery on Mars.

"Shit," Brent whined, feeling the motion, "now we're gonna be out here tomorrow fixing this fucking thing."

"Job security," Lon told him, holding securely to the handrail. "You should be grateful that a lot of shit breaks around this place."

"Why should I be grateful?" he countered. "I'm still more than likely gonna be vermin this time next month. All this shit breaking will be fixed by the Agricorp maintenance guys. They'll get to keep their jobs because they signed on with the biggest, baddest, ass-kickingest corporation to ever rape and fuck Martians instead of the one that only partially raped and fucked us."

"Again with the Agricorp," Lon said, stepping off the lift as it finally reached the top. They were now on a narrow catwalk that surrounded the perimeter of the machine. "Can't you ever talk about something else? Why don't you give me that lecture on how to get the most for my marijuana dollar again? I liked that one."

"You continue to live in denial," Brent told him, hefting his toolbox over and walking towards the sand filter housing mechanism. "And I'll continue to be a realist. We're future vermin, Lon, have no fucking doubt about it."

Lon didn't answer him. Any reassurances he could offer would have sounded like a lie to his lips. Instead, he opened up his toolbox and removed a rechargeable electric wrench. He kneeled down and began to remove the bolts that held the motor housing in place. Brent, giving a few huffs and puffs, picked up his own wrench and walked around the perimeter of the catwalk to begin work on the other side.

As they went about the task of removing the cover so they could access the main fan bearings, which needed to be replaced, Brent softened his tone a little. "So what do you think the chances are of scoring full-time with the MPG?" he asked. "You're in the special forces division. That's who they always hire from."

Lon gave a shrug. "The only real full-time positions are in training or VIP security," he said. "I haven't been in special forces long enough to apply for training. Jackson is real stringent about that. A minimum of six years is required before you're eligible for a teaching position."

"That's screwed up," Brent declared righteously.

Lon shook his head. "I don't think so," he told him. "The MPG ain't like other places. You have to know what you're doing before they let you teach. I haven't learned everything there is to learn about all the stuff we do. How am I supposed to teach someone else how to do it?"

"I still think it's screwed up," Brent insisted. "What about VIP security though? Think they'll let you guard Whiting or the Lieutenant Governor or some of those other rich-prick politicians? Maybe they'll let you guard Jackson himself."

"I've applied for it," he answered, his voice far from hopeful. "But they're a pretty exclusive clique. Jackson handpicks them himself you know. Only one out of every two hundred applicants gets picked for testing. And only one out of every ten that pass the test gets picked."

"Well, it's a shot anyway, ain't it?"

"A little shot," Lon replied, dropping the bolt he had just removed into the pocket of his biosuit. "But, truth be known, they tend to take the older guys for the security detail, the ones that have been around. I've only been in the MPG for five years, and in the special forces for two years. I'm only a squad leader for god's sake."

"It's a better chance then I got," Brent told him. "At least you got a hope of something to fall back on. If Agricorp lays me off I got nothing. I'll never see a payday again."

"Well," he told her, "if they lay me off, I have to resign from the MPG, remember? You have to have a job in order to serve."

Brent shook his head angrily. "Ain't that just some shit?" he asked. "Agricorp comes in and buys up our company and boom, our whole fuckin' lives are destroyed. They take away our job, which makes us have to leave our apartments — I been livin' in that apartment since I was eighteen fuckin' years old! We'll have to move into Helvitia or some other vermin shithole where we'll have our food given to us and we'll probably end up getting killed by one of those fuckin' street gangs. And you," he pointed over at Lon, "you'll have to leave the MPG. You worked for years to get into special forces and they'll make you leave just because Agricorp bought us out. And why does shit like this happen? For money! Because Agricorp wants to make more profit to send to those fucking rich pricks on Earth!"

"It's the way of the solar system, Brent," Lon told him, trying to maintain his composure. "It's the way of the fucking solar system. Now let's get this bearing fixed before 4:30 so we don't have to come out here again tomorrow."

"Right," Brent said, watching the gauge on his air supply display carefully. Getting excited certainly had not helped it any. "Let's get it done. And then let's get our asses out of here so we can go to the bar."

"Sounds like a plan."

New Pittsburgh, Mars

Laura Whiting was dressed in a smart blue business dress, complete with the obligatory tie and dark nylons. It was a style of dress that was obsolete and shunned in all but political circles on Mars. Not even the most conservative of business people, not even lawyers or insurance agents wore such things anymore. Laura understood why such clothing had gone out of favor. It was horribly uncomfortable, particularly in the warm environment of a Martian city. The nylons itched her legs and the tie threatened to strangle her. The dress, though not uncomfortable in and of itself, she considered to be demeaning to all of the female gender. Dresses implied servility to men, a concept which still, even after all these years of socialization, pervaded even the highest aspects of WestHem society. Laura was grateful that no matter what else happened tonight, this most important night, this dreadfully nerve-wracking night, she would never have to wear a dress or nylons again. From this night forward she would be seen in nothing but shorts and a plain blouse.

She was in the so-called green room of the legislative chambers in the planetary capital building. It was a comfortable, friendly room full of plush furniture. Red carpet, the color of the Martian soil, covered the floor. An Internet terminal, which was wired into a service dispenser that could, for a small fee, provide fruit juices, soda, or water, sat upon an imitation wood table. The Internet terminal was blank, having been shut off some time before. The beverage dispenser was unused. She ignored the couches and chairs as well, choosing instead to pace back and forth and round and round. Her nerves were quite on edge. In a few minutes she would leave this room and walk into the chambers where, at long last, she would be sworn in as the governor of Mars.

The election had been three months before, her first attempt at high office, and she had won in a landslide. The race between herself and Governor Jacobs, the incumbent, had generated the highest voter turnout in the history of Mars, with a staggering 84 percent of the eligible populace casting ballots. This number meant that at least ten percent of the votes in this election had been cast by the welfare class, those perpetually unemployed and hopeless Martians that lived in the public housing complexes and made up more than a quarter of the population. These ghetto inhabitants, who typically paid no attention to politics and who were typically very fatalistic, had actually helped elect her. Though voting was not a difficult task to undertake in modern society — all one had to do was access any Internet terminal and Internet terminals were in every apartment and in every public building — the welfare class rarely bothered voicing their opinions when it came to planetary or federal elections. But this time a significant number of them had. They had turned on their terminals, accessed the voting software, identified themselves with a fingerprint and a voice analysis, and cast their vote for governor. That was an encouraging sign for what was to follow. A very encouraging sign.

Now, on the night that this mandate was to take effect, the legislative chambers was packed far beyond its rated capacity. Peering out through a gap in the metal partition Laura could see her former colleagues in the legislature all in their assigned seats, all dressed in clothing similar to hers. One representative for each district of a million people. Representatives of both sexes, of all racial backgrounds, of varying ages, with only one thing in common: corporate sponsorship. All had allegedly been elected by the people but only with the say-so of the powers-that-be. The people were just the mechanism that was used to put the corporate favorite in office. All had to vote the way their sponsors wished them to vote if they wanted to continue to be elected and to collect their campaign contributions. Though the people of Mars had elected them, they did not represent them in anything more than symbolic manner. Laura planned to begin the process of changing that tonight. Would she be successful? She did not know, could not predict. But she was going to try.

Behind the suited legislature members were the public seats that were usually, when the body was in session, either completely empty or occupied by nothing more than grade-school children and their teachers. Tonight they were filled with a collection of corporate lobbyists and wealthy corporate managers; the people who had propelled her to this place, to this moment, with their support and with their money. Laura had made promises to those people, had helped pass laws for them; laws that took the money out of the hands of the common Martians and gave it over to them. Laura had been so skillful at this that most of the common Martians did not even realize they had been robbed. She was not proud of her association with such people, with such a system, but it had been necessary in order to get her where she was. It was this group that was going to receive the shock of their lives in just a few minutes now. Soon the Chief Justice of the Martian Supreme Court would swear her in. She would take her oath of office and then she would officially be the governor of the planet. She would then give her inauguration speech. It was a speech she had written long ago, shortly after the Jupiter War when this crazy scheme had evolved from a vague idea into a concrete plan of action. The speech had been modified here and there in a few places, mostly to update historical references or events, but it had survived the years mostly intact. Tonight it would be heard at last, for better or for worse.

She smiled nervously, going over the words in her mind for perhaps the hundred thousandth time. She did not want so much as a syllable to be mispronounced or stuttered.

"Are you feeling okay, Governor?" asked Lieutenant Warren of the Martian Planetary Guard. Warren was in charge of the security force that protected her. He was in his thirties and had once been a sergeant in the WestHem army. He had seen combat in Cuba and Argentina before being discharged and sent back to Mars where his extensive training had entitled him to a job as a security guard in one of the agricultural fields. His status as an employed person had allowed him to join the MPG (only those with private income were allowed to join the planetary guard — the WestHem congress and executive council had stubbornly insisted upon this as a condition of inception). His previous experience had allowed him to be assigned to the special forces division where he had gradually worked his way up to the security detail and one of the coveted full-time, paid positions in the guard. Like all of the security force that watched over high officials, General Jackson had handpicked him personally for the detail and he had been subjected to intense training. He was a very loyal, very competent leader with a knack for his job. He was also one of the few people besides General Jackson himself and a few close, sympathetic friends that knew what was about to happen.

"I'm fine, Mike," said Laura, who insisted on calling those close to her by their first names. "I'm just fine. Thank you for asking."

Warren nodded, looking a little nervous himself. He was dressed in the standard indoor MPG uniform of red shorts and a white T-shirt with the Martian flag on the breast. Over the T-shirt was a Kevlar armor vest that was capable of stopping handgun fire. He had a 4mm sidearm strapped to his belt and an M-24 assault rifle slung over his shoulder. A helmet with a headset sat atop his head and a pair of combat goggles, which were linked to the combat computer/ tactical radio system, were covering his eyes. In the goggles he would be able to see status reports of his troops, maps of the location they were in, and other pieces of vital information superimposed over the display. The goggles gave him an almost insectile appearance but Laura had long since gotten used to that. "Don't you worry about a thing, Governor," he told her. "I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."

She nodded, offering him a smile. "Well," she said, "there are going to be a lot of upset people out there once I give my speech, that's for sure. But let's hope it doesn't come to violence, shall we?"

"It won't," he assured her, adjusting the sway of his weapon a little. "Politicians attack each other in different ways Governor. But just in case some of those tempers get a little too hot, remember that my platoon and I are watching out for you."

"And I appreciate that, Mike, thank you."

Warren basked in her praise, feeling a wave of protectiveness towards her that was quite similar to what a mother bear feels for her cubs. He checked the time, which was showing in the upper right hand corner of his vision, seeming to hover in the air before him thanks to the combat goggles. "It's almost time, Governor," he said.

"Almost," Laura agreed. "Almost."

The Helvetia Heights section of Eden was perhaps the worst ghetto on the planet of Mars. Located just five kilometers from downtown, it was a ten square kilometer area that had once been where the financial and business offices of the Eden construction industry had been based. Now it was nothing but public housing complexes full of third and fourth generation unemployed and their families. The streets of Helvetia Heights were ruled not by the police, who only came in when they were called and only in teams of four or more, but by the street gangs and the dust dealers. One did not leave one's apartment in Helvetia unless one was prepared to shoot it out with a group of hardened teenage criminals. To live in Helvetia Heights was to live in unending despair and hopelessness.

Helvetia Park was almost directly in the center of this most dangerous area. It was a four square block area that had been a quaint showpiece in happier times; a place where smiling parents took their children to play and feed the ducks in the pond. Now the irrigation system had long since ceased to operate, the trees and shrubs had all been killed and marked with gang graffiti, the grass was an overgrown ugly brown, and the playground equipment was nothing but broken, rusting hulks. Children no longer played in the park. Their parents would have been mad to allow them anywhere near it. These days the park was the domain and home base of the 51st Street Capitalists, a fiercely possessive and well-organized gang that supplied much of the dust that was distributed in the neighborhood.

Matthew Mendez sat upon one of the scarred plastic picnic tables near the south entrance of the park with his friend, Jeff Creek. They each had a bottle of Fruity that they were sipping out of from time to time and a marijuana pipe that they were smoking out of. The alcohol and the marijuana were part of the monthly allotment that was allowed of them by the Martian welfare system. They both had cheap 3mm pistols holstered to the waistbands of their shorts and concealed with oversized T-shirts. The pistols were mostly worn out of habit at this point in their young lives. The Capitalist members would not harass them in any way. Matthew and Jeff had been respected members of the gang until recently "retiring" as the term went. They had sold dust, had helped produce it, and had fought bitterly with other gangs for territory. Both had drawn the blood of others in the name of dust distribution. As retired veterans they were entitled to free passage through gang controlled areas and respectful treatment by current members. It was part of the code of conduct that the Capitalists had developed over the years and swore blood oaths to uphold upon initiation. Many other gangs in other parts of the city had similar rules.

Matthew had just turned eighteen years old a few days before. He was a tall, well-built young man of Hispanic heritage, the descendant of one of the original Martian agricultural workers that fled WestHem at the beginning of the Agricultural Rush. His ancestors had certainly led a more fulfilling life than he was leading so far. Like most Helvetia inhabitants, he had never been out of the city of Eden in his life. He had not, in fact, ever been out of the neighborhood of Helvetia except to make the occasional drug pick up near the Agricultural processing plants. He, like his father before him, had been born into unemployment and welfare. His grandfather had been the last of the Mendez clan to earn a paycheck.

"So you gonna make it official with Sharon, or what?" Jeff asked as he packed a pinch of the brown waste marijuana that was distributed to the ghetto class into his homemade pipe. "You're eighteen now and everything's nice and legal. You don't wanna keep livin' with your parents, do you?"

"I don't know, man," Matthew said with a sigh, taking another sip out of his Fruity. This was the same question that Sharon, the lanky, skinny girl he had been seeing for the past six months continually asked him as well. "Getting married just seems so... I don't know, programmed into us. I mean, I don't love Sharon. We just like to fuck now and then."

Jeff shook his head in amusement. "Love?" he scoffed. "What the hell does that got to do with it? You think I love Belinda? She's a fuckin' bitch and the less I see of her, the better. But she got me my own apartment, didn't she? And pretty soon she'll get me a kid and the extra money and food that goes along with it. If you go waitin' for love, you're gonna be thirty years old and still living at home. There ain't no love in this place."

The Martian Welfare laws stated that only a married couple was entitled to a public housing apartment. For this reason it was a ritual among the ghetto class to marry young, almost as soon as they were considered adults by the legal system. And once the couple had the one child they were permitted, they were then entitled to a two-bedroom apartment and an increased food allowance. For this reason young married couples of the ghetto class tended to pump out their one child before their twentieth birthdays. But Matthew did not like doing what everyone else was doing. He could not help but suspect that it was all part of some sinister plan formulated by those that kept everyone in hopeless squalor. "I just don't think having your own apartment is any reason to get married," he said, lighting a cigarette. "That wasn't what the institution of marriage was intended for."

"Institution? You belong in a fuckin institution," Jeff accused. "You are sometimes just too goddamn much to take. Like when you insisted on graduating from high school because it might help you get out of here someday. You remember that?"

"Yeah," Matthew agreed. "I remember. I took a lot of shit from the rest of the Capitalists for staying in school."

"Of course you did," Jeff said. "Nobody graduates from high school around here. What's the fuckin' point? You think someone's gonna give you a job? You? A third generation vermin? You just can't accept the fact that you're going to be vermin until you die, can you?"

"I refuse to accept it," Matthew replied, unoffended by the outburst. He knew that he annoyed the hell out of his peers at times. "If there's a way out of this ghetto, I'm going to find it. I don't want my kid to grow up in this shithole, do you understand?"

"This shithole is all we got," Jeff told him. "We're vermin. Our kids will be vermin. Our kids' kids will be vermin. Nothing is going to change that, man. You hop in a time machine and go forward a couple hundred years and you'll see your great, great, great grandkids hanging out in this park and sellin' dust or whatever people use to get high with then."

"That's where you're wrong," he replied firmly, with all the zeal that an eighteen year old could muster. "I will not have any kids while I live here, while I don't have a job. I won't bring a kid into this life."

Jeff started laughing, almost spilling his grass out of his pipe. "You kill me sometimes," he said. "Is that why you voted for that stupid bitch Whiting? You think she's gonna get you a job?"

"Probably not," Matthew admitted. "But she seems... oh... different than the rest of them somehow. She caught my attention. She says she'll help the welfare class out."

"Yeah, she's going to take the money away from Agricorp, who owns her, and give it to us. She's gonna get us jobs picking tomatoes out in the greenhouses. You don't really believe that crap, do you?"

"No," he admitted. "She's probably just smart enough to tell us what we want to hear so she can get votes out of us. After all, no one else has ever tried to tap the ghetto vote. But if she went to all the effort to touch bases with us, the least I can do is take the time to log on and vote for her. Hell, it only took me five minutes and it didn't cost me nothing. Why shouldn't I have done it? And maybe if more of us vermin did that, we'd have a little bit more of a voice."

"A voice?" Jeff chuckled, shaking his head once again. He handed over the pipe that he had just filled. "Here," he said. "Feed this to your voice."

Matthew took the pipe and applied a disposable lighter to it, taking a large hit. The knowledge that the intoxicants were being provided to him by the planetary government as a calming measure did not stop him from imbibing. What the hell else was there to do? As always the cheap grass, which was mostly stems and seeds, burned his throat and lungs. But if you smoked enough of it there was a pleasant buzzing effect, particularly on top of the effects of the Fruity.

Ten minutes later they were pleasantly intoxicated. The pipes and baggies of marijuana had been stowed in their pockets and the bottles of Fruity, now empty, had been tossed aside onto the grass. The two friends leaned back and watched a group of younger Capitalists a few tables over. They were squabbling over whether they should go down to the tram station and try to score some pussy or head down to the border area and try to clash with some members of the rival 63rd Street Thrusters. Matthew was of the opinion that their time would be better spent pursuing the first option — he was a firm believer in the philosophy of sex before violence — but he kept his feelings to himself.

"What you doing?" Jeff asked as he saw his friend remove his personal computer, or PC from his pocket. "Gonna check your stock reports?"

The PC was a small device that everyone over the age of ten or so — ghetto class or not — carried with them at all times. It was a wireless communicator and Internet access machine. It was used for all financial transactions and for identification purposes. Matthew unfolded his and turned it on. The screen lit up with the opening display. "I'm gonna watch the inauguration ceremonies," he answered. "See what kind of bullshit she promises us."

Jeff looked at him in for a moment, convinced that he was joking. Finally, reluctantly, he was forced to conclude that his friend was serious. "You're shittin' me," he said. "You're actually going to watch a politician get sworn in? You're going to watch that?"

Matthew shrugged, stubbornly refusing to be embarrassed. "Why not? What the hell else is there to watch? She'll be on every channel." He looked at his screen and spoke to it. "Computer, give me broadcast media mode," he said. "MarsGroup primary."

"Making connection," the pleasant, sexy voice that he had programmed the PC with replied. "Connection active. Enjoy your show."

"Thank you, baby," he told it, peering at the eighty-millimeter screen before him.

Jeff watched all this in wonder. Now he had seen about everything. His friend was truly ready for the nuthouse. He had not only voted for a politician but now he was watching her on Internet. Actually watching a political swearing-in. "Tell me the truth," he said. "You got the hots for this bitch, don't you? You wanna fuck Laura Whiting."

"Oh yeah," he answered sarcastically as the face of a MarsGroup reporter graced the display. In the background could be seen the podium where the ceremony would shortly take place. "I'm really into women that are the same age as my mom. They make me horny as hell."

"Whiting's never been married has she?" he asked next, looking over Matthew's shoulder at the screen in spite of himself. "You think she's a lesbo? I bet she munches the old carpet."

Matthew shrugged again. "So what if she does?" he asked. "The best thing could happen to us is to get some politician up there who hates men. After all, men are the ones who run all the corporations that fuck all of us over. Maybe she'll get rid of them and replace them all with ball-busting women."

"An all lesbo ruling class?" Jeff said, smiling as he imagined the possibilities of that. "Now that's something I'd vote for."

The stage was hot beneath the overhead spotlights as she stepped onto it in her high-heeled shoes, a serious expression upon her face. She shook hands with her future Lieutenant Governor, a shallow, career politician like herself who was owned by MarsTrans and Tagert Steel Refining. It was no secret among those on the inside that he and Laura were bitter enemies. Not only were their sponsors competing companies but they were not even in the same political party. Laura wondered what her second in command was going to think about what she was about to do. Undoubtedly he would attempt to take political advantage of it and force her from office. Would the drive to remove her gravitate around him? If MarsTrans and Tagert Steel had their way it would. But what would Agricorp do? Would they try to form a quick alliance with him? This seemed a likely possibility.

Outgoing Governor Ron Lee, who was enjoying his last five minutes of high office, shook her hand next. He greeted her warmly and introduced her to the audience, smiling graciously and congratulating her just as if he hadn't attacked her viciously on the Internet during his campaign, accusing her of everything from sexual perversion to money laundering for dust dealers. She accepted his congratulations without bitterness. Lee was no worse than anyone else in this business. He had just been doing what everyone else did to win. It was the system that encouraged such things, not Lee himself. What would he think about what was about to transpire? Had it ever occurred to him to use the office for the ends that she was about to, even fleetingly? Probably not.

The Chief Justice of the Martian Supreme Court delivered the oath of office to her. He was a wizened, gnarled old man of ninety-three that had been appointed to the court nearly thirty years before. Once the terror of those who dared challenge the rights and privileges of the agricultural corporations or their subsidiaries, he was now quite senile, his duties having long since been taken over by senior members of his legal staff. His role in the ceremonies was kept as brief as possible to avoid having anyone notice that their lead justice barely had the mental capacity to tie his own shoes. He had been grilled continuously with his lines and shot up with dopasynthamine, a powerful neurological drug that would give him momentary clarity for the broadcast.

"Repeat after me," he told her, his voice barely audible though, of course, it would be magnified by the directional microphones for the broadcast. "I, Laura Whiting..."

"I, Laura Whiting..." she said, holding her right hand up while her left rested upon her heart. She found herself looking a rivulet of drool running from His Honor's mouth and trying not to giggle at the ridiculousness of this production.

"Do solemnly swear..."

"Do solemnly swear..." she intoned.

"To faithfully execute the offices of... uh..." he hesitated for a moment, forgetting what he was supposed to say. Thankfully those in charge of the production had anticipated this. A tiny speaker, mounted in his right ear, provided the missing words for him. He listened to it, took a moment to process the fact that the disembodied voice was helping him with his lines, and then continued. "... uh, Governor of the Planet Mars."

"To faithfully execute the office of Governor of the Planet Mars."

And so on it went. They covered the upholding of the Martian constitution and the laws and challenges of the sacred office, so help her God. The old man before her required only two more prompts to get it right. It was much smoother than the last swearing in, four years before, when he had urinated on himself during the ceremony.

"Congratulations, Governor Whiting," he told her when he finished, holding out his hand to her.

"Thank you, your Honor," she replied, letting a smile cross her face as she shook with him. It was now official. She had been sworn in and, according to the constitution that she had just promised to uphold, she was now the governor. There was no turning back now.

The applause from the crowd went on for better than three minutes. Their enthusiasm was genuine enough. Laura was very popular among her former peers in the legislature, even across party lines. She was regarded as a politician's politician. They knew that if they could enlist her support on one of their bills or amendments, that it stood a good chance of being bullied through the system. Laura's way with words and pushiness with opposing views was legendary. While they were clapping, the Chief Justice was whisked quietly away where he would be shoved into a waiting DPHS cart and driven to the nearest private hospital to be treated for the rather nasty side effects of the dopasynthamine.

The applause died down as she mounted the lectern before her. On the front of it was the great seal of Mars, which showed a view of the planet from space, complete with its two tiny moons. A black microphone stuck up from the top of the lectern and a 200mm Internet screen was discretely installed in the top of it. On the screen was the text of the speech she had submitted as her inaugural address; a speech she had no intention of actually giving. Her real speech was in her head.

Now that the time had actually come to show her true colors she felt the nervousness that had been plaguing her for the past two weeks, whittling nearly five kilograms of her body weight away and destroying her slumber, fade away. A cool calm overtook her as she looked out over the audience, at the sea of political and corporate faces, at the scattering of media members. They were about to receive the shock of their lives. She couldn't wait to see their expressions.

"My fellow Martians," she said into the microphone, her voice not only traveling through the public address system but into the digitizing equipment of more than twenty news services. Her words would be broadcast to everyone on the planet and would even be beamed back to Earth in case anyone cared to watch it there. It would also be instantly transcribed into print and published on news service sites on the Internet. "Let me begin this evening by thanking you for electing me to this most trusted office. Without your support, without your taking the time to cast your ballots for me, I would not be standing here right now, facing you as your newly inaugurated governor. I would particularly like to thank those of you in the welfare class, the residents of those high-rise public assistance complexes in the downtrodden sections of our planet. I have tried to reach you during this campaign, tried to penetrate the wall of cynicism and apathy that has grown up around you through the generations. I am to be your governor as well and it has given me hope that a significant number of you listened to my words and took me at least seriously enough to vote for. I assure you, your trust will not be abused."

Confused looks began to pass among the reporters. As was customary they had all been given advance copies of the speech that she was to give and had already read through it. They realized that she was not following the text. She was supposed to have begun by thanking her many corporate and financial supporters and then delivering an endorsement for Agricorp coffee beans that was thinly disguised as a joke. What was she doing? Thanking the welfare class? The vermin? Was she going as senile as the man that had sworn her in?

"And for you of the working class," she went on, deviating even further now. "I thank you as well. Like the welfare class, you have battled the apathy that our corrupt political system has fostered to cast your votes in record numbers."

There was a gasp from the crowd at her words; a gasp that was echoed by all that were watching the live broadcast. She had called the political system corrupt! Of course everyone knew that it was corrupt, but politicians were not supposed to say that! Was Laura Whiting going crazy?

"You have given me a mandate," Laura went on, hardly able to suppress her glee. Though the true dynamite of her speech was yet to come, she had crossed neatly over the line. There truly was no turning back now. "Working class and welfare class have spoken to me quite clearly and I shall respond to what I believe are your wishes. The intent of our government, of the WestHem constitution, is that laws and legislative functions are to be the wishes of the people. The intent of the Martian constitution is supposed to be the same. Elected representatives are supposed to propose and pass laws that are for the betterment of the people of Mars. The people!" She paused for a second, her eyes tracking over the crowd, seeing just the expressions that she had hoped for: shock and disbelief. "Somewhere along the way that idea became perverted and twisted. Because of money, because of so-called campaign contributions and lobbyists and corporate sponsorships, the definition of 'the people' has changed to mean corporations. Agricorp, MarsTrans, InfoGroup, a dozen others just here on this little planet. They bribe us politicians with outrageous amounts of money and call it a contribution. In return, they expect complete loyalty from that politician. They expect that politician to vote for laws and to propose laws that are in their best interests. And their best interests are almost always contrary to your best interests; you, the common Martian people; the people who work and live on this planet or who are confined to squalid hopelessness in the ghettos. Who represents your interests? Who proposes laws that are for your benefit, for your prosperity? We, the people you have elected to office are supposed to do this, but we do not. So who do you have? Who can you turn to?" She paused again, staring into the collection of cameras. "You have nobody," she said. "Nobody until now."

"This system of government that we have is an atrocity before humankind," she went on. "It operates on the principals of greed and corruption. It has led directly to the horrid crime and unemployment problem that this planet faces. It was responsible for the bloody war with EastHem fifteen years ago in which tens of thousands of innocent Martians were slaughtered to try to protect a WestHem monopoly on hydrogen. Our little planet produces trillions in agricultural products. Our food — food grown, tended, and harvested by Martian workers — feeds the solar system. Our iron ore and other minerals support the space faring society that we live in. Our factories build the ships that travel from planet to planet. Without Mars and the exports we provide, WestHem and even EastHem could not exist as they now do. We are the crown jewel of the solar system. Each year our gross planetary product is a staggering 800 trillion dollars. 800 trillion!

"Now think about that for a moment, fellow Martians. 800 trillion dollars worth of products are produced every single year on this planet. That is more money than you or I or any individual person is capable of even comprehending. So with all of this money being made every year by our hands, or labors, in our agricultural fields and mines and factories, why is it that the vast majority of us are living in abject poverty? Why is it that more than one quarter of us are living in sub-standard hovels and are unable to escape from them? Why is it that our schools are overcrowded and underfunded, with actual waiting lists for enrollment in some parts of the planet? Why is it that there are only six institutions of higher learning to educate our people; a shortage that is so vast that only the upper crust of the elite are afforded the opportunity for a college education? Why is it that our police departments are dangerously understaffed and that our prison space is so lacking that even those who commit murder cannot be kept locked up? Surely with 800 trillion a year in gross planetary product, with more than 230 trillion in raw profits, we should be able to fund a few police officers or build a few schools and colleges. Why can't we do this? Where is all of that money going?"

She smiled at the cameras, a conspiratorial smile. "I don't think I really have to tell you all where it goes," she said. "I'm sure you all know just as well as I do. We Martians are, as a culture, blessed with healthy common sense, with keen minds. We are, after all, the descendants of those who left poverty and despair on Earth, who gave up their home planet to come here and forge a new reality. The vast majority of that money, that 230 trillion credits, is sent back to Earth. Some of it is given to the WestHem government as taxes. Some of it goes into the pockets of WestHem executive council members and congressmen as political contributions. But most of it, perhaps sixty percent, goes to rich corporate stockholders; people who have never even been to Mars and consider our planet to be an unsavory though valuable possession. These are the people who are raping our planet, who are keeping us in poverty. These are the people who are the enemy of Mars. And these people are the ones that we need to be free of."

She looked meaningfully into the camera now, a serious, sincere expression upon her face. "You, the people of Mars, have elected me to a four year term as your governor. I have just taken an oath of office that makes that position official under our constitution. Now, as your duly elected and sworn representative, I will share with you what has been my goal the entire time, what has been my dream. It is my desire that — with your consent — we strive to make the Planet of Mars completely independent from the government of WestHem within the year."

The booking area of the downtown police substation was its normal, chaotic self. Located just inside the back door of the facility, near a fenced in parking area for patrol carts, the intake waiting lounge (as it was called) contained more than two dozen teams of police officers from all over the district, all of whom had at least one and in some cases as many as three, prisoners with them. The prisoners waiting to be processed were sitting on a long plastic bench that ran the length of the far wall, their hands all cuffed to metal rings that were installed every meter. They were a motley collection of criminals, all very dangerous looking, most of them accused of fairly serious crimes since people generally were not arrested and hauled in for mere misdemeanors. The officers with them were gathered in the center of the room on plastic seats that had been put in for this purpose. Every ten minutes or so a haggard looking booking officer would emerge through the sliding door at the other end of the room and call out a prisoner's name. The officers guarding him would then release him from the bench and accompany him inside where he would begin his latest trip through the Martian criminal justice system, joke that it was.

Usually the booking area was an extremely loud place to be as the criminals talked and sometimes engaged in verbal fights with each other and as the officers talked among themselves about their jobs and their lives — the latter group's conversation often being considerably more profane than the former's. At this moment however, the room was eerily silent, as quiet as it had ever been, probably since the day before the police station was opened nearly seventy years before. All eyes in the room were riveted to the Internet screens mounted high on two of the walls, all mouths hanging open in sheer surprise as they heard the first two minutes of the new governor's speech. Cops and criminals alike simply could not believe what they were hearing come from the middle-age, though strangely handsome woman's mouth.

Brian Haggerty and Lisa Wong, who were near the center of the room, awaiting their two prisoners' names to be called so they could be booked for second degree murder (which might get them as much as six months in jail if they had priors), were among the cops watching. Both were just as flabbergasted as their colleagues. Had she really just said independence from WestHem? Had she really just called the corporations criminal? Granted, Governor Whiting was a favorite among the rank and file of just about every Martian law enforcement agency. Her tough talk on crime and criminals and her cries for increased funding and increased prison sentences almost guaranteed that. She had been the first politician in the history of Mars to actually gain the support of all of the planet's police departments, both at the administrative level and the street level. But what was this madness she was spouting now? Was it a joke?

"Is she out of her damn mind?" Brian whispered to his partner just as she declared her goal for her term. "Independence?"

"This is unbelievable," Lisa said. "She's insane. They'll crucify her for even saying that!"

There were some other murmurs, both from the cops and the criminals that were much to the same effect. Nor were they alone. As Whiting paused in her speech for a moment to let her words sink in, the babble of hundreds of onlookers in the audience chamber could clearly be heard being transmitted live from the capital. The idea of an independent Mars, in which the Martians followed and controlled their own destinies, was certainly not a new one. On the contrary, Martians from all walks of life had expressed that thought many times before. But usually such words were spoken in bars or at parties when alcohol and marijuana was being consumed. Such words were usually the pipe dreams of intoxicated philosophers, striving to save the world with their wisdom but never actually doing anything to forward it or thinking that anyone else ever would. Never had such words been spoken or even hinted at by a politician on live Internet. Never had such a thing even been conceived of before.

But Whiting was not finished with her speech. Not by a long shot. As they watched in growing disbelief, she continued to stare into the camera — the effect being that she was looking directly at each one of them — and she continued.

"Independence," she said, obviously savoring the word. "That is the only way that this planet and the people on it will ever be truly free. And I am not talking about just token independence either, where WestHem declares us free but where we are still their puppet, their plaything, influenced by their monetary system and their corporations. I am talking about complete freedom — total freedom from the tyranny of that greedy, corrupt society. That means that all Martian industries, particularly the steel and agricultural industries, will be nationalized and run for the benefit of the Martian people, not for the stockholders of Agricorp and Standard Steel. I am talking about an entirely new constitution and way of life, a government for the people that is run by the people and that benefits the people — all people, not just those with money, not just those with jobs. I am talking about removing the corporate mentality and element completely from our society. And the only way to do this is to be free and to completely restructure our society so that it no longer revolves around the acquisition of wealth."

"Holy Jesus," Brian said, hearing this. "She really has gone insane."

"She really has," Lisa agreed, wondering how long it would be before someone actually removed her from the stage.

Whiting, completely ignoring the gasps and shocked words that were rising up from her audience of fellow politicians and corporate lobbyists, simply kept talking as if she were giving a normal speech.

"This may seem a strange concept for me to bring up," she admitted with a slight smile. "A government that does not revolve around wealth? Absurd, you might say. Impossible, you might say. But is such a thing really all that different than what many of you — the Martian people — have talked about over beers or buds among yourselves? Isn't it generally agreed upon at such bullshitting sessions that money and greed are the curse of the solar system, that the way of life we now find ourselves in the midst of is for the benefit of the elite few at the top of the corporate ladder while it is to the detriment of the rest? Isn't it generally noted at such times that Mars does not really need WestHem, that the only resource that we are not self-sufficient in is fuel? I have been to the bars, people, I have listened to the conversations of others all of my life. I know that what I am suggesting is not something new. I am just the first politician in a political setting to bring this up in a serious manner. That is why it sounds like such a bizarre concept to you all at them moment."

"That's true," Lisa allowed. She and Brian had discussed that very thing with other cops many times in the past during drunken and stoned after-hours gatherings with other cops. Mars really could produce everything that a society needed to sustain itself without the assistance of WestHem. Food, steel, machinery, clothing, space vehicles, military equipment, electronics and their components, all of that was produced on Mars or in orbit above it on Triad. Hydrogen fuel was the only thing that Mars really needed to import — that and a few luxury items like coffee and alcohol.

"Yep," Brian was forced to agree. "But..."

He was cut short in his argument by the impatient hushes of those around him. They were becoming extremely interested in this speech.

"Now, in order to remove the factor of money from our new government," Whiting continued, "we will have to replace it with something else that we can worship. We will have to base our new constitution and our new society upon another principal. What should that principal be? What should we revere most of all in this life if not money and the acquisition of wealth? This is just my humble opinion, but I'm sure that all of you out there who are not corporate management or rich stockholders would agree that society should be based upon common sense and fairness for everyone. Common sense and fairness, the two things that our current system of government pays lip service to but that our new government will actually embrace. Common sense in all decisions, in all dealings, in all laws. Fairness towards all people, unemployed and employed alike. I'm talking about a system of government that has enough checks and balances in it to guarantee that the atrocity that we have with us today is not able to repeat itself. I'm talking about a system where the abuses of power that we have now are not allowed to occur. I'm talking about a system in which the people themselves really chose their representatives and those representatives are incapable of being corrupted by the money from huge corporations because there will not be any huge corporations. I'm talking about a system where working is rewarded with the credit to buy nice things but that even those who do not or cannot work are provided with the basic necessities of life. I'm talking about a system where everyone has the right to a superior primary education and the right to a superior college education and that this is provided free of charge. I'm talking about a system where those who commit crimes against us are locked away for an appropriate number of years, where criminals are no longer allowed to walk among us.

"How will we pay for these things? I can hear you asking that right now. You are telling yourself that my talk sounds rather nice but that it sounds like I am describing an ideal world, a utopian society, and that things such as this do not and cannot exist. Someone has to pay for all of that great education, for all of those prisons, for all of those police officers. Who will it be?

"The answer is no one and the answer is also everyone. You see, in a system where money and acquisition of wealth is not the primary focus, where betterment of our society and fairness are the goals, there is no reason to pay for any of that. It is just done. We produce food here on Mars and we produce steel and we produce everything else that is needed to run this society. We have skilled workers and the ability to train others in those skills. Once we are off of the WestHem system of government, once we separate ourselves from their economic system, we can do things any way we like. The new Martian government can build a new school or a new college whenever there is a need for such a thing. Since the steel industry is nationalized, we do not have to pay anyone for that steel since we already own it. Since the construction company that builds the school is nationalized, we do not have to hold a bidding process or pay a corporation to build our school. We just build it.

"As for the workers who put on the biosuits and put the steel together to form the building, they are paid in credits at a pre-determined rate. These credits are issued by the government and are used to buy food and housing and luxury items from the government. They represent nothing more than credit for a day's work. With these credits you can buy food supplies that are better than what is issued to those without jobs. You can pay for upgraded housing, vacation trips, luxury items. Everyone who has a job will be paid these credits and, unlike our current system, it will be a constitutional requirement that we, as a society, do everything that we can to make sure that everyone who wishes a job has one. No more layoffs because of mergers, no more elimination of positions just because the profit margin is slipping. We will put an end to profit margins with this system, an end to them for all time."

O'Riley's Bar was a moderate sized chain that was owned by DrinkCo Beverages Corporation, which was in turn owned by Agricorp. O'Riley's specialized in alcohol and marijuana service and had more than sixty "pubs" as they were known in company documents, throughout the city of Eden. Their target customers were the working class and in Eden they estimated that they had more than thirty percent of the "away from home, modestly employed, intoxicant using market". Their pubs all looked the same and all were located in strategically placed locations — on the bottom floors of commercial buildings near the industrial tram stations. Brent Shimasaki and Lon Fargo were sitting at the bar in O'Riley's pub number E-24, which was located in the basement of the Westcity shopping complex — a seventy story building six blocks from the Agricorp maintenance shed. It was a favorite watering and smoking hole for the former IFP employees who were now Agricorp employees. It was a place they had gathered in with increasing frequency over the last month since word of the impending "reductions in force" had started to circulate.

Two bartenders were currently on duty along with two servers that carried drinks or bongs to the various tables. All of the employees wore the standard green uniform of O'Riley's, a get-up that would be recognized the solar system over — from Sau Paulo to San Francisco, from Eden to Standard City to Triad. The bar itself looked exactly the same as every other. It was a standard twenty-one meters long with barstools placed every meter. Constructed of molded plastic designed to look like oak, it was easily installed and easily cleaned with wet, disinfectant soaked cloths. When it reached the end of its useful service life (usually six years according to company statistics) it was easily removed and replaced by another. The carpet on the floor was also standard throughout the chain. It was a dark beige (designed to be pleasing to the eye but to avoid staining and grime, therefore extending its useful service life) patterned with small green four-leaf clovers. Above the bar were two large Internet screens, purchased via corporate contract from Laslow Electronics — an Earth based manufacturer whose large screen Internet receiver factory was located in New Pittsburgh, in the high latitude region of Mars. Laslow small screen multi-purpose terminals — which could be used (for a small fee) by bar patrons for communications — were located at each end of the bar.

This particular O'Riley's, like most of the other 2346 pubs throughout the solar system, was usually a very noisy place in the early evening hours. On this particular evening however, the large crowd was staring raptly at the Internet screens in disbelief as Laura Whiting gave her inaugural address to the planet. The only utterings from the blue-collar workers assembled to watch her were the occasional comments on the more outrageous of her statements.

"Paid in credits?" Brent said in disbelief. "What kind of shit is this bitch spouting? What the hell does that mean?" He was currently on his second rum and coke and had just finished taking his third hit of the potent greenbud that O'Riley's was known for (it was grown in Agricorp greenhouses). As such he was flying quite high and complex ideas such as a society not based on greed and money were a little difficult for him to grasp.

"She's talking about pulling us free of the restraints put on the working class by capitalism," said Lon, who had only smoked one hit and was still on his first drink. "It's brilliant, if it can be made to work."

"It's communism," said Tina Yamamoto, an apple juicer repair tech and a former lover of Lon's. "When the state owns everything and pays the workers out of its own coffers, it's called communism. The Russians, the Chinese, and the Cubans all tried it back on earth. It doesn't work. The system leaves too much open for abuse of power."

"Oh? Like we don't have that here?" Lon shot back. "Besides, it's not necessarily communism she's talking about here. It could be just a form of socialism. And that did work in several countries before World War III."

"Yes, but..." Tina started.

"If you two would shut the fuck up," interrupted Stacy Salinas, another juicer tech, "we'd be able to hear just what she is talking about."

They shut up and watched, growing more fascinated as Whiting continued.

"The how's and why's of getting this system up and operating," she told her audience, "is really not the important thing right now however. I have some loose plans drawn up on paper that I have worked on over the years and I will present some of these ideas to you in the coming weeks during regular addresses to the planet. After independence is achieved, we will appoint scholars and others to form a constitutional committee to pound out the specific details of the plan. What is important right now is achieving our independence in the first place. I don't think I have to tell you that WestHem and the corporations that rule it, the corporations that like to think they own this planet, will not be willing to let us go very easily."

"You got that shit right," Brent snorted, signaling the bartender for another bonghit.

"But what those corporations and their puppets in the WestHem government need to understand is that there is no reason for us Martians not to be independent. No reason except for their wishes and their greed and their profit margin. We are self-sufficient people and we deserve to be independent of their rule. If all Martians stick together and work for this goal together, one way or another, we will be independent within a year. I guarantee it and WestHem is simply going to have to accept it. It is my suggestion and my hope that the WestHem authorities appoint a committee for immediate negotiations on just how our goal can be peacefully brought about. I think that our goals and their sacred profit margins can be mutually exclusive. You see, Mars already produces the majority of the food supply for WestHem and the Jupiter colony. We would be honor bound to continue to produce that amount and ship it to them if they negotiate our independence in good faith. The labor needed to produce this food will be paid to Martian workers in Martian credits by the new Martian government. The food itself will be given to WestHem in straight exchange for the one commodity that we do not produce here: fuel. No money will be exchanged in this deal, making Martian credits useless to WestHem and WestHem dollars useless to Mars. But production will go on as always and Agricorp and the other corporations that currently own everything on Mars will still be able to sell this food to the WestHem people at normal prices."

"Would that work?" asked Jeff Creek of his friend, Matt Mendez. Both of the former gang members and current members of the hopelessly unemployed, were staring at Matt's PC intently, having gotten much more than they'd bargained for by watching the inaugural address. Despite his former apathy and doomsaying, Jeff found himself intrigued by what this politician was spouting. True it was probably nothing but a mental breakdown in progress, but it sure sounded good while it was occurring.

"If it's done right," Matt replied, his mind trying to find holes in the theory and failing, "it would work just fine. The Martians buy goods and services from Mars using Martian money, which they are paid by the Martian government for working. Since Mars owns everything and isn't trying to make a profit, prices can be fixed since supply and demand does not depend on outside sources. Even though most of the food production that occurs is to export to Earth or Jupiter, there is no drain on the Martian economy because they are not on the same system of currency as we are. We produce food for them and exchange it for fuel. What they do with the food is their business. What we do with the fuel is our business. As long as we don't depend on them for anything else, it'll work!"

"Static," Jeff said, shaking his head in admiration. He started loading up another load of the garbage grass from his bag. "Its too bad WestHem will never let it happen. They'll send the fuckin marines here before they sign Agricorp and those other corps over to us."

Matt nodded sadly. "I believe you've got a point there," he said. "But it's a nice concept anyway, ain't it?"

They went back to watching.

William Smith, at the age of fifty-six, was hands down the richest man on the planet Mars. The CEO of Agricorp's Martian operations, he lived in opulent splendor in a penthouse suite that took up the 217th, 218th, and 219th floors of the most exclusive housing building in the city. He and his wife and three servants were the only one's currently living there since their two children (exceptions to the one child per female ratio were available to the very wealthy) were back on Earth attending college. Even so, their quarters had more than a thousand square meters of living space available to them: an unthinkable amount on a planet where construction costs were five times that on Earth. Their entire bottom floor consisted of nothing but an entertainment room where politicians and lobbyists and other corporate heads could gather for black-tie parties. A state of the art sound and video system, complete with the latest holographic theater set-up, and a full service wet bar larger than those found at O'Riley's and made of genuine polished oak imported from Earth were the features of this floor. There was also a huge picture window that looked out on the edge of the city, giving an impressive view of the contrast between the barren wastelands of the surface and the modern steel and glass building of the inhabited area. On the second floor of the suite were the servant's quarters, kitchen area and secondary bedrooms, areas where Smith and his family rarely, if ever, ventured. On the top floor, which was also the top floor of the building itself, were two master bedroom suites complete with private baths and sunken Jacuzzi tubs and two complete office suites, one for Smith to work in and one for his wife to organize her charity events and plan her parties in. Smith's office was naturally the larger of the two. It featured a picture window that looked out on the financial district of Eden and it's many towering high-rises — including the Agricorp building itself.

Smith and his wife, both of whom were natives of Denver on Earth, hated their quarters. Though they were arguably the largest and nicest on the entire planet, they found them to be cramped and confined, not at all like their monster 4000 square meter mansion in the Aspen section of Denver or their 3000 square meter winter retreat on the island of Maui. It was a constant irritant to the third generation corporate manager that he was forced to live in a common apartment building while stationed on this dry, boring little planet that just happened to produce most of the products his company sold. He longed for re-assignment back to Earth, to corporate headquarters where he could go outside when he wanted to and where he could concentrate his energies on controlling real politicians instead of wasting away playing the game here with ignorant wanna-be's.

He was currently sitting in his office suite behind his large, genuine oak desk, sipping out of a martini and smoking an imported cigarette. On the wall above him a large screen Internet terminal was on and playing the inauguration of Governor Whiting, a politician that had been carefully groomed through the years as she had risen in stature and importance. His cigarette fell unnoticed from his mouth as he stared at the screen and heard the words she was saying. He could not have been more surprised and shocked if Laura Whiting had suddenly spontaneously combusted on the podium. She had called Agricorp corrupt! She had mentioned them by name and called them that! She was up there telling the planet how his corporation and others manipulated the political system with campaign contributions! Worse than that, she was actually telling those ignorant greenies that she governed that she wanted them to be independent! That she wanted to nationalize the agricultural industry! Was she completely insane? What in the hell did she think she was doing? She was their pet politician! She had been bought! More than six million dollars in contributions had been transferred to her election account for this run alone. More than two million in unreported bribes had been laundered and sent to her personal account. She had been set up to sign into law more than sixteen bills benefiting Agricorp that were being passed through the legislature this term. She had been set up to veto more than ten that were considered a detriment. She couldn't do this! It was inconceivable, impossible! It was madness!

Before Whiting was even two minutes into her speech, Smith's Internet terminal on his desk began buzzing, the female voice informing him that multiple vid-links were being requested. Of course the computer also told him who the callers were and it was no surprise that they were the lobbyists and other upper-management members. He ignored them for the moment, although he knew he would be calling a conference for damage control with them very soon.

"Computer," he said to the desk mounted terminal, "get me Steve Lancaster. Try him at home, he should be there right now."

"Contacting Steve Lancaster at home," the computer obediently replied. The screen, which had been blank, suddenly flared to life showing the interface for the communications software.

"Highest priority," Smith said. "I want him to answer."

"Connecting," the computer told him.

Steve Lancaster was the Martian operations CEO of InfoServe, the Internet and media corporation that controlled approximately forty-five percent of the market share of WestHem and its colonies. Agricorp and InfoServe had a long-standing advertisement contract and were about as friendly with each other as two unrelated industries could be. Lancaster was not exactly a friend to Smith — people at their height on the ladder did not really have friends, just contacts and associations — but he was about as close to one as possible. They had played golf together many times at the pathetic excuse for country club that Eden boasted and their wives were members of the same charity groups. As Smith had expected he would, Lancaster came online immediately, his handsome face showing shock and alarm.

"It would seem that you're watching the inaugural address," Smith said to the screen, his words and image being transmitted through the Martian Internet to the other side of town.

"I'm watching it," Lancaster confirmed, shaking his head a little. "I'm not sure if I believe what I'm seeing however. She's gone off the deep end. What the hell does she think she's doing up there?"

"I've never seen anyone throw their entire career away in less than a minute before," Smith said. "I don't know what prompted this ranting — whether its mental illness or low blood sugar or whether, like she said, she's been planning this her entire career — but whatever the reason, we'll deal with her shortly. The important thing is that we cut that broadcast right away before she puts any strange ideas into the heads of these greenies."

"I'm on it," Lancaster said. "I'll call the main broadcast building and have them cut the live feed. We should be able to kill the transmission inside of a minute."

"Do it," Smith said. "And what about ICS and WIV? Do you have contacts with them?" ICS and WIV were the other two major Internet corporations of WestHem. Between the three of them they owned every major transmission, publishing, communications, and movie-making entity in WestHem. If they all shut down their stations, there would be nothing for the greenies to watch.

"I do," he confirmed. "I'll get them on a conference call as soon as I get us shut down. I can't imagine that they would protest that. That won't completely kill her though."

"MarsGroup," Smith said with a groan as he was reminded of the independent Internet service that was owned by a small collection of Martian investors. Of course the three big networks had tried to strangle them many times in the past, both by smearing them in their own news programs and publications and by refusing to sell them shows or content. Even so, MarsGroup had managed to survive for more than three decades now. Though they mostly produced low-budget news programs and reports and hokey Internet sit-coms or adventure shows, enough of the greenies tuned in or utilized them to keep them barely in the black each year.

"MarsGroup," Lancaster confirmed. "They have cameras and reporters at the inauguration as well. We couldn't get them excluded. Quite frankly, we didn't really even try since the public relations problems would've outweighed the benefit. I have no say with their CEO. In fact, she is often quite antagonistic to me."

"I'll see what I can do," Smith said. "Perhaps she'll listen to me if I offer her a little advertising business during prime-time. You get the real media shut down and I'll call her up."

"Right," Lancaster said doubtfully. He seemed about to say more but didn't. Instead, he signed off, his image disappearing and being replaced by the communications software screen once again.

"Computer," Smith said, "get me Dianne Nguyen of MarsGroup. Search every database you need to and call any address you have to, but get her. Highest priority."

"Contacting Diane Nguyen," the computer told him and then went to task.

While it was making it's attempt, Smith looked back up at the screen on the wall, where Laura Whiting was still ranting about independence and greedy corporations. She was now suggesting that the Martian economy be completely separated from the WestHem economy. Christ, she truly had gone around the bend. As if that would ever be allowed. As if that would work even if it were. She was talking about communism. Nothing more or less than communism. Just as she began to move to the next subject the screen suddenly went blank as the InfoServe feed was cut. A graphic appeared a moment later pleading "technical difficulties".

"Thank you, Steve," Smith said gratefully. He made a quick check of the other channels, the ones owned by ICS and WIV and found that they had been cut as well. Even better. "Computer," he told the terminal. "Switch broadcast channel on screen two to MarsGroup primary."

The computer had been programmed not to reply to commands such as that, just to do it. The screen flicked over and he was looking at Laura Whiting once again, still in the process of destroying her career and possibly her life.

"This planet is ours, people," she told her audience. "We, the Martians, are the ones who were born here, that have lived our lives here, that love this planet. We are the ones that plant and harvest the food that Agricorp and the others sell for profit all over the solar system. We are the ones that built the structures that we live in with our own hands. We are the ones who set off generations ago to colonize this planet and make a new home for ourselves. And we are the ones who are being held down by the people of Earth who claim ownership of everything that we do. Ask yourselves, people, what do the Earthlings do for us? What do they do? They sit in their high-rise offices and count the money that they make from our sweat and toil. They sit up there and make decisions that affect the lives of all of us. A fingerprint on a computer screen and they've just signed an order that puts thousands out of a job. Another print on another screen and they've just bribed a politician who otherwise might have made your lives a little easier. This has got to stop. It has to end and we have to be able to control our own fates."

"Dianne Nguyen coming online," the computer spoke up just as Whiting was gearing up for another rant. The volume was automatically turned down on the broadcast so that the communications terminal could be heard.

Nguyen's face appeared a moment later on his screen. It was a pleasantly feminine face of Southeast Asian descent, very youthful, although its owner was actually in her late forties. Nguyen, Smith knew, had once worked for InfoServe as a low-level manager. Her climb up the ladder had been stopped short in her early days because of her Martian birth and education, both of which were considered inferior in Earthling corporate circles. Still, like most Martians, Nguyen was eerily clever at certain things and, after quitting InfoServe, had been one of the prime movers and investors to get the joke that was MarsGroup rolling in the early days. "What can I do for you, Smith?" she asked now as she answered her call. Her expression was serious but it seemed as if she was hiding a smile.

"Dianne," Smith said warmly, as if she were his closest acquaintance, as if he hadn't worked madly over the years to strangle her company and its advertising contracts. "How are you this evening?"

Nguyen wasn't buying it however. "Let's cut the bullshit," she said with typical Martian crudity. "I assume you're calling about the inauguration speech."

He took a second to gather himself. "Why yes, that is why I'm calling," he said at last. "It seems that Ms. Whiting is... well... having a bit of a nervous breakdown up there. She is saying some very embarrassing things. Things that she will likely regret later."

"She sounds pretty much in her right mind to me," Nguyen opined. "I notice that the three bigs have all cut their feed. I presume you're calling to ask me to do the same?"

"In the interests of décor," he said. "Yes, I'm asking if you will save this poor woman some later misery. Obviously the Martian people do not need to hear the kind of drivel she is spouting up there. It would be best for all concerned if their access to the feed were to be cut completely off."

"Forget it," Nguyen told him. "We're sticking live with her. She's beautiful up there. She's saying things that should've been said along time ago."

"She's committing libel and slander," Smith said, still speaking reasonably — as one colleague did to another. "It would be a breach of ethics to stay online with her as she commits this crime. As a media provider there is a professional obligation not to broadcast such inflammations to the public. In some cases I could see how you would even be held accountable for not..."

"Oh please," Nguyen interrupted, rolling her eyes at him. "You are talking to me about ethics? About libel and slander? You who have directed all of your subsidiaries not to advertise with me, who have forbidden your workers to even subscribe to my service? You can just take yourself a nice, high, flying fuck at Phobos, Smith. The feed remains live and any subsequent speeches by Whiting will be carried live as well."

"I'm warning you, Nguyen," Smith said, raising his voice now. "If you don't..."

"Bye now," she said, bringing her hand into the camera's range long enough to offer a small, contemptuous wave. With that, she went offline, her image flickering away.

"Goddamn greenie bitch," Smith said to the communications screen. He tried to several more times to get her back but only received her answering screen, which he left angry messages on.

With nothing else to do at the moment, he turned the volume back up and continued to watch Laura Whiting's speech.

Laura was elated as she spoke into the microphones, as she looked at the sea of shocked faces staring up at her from the audience chambers. No matter what else came of this night, it felt glorious to finally throw aside the mask of proper politician that she had worn for so many years now. She felt as liberated as she hoped to make her planet.

Now that she had everybody's attention, now that she had explained what she hoped to do with her term and why she thought it needed to be done, she moved into the next phase of her speech: the phase in which she tried to prevent her removal before her work was done.

"I have made a lot of new enemies in the last five minutes," she told the planet. "I like to think that I have made some new friends among the Martian people, but you can bet your ass that the wheels of my removal are already starting to turn at this very moment. My guess is that strings have already been pulled by the movers and shakers of this world and this broadcast has been cut off by all of the so called 'big three' Internet providers. If my words were broadcast for more than three minutes, it would surprise me indeed.

"But I would also be surprised if MarsGroup Internet, the only Martian based media, followed suit with the big three. My guess, my hope, is that the one media provider with any sort of integrity is continuing to broadcast my words to you all. That is my hope because you really need to hear what I have to say next. You really need to hear how they are going to try to hamstring my proposals for this planet before they even get started."

She looked at the reserved seating, where the legislature members all sat, her eyes tracking from face to face. Most of them looked away when her gaze fell upon them. "You in the legislature," she said. "You have the power to impeach me from this office. It is written into the planetary constitution and it is your duty to do so if I commit abuses of power or crimes against the people. In this instance however, I have done neither. I have committed no offense against them that you can legally impeach me for. Nevertheless, you will be asked to open an investigation into my actions, probably shortly after you leave the chairs you are sitting in. Representatives of whoever your sponsors are will contact you, and they will tell you to begin an investigation and they will tell you to vote to impeach me. And since you are all bought people — bought and paid for in campaign contributions and thinly veiled bribes offered by lobbyists for Agricorp and MarsTrans and InfoServe and a dozen others — you will be expected to do as you are told and make me go away. That is the way this great political system works, that is the way our planetary government and our federal government works. That is why we vote to tax John Carlton of Eden or Barb Jones of New Pittsburgh but to cut taxes for Agricorp or InfoServe. That is the way things are."

She gave them a softer look and lowered her voice a little. "But it doesn't have to be that way. There is nothing in the Martian constitution that mandates you vote or act as those who have given you campaign contributions wish. The reason we all do it anyway is because we wish to be reelected, to pretend that we really have power for another two years or four years or six years. This has been going on so long that most of you have forgotten who you're really supposed to be working for. Well this time, in this instance, I'm going to remind you. You legislature members were elected by the common Martians to serve and to them is who your loyalty and your votes are owed. Every last one of you is of Martian heritage. Every last one of you is the descendent of those who left Earth to seek out employment here, on this new world. You are all Martians and when those Earthling lobbyist start calling you tonight and telling you what you're supposed to do, I want you to remember that you work for Mars and the Martian people, not Agricorp and InfoServe and the other soulless corporations. If you refuse to impeach me for daring to defy those corporate masters, this planet will be free within a year. If you cave to their pressure and vote me out, we will continue to languish under their rule. Remember who you are and where you came from and do the right thing for once in your careers."

She paused, taking a breath before continuing. "However, since I realize that my words alone may not be enough to convince you, I will take this time to bring up another point. The voters of each of your districts have the right under the constitution to organize and hold a recall vote that is capable of removing you from office. Thanks to media control and various other factors over the years, this is something that has never been done before. The option to do so however, is there and there does not have to be a specific reason for this action. This is something that the people are able to do at any time and there is no appeal process, there is no way that friends in the corporations can reverse such a thing. All it takes to get such a thing started is a little organization on the part of the voters and ten thousand fingerprints on a petition."

She looked from the legislature seats back up into the MarsGroup cameras, the only one that she knew were still live. "This is where the people of Mars come in. This is where those of you that have elected me can help me stay in office so that I can help you be free. An impeachment drive against me is going to begin in earnest tomorrow morning, my first day of full duties in office. If you, the people, do nothing, I will be impeached and drummed out within the week. But if you take the time to email your elected representative, if you tell him or her that you will organize a petition to remove them from office if they vote for an investigation and an impeachment, and then if you follow through with this threat in the event that they do, I guarantee you that they will do what you ask.

"That is my challenge to you, people of Mars. I have taken the first step to get us free of the tyranny we live under. I know that independence is what the vast majority of you wish. Now is the time to act. You can either stand with me and continue to move us towards freedom, or you can do nothing, let me be drummed out, and things will continue here on Mars as they always have. The time is ripe, my friends and it will never get riper. You have a voice in the governor's office for the first time. I implore you, I beg of you, help me follow through with this separation. Let your voices be heard. With your help, all of us will be free.

"That is all I have to say. The rest is in your hands."

With that she gave one last smile and left the podium, leaving the stunned audience and a stunned planet in her wake.

Corban Hayes was the regional chief of operations for the Martian branch of the Federal Law Enforcement Bureau, WestHem's highest law enforcement agency. A native of Los Angeles and a fourth generation FLEB director, Corban hated the planet Mars as much as any Earthling and couldn't wait until his next promotion when he could get out of this dreadful place. Of course now that Laura Whiting had gone apparently crazy and spouted a bunch of anti-corporation sentiments on live Internet, that promotion just might be swirling down the great toilet of bureaucracy. It had been his office, his investigators — who were supposedly the best in existence — that had done the background check on Whiting back when she had announced her candidacy for high office the previous year. He had put his fingerprint on the documents that had declared her an excellent candidate with no known "conflicting loyalties" or "unsuitable ideals". His agents had poured through her previous life for more than a month, searching for anything that might have hinted at problems for the government and therefore the business interests that controlled it. They had examined every law that she'd authored or voted on, every speech she'd ever given, every financial transaction she had ever made. She had been squeaky clean, which meant of course, that she only took bribes from her sponsors and that she only voted for or authored bills that had been approved by her sponsors. It meant that she had never been heard to utter an unkind word about her sponsors in public. In the world of politics, that was impressive indeed.

So what in the hell had happened to her? Where had that communist, radical, independence talk come from? Had she really been hiding that inside of her and putting on an act all of these years? Was that possible?

Hayes tried not to think too hard about the why of the situation. When it came right down to it, it didn't really matter. He was having enough trouble just dealing with the flak that was being thrown at him. His communications terminal had been buzzing madly ever since that miserable greenie had started spouting off. It seemed that every corporate director on the planet was trying to get through, demanding an explanation. And it would only get worse when the replies started to come in from Earth, where the headquarters of all of these corporations were located. Thankfully the planetary alignment was approaching the furthest that Mars and Earth ever got from each other and radio signals currently took more than fifteen minutes to travel from place to the other. That would at least give him a little break between onslaughts.

His office was on the 112th floor of the New Pittsburgh Federal Building downtown, a building located just on the edge of the ghetto. He was looking out his window at the high-rises that surrounded the building, seeing the lights shining brightly in the clear Martian atmosphere. How he longed to be back in Los Angeles with its thirty-six million inhabitants and where the elite could travel by propeller-driven VTOL's that landed right on the roofs of buildings.

"Priority link-up attempt," his computer terminal told him, repeating the same thing it had said more than thirty times so far. "Caller is William Smith, chief executive officer of Agricorp's Martian operations."

"Christ," Hayes sighed, longing for a nice healthy pipe-hit of some good green. He had some in his desk drawer but somehow he didn't think this was the proper time for it. "Put him through," he told his computer, knowing that Smith was not someone he could blow off. Agricorp, after all, damn near ruled the solar system and Smith was the number three man within that particular corporation.

Smith's face came on the screen and after a brief exchange of the required pleasantries, he began his ass chewing. He ranted for nearly five minutes about botched investigations, incompetent investigators, wasted tax-dollars, and directors that would be sent back to the streets busting software pirates. Hayes took it all like a true professional, nodding in all the right places, agreeing when it was necessary, disagreeing gently when it seemed expected of him. Finally Smith was able to calm down enough to talk rationally and to actually accomplish what had been the goal of the communication in the first place.

"She needs to be indicted," Smith told him. "Right away. I want her to be in handcuffs in the jail by this time tomorrow."

"Well, sir," Hayes said reasonably, "I'd really love to oblige you of that, but the simple fact is that I don't have anything to indict her with."

"She admitted taking bribes on live Internet," Smith reminded him, as if he were an idiot. "Don't you remember? During her little portion about how our political system works?"

"Well, yes, I remember," he responded. "And while it is true that that is an indictable offense, it might not be such a good idea to pursue that avenue at this time."

"Why not?" Smith demanded.

He gathered his thoughts for a moment, trying to formulate the proper way to say this. "Because," he said, "those... bribes as you call them, were actually campaign contributions put into her political account. The other... uh... offerings, the ones that went into her personal account, while they went unreported and are technically bribery, they all came from your corporation and her other sponsors. If I indict her for receiving them then I will be forced to indict your corporate officers and your lobbyists for giving them. To tell you the truth, that seems rather counter-productive."

Smith paled just the tiniest bit, obviously shaken by what he was being told. It would seem that he hadn't thought of this yet. "But... can't you arrange it so that doesn't have to occur?" he asked.

"Unfortunately, no," he said with just the proper hint of regret in his voice. "While we can bend the law quite broadly in the interests of WestHem security, we cannot bend it quite that much. Especially not in a case such as this, where a popular politician is the target. If we bring up the bribery issue we'll be opening up a huge can of worms."

"I see," Smith said, glaring. "Then what is to be done about this... this... greenie? Surely she is not going to be allowed to get away with this. What does my company pay you people taxes and contributions for?"

"Well of course we will launch an immediate investigation into the Whiting matter," Hayes assured him. "Believe me, we won't be standing idle on this. I intend to assign no less than fifteen of my best agents to this case and they will go over everything that Whiting has done in the last year. We'll search out any unauthorized Internet calls from government terminals. She was campaigning for governor. Surely she has done that — they all do. We'll look into her finances again and find out if she's getting wholesale prices because of her position. We'll find something on her. And even if we don't, we'll be watching her every move from here on out, waiting for her to do something wrong. She's not a saint, sir, there has to be something and we will find it."

"Good," Smith said, calming a little. "And make it fast. Getting rid of that greenie needs to be your highest priority."

"And it will," he said. "But in the meantime, might I suggest that you pursue things from the political angle as well. Get your lobbyists together and get the other corporations to do the same. Have them pressure the legislature to do just as Whiting surmised they would do and impeach her. Misrepresentation shouldn't be too hard to prove — after all, she's certainly not what the people elected to office, is she?"

"No," he said, "she's not."

"And of course you're not really worried about the public pressure on the legislative members that she tried to foment, are you? If you are, maybe..."

Smith scoffed at the very motion. "The ignorant greenies on this planet are completely incapable of doing what she told them to do. That was actually the most amusing part of her little speech. Greenies organizing a recall vote? Ridiculous."

"So you see?" Hayes said, smiling a little. "Things are well under control. You attack her from the political level and we'll attack her from the legal angle. She'll be impeached within a week and then we'll indict her and send her to prison for a year or so. That'll serve to get rid of the problem and make any of the other greenie politicians that might consider such a thing in the future do the same."

Perhaps the only politician who was absolutely delighted by what Laura Whiting had done was the one who had the most to gain by it. Scott Benton had been sworn in as Lieutenant Governor of Mars about thirty minutes after Laura Whiting had left the stage. Though he had had a great speech planned — a rambling twelve-page jerk-off about how he was going to work through the differences that he and the Governor had to strive for a better tomorrow — he had been unable to give it due to the unusual circumstances of the Whiting inauguration. After that the reporters had all left to go compose their stories, taking their cameras with them, and the legislature had voted an early recess to the gathering to give themselves time to return to their offices and think about the spectacle that they had witnessed. Benton's swearing in had been in front of less than twenty witnesses and hundreds of empty chairs, without a doubt the most unceremonious inauguration of a Lieutenant Governor on record.

Benton didn't care and in fact had never been happier about anything. He muttered his oath before the associate judge, making himself official, and then he immediately headed upstairs to his new office to begin his work. Whiting had actually thrown the Governor's office away. She had actually insulted and abused her own sponsors on live Internet before millions of people. Amazing, simply amazing. And now that she had done this he had no doubt that he would be sworn in by the senile old judge as Governor within days. There was no way that that bitch Whiting would be allowed to survive this.

A third generation Martian haling from New Pittsburgh, Benton had the cleverness of his people but the ambition of the Earthlings. The son of a MarsTrans chief lobbyist, he had chosen politics as his profession while he had still been in the private high school where he received his secondary education. He had always had a keen ear and a warm way with people and he had developed the instincts that went with the job well before graduating from the University of Mars at NP with his degree in political theory. By the end of law school he had already been marked by the powers-that-be (namely MarsTrans and Tagert Steel) as an up and coming star to be reckoned with. He had done two terms as an NP city councilman and one as mayor before moving into the legislature — the true springboard to high politics on Mars. He had made many friends among the people who counted as he worked his way through three terms on the legislature but had been derailed in his path towards the Governor's office by Laura Whiting, whose power and influence had always been just a few steps higher than his own. Whiting had a way of getting things done — she had pushed through the Martian Planetary Guard all of those years ago, had led the fight against the feds to have anti-bombardment emplacements installed in all of the cities, had pushed through a dozen or more anti-crime bills — and she was much loved by the Martian people because of this. He and his sponsors had known that running against such a popular candidate would be an exercise in futility and a huge waste of money so instead he had been encouraged to run for the number two spot which, by Martian constitutional rules was completely separate from the Governor's race. That he had won easily enough and he had been prepared to settle in for an unpleasant four to eight years under Whiting's thumb before he had another shot at the big spot. But now, Whiting had just handed him the Governorship after less than one hour in office. Amazing. He would have to remember to thank her as she was led away in handcuffs by the feds.

His staff members had set his office up the day before and he was not in there for more than two minutes before the first of the calls came in. It was from Robert Flanders himself, the CEO of operations for MarsTrans, which owned and operated eighty percent of the rail services, both passenger and freight, on the planet.

"I think you know what to do now, don't you, Scott?" he was asked after the preliminaries were taken care of.

"Yes sir," he said. "Beginning tomorrow I'll address the legislature and urge an investigation into Whiting for misrepresentation. I'll have her impeached in a matter of days."

"Very good," Flanders said, offering a fatherly smile. "I can see we did well to invest in you. It's strange how fate works sometimes, isn't it?"

"Yes sir," he replied truthfully. "Indeed it is. I'll have my speechwriters and my staffers working all night. You'll have a governor in office in no time."

Laura herself was, understandably under the circumstances, getting her fair share of Internet calls as well. Though she had a secretary to screen most of them, her high-powered former sponsors — and there were a lot of those — all had access to her private Internet address and they damn sure made use of it now. Though her fate had already been discussed and decided while she had still been on the stage saying her words, they all wanted to talk to her, to demand an explanation of her.

"Why, Laura?" Smith of Agricorp, her biggest sponsor, demanded once he got her online. "What were you thinking? What were you doing? Why did you throw your career away like this?"

"I threw nothing away," Laura told him curtly, her voice even and almost teasing. "As of the moment I said, 'I do' I was governor of this planet. And as for why I did what I did, I believe I explained myself quite well during my speech. Surely you caught the speech, didn't you?"

General Jackson, commander of the MPG, was standing just off to the side, out of camera range. He chuckled a little at her words.

"You betrayed us, Laura," he told her. "After all we've done for you, after all we've spent getting you elected, this is how you repay us?"

"You mean that after all of the bribes you gave me I am now refusing to do as I'm told like a little RC toy. Sorry if I hurt your feelings, Smith. Do you think they'll fire you for this? I'm sort of anxious to find out how the head office in Denver responds." She looked at her watch. "The transmission should have gotten there about twenty minutes ago now. How long until they send a message back? Do you think it's on its way now? Or do you think they'll need more time to figure out how to shitcan you?"

"The head office is not your concern," he told her angrily. "What you should be worried about is your resignation. If it's in by tomorrow morning we'll call off the FLEB agents that are after you. We'll tell the public that you had a mental breakdown and they'll forget about all of this in a few months. I'm sure you have enough of our money stashed away to live comfortably for a while."

"I have none of your money stashed away," she told him. "Every dollar went into my election account. Most of it is still there. Within a year your money won't be any good on this planet. And as for my resignation, you can forget it. Do your best. I'm here under the constitution and you have no means to get rid of me. You're not playing with an amateur here."

"You think those ignorant greenies that you're so fond of are going to save you?" he asked her. "Is that what you think? You think they're going to call off our legislature members with the little e-mail campaign you suggested? Tell me that you're not really that naïve, Laura."

"I think you'll be surprised by what us greenies are capable of," she told him. "You've been degrading us and underestimating us for so long now that you have no idea of the resentment that most of us hold for all things corporate and Earthling. They'll compose those letters. Take my word for it. Actually, you don't have to take my word. Why don't you call up some of your pet politicians and ask them how many have come in so far?"

"I have no need to waste my time that way," he said dismissively.

Laura shrugged. "You'll just have to hear it in the morning then, won't you? Our independence is coming, Smith. I think you might want to consider the best way to negotiate it with us so that Agricorp comes out on top. My offer was sincere. You hand your assets over to us and we'll continue to produce food and give it to you. If you cooperate, we'd be inclined to hand all of the food to you instead of simply sharing it with the other agricultural corporations. Think about that."

Smith shook his head a little, the way one does when one is dealing with a lunatic. "I'm going to enjoy seeing you led away," he told her. "This is your last warning. Resign now before it's too late."

"It's already too late," she said. "Goodbye, Smith. Don't send any more of your people here. I won't accept them." With that she signed off, making his face disappear. Before ten seconds had gone by the next call came in and then the next and then the next after that. Most were sponsors but a few were reporters. She denied all calls from the big three reporters but gave a brief statement to the MarsGroup reporter, mostly just assuring her that she had been dead serious up on the stage tonight and that she would grant further interviews once she was settled into office. Finally they slowed to a trickle and she was able to take a breather for a few minutes.

Jackson, sipping out of a bottle of Agricorp apple juice, sat down across her desk from her. He was dressed in his uniform, namely the red shorts and white T-shirt that were the standard interior dress of the Martian Planetary Guard troops. His rank insignia — that of commanding general — was stenciled on his left breast, just above the small emblem of the MPG. He carried no weapons belt and wore no body armor, relying on his squad of special forces bodyguards to keep him safe. He looked at his boss pointedly. "It's all come down to this night," he told her. "All of the secret planning, all of the underhanded deals with the arms makers, and now the wheels are in motion."

"Everything according to plan so far," she agreed, opening a bottle of juice of her own and taking a sip.

"You were beautiful up there tonight," he said. "Your speech was very moving. Hopefully it will have the results we need. If you get impeached next week, it's all for nothing."

"The people will do what I ask," she told him assuredly. "I know them well and I know how fed up they are with the system we have. They want change; they've wanted it for generations. All they needed was a leader to cling to, one who had the power to get the job done."

"And now they've got one," he said. "Assuming they're not too cynical to embrace you."

"They voted for me in record numbers, didn't they? They'll embrace me. And once I start giving my weekly speeches on MarsGroup, I'll get them fired up the rest of the way, until they're demanding that we be free — no matter what needs to be done."

"No matter what," Jackson said, knowing what it was eventually going to take. "I know we've been over this before, but do you think that there's any chance at all of WestHem actually negotiating autonomy with us? I mean, after the seriousness of the situation becomes clear to them and they realize what the options are?"

"None whatsoever," she told him. "You know that, Kevin. If we're going to be free, we're going to have to fight for it. There's too much at stake for WestHem to even consider the possibility of letting us go. Not even under the terms that I've offered, which are generous indeed."

He sighed a little. "You're undoubtedly right," he said. "It's a nice dream though."

"But in the meantime," Laura told him, "this planet is rapidly approaching maxima from Earth. In another three months the navy will begin sending the bulk of the fleet here for storage at Triad. Will the MPG be ready by then?"

"In terms of ability, they're ready right now," Jackson reminded her. "Our mission is to prevent invasion of this planet and to be able to fully mobilize to that goal in less than twelve hours. Repelling invaders is all that we train for. And over the last three months we've been training particularly hard. The real question you should be asking is whether or not they will obey your orders and repel an invasion by WestHem marines. As of this moment, I don't believe that they would do that. That is where you and your speeches come in."

"They'll be ready," Laura promised. "Over the next few months I believe that WestHem's behavior towards us is going to be particularly reprehensible. It's as predictable as the moons. The WestHem way to deal with opposition is to crack down on it, to smear it. Remember the line theory?"

"Oh yes," he said. "I remember." The line theory, advanced by none other than Laura Whiting herself (always in private discussions of course), stated that the way a government such as WestHem remained in power was to identify the line. The line was the boundary between how much abuse and profiteering, how much thinly veiled corruption the citizens would take before they would openly rebel against their leaders. WestHem, EastHem, and other governments throughout world history had been very adept at finding that line and keeping themselves just on the friendly side of it.

"WestHem and the corporations will be forced to step over the line in order to deal with us," Laura said. "I don't like deliberately encouraging suffering among our people, but unfortunately it's the only way. And when the time comes, your people need to be ready to do what needs to be done."

"They'll be ready," he promised. "You do your part and we'll do ours."

Chapter 2

The morning following the inauguration of the new Martian governor was also a Saturday morning in the western hemisphere of Mars, where all of the terrestrial cities were located. Being a Saturday it meant that a regular training rotation for the MPG was scheduled at the base on the southern edge of Eden. Of course all of the Eden area MPG members could not train regularly at one time. There were simply too many of them for that to be feasible on a weekly basis. As such, the MPG volunteers — and they were all volunteers except for a few, select positions — were divided into one of four training rotations. This particular week was B rotation's turn. From all over the city men and women woke up early on what was traditionally a day of rest, donned their red shorts and white MPG t-shirts, and headed for tram stations near their homes. The paid twenty dollars to board the MarsTrans public transportation trains which carried them through a belt line and a serious of spokes to the base, the entrance to which was located in one of the more dangerous parts of town. Once there they waited in line for more than thirty minutes to clear the security checkpoints and worked their way to their assigned buildings.

The base itself consisted of four high-rise buildings, a large hangar complex, an armored vehicle parking area complete with airlock complexes, and more than two square kilometers of enclosed, pressurized and gravitated parkland upon which troops could assemble and exercise. Assembly time was typically 0700, except for a few specialized groups that met earlier. By 0730 the vast majority of the troops were out on the exercise grounds, performing the traditional calisthenics or running on the track that circled the base. As they ran and did their pushups on this morning the normal loose discipline that the MPG practiced was even looser than normal as everyone talked about the events of the previous evening. For the most part they cheered Laura Whiting and her idea, telling each other that it was about goddamn time that someone spoke up to the corporations. Many of them talked of the emails that they had composed and sent to their elected representatives. Only a few volunteered that they had not composed such correspondence. Those that did were quickly chided by their peers to do so and quickly, before the legislature opened an investigation.

"You don't think that will really work, do you?" asked corporal Salinas of the special forces division of his squad leader, Sergeant Fargo.

They were well into their fourth kilometer of the warm-up run and starting to breathe a little heavy. "It might not," Lon allowed, wiping sweat from his forehead. "But then she'll sure as shit go down within a week if we don't. If those prick politicians get enough mail threatening a recall vote if they try to impeach Whiting, that just might make them think twice. And it doesn't take much to compose one either. No real reason not to do it."

"And it feels damn good to tell off one of them fuckers too," put in Lieutenant Yee, their platoon commander and a twelve year veteran of special forces. "I went to bed happy last night after I sent mine off. Give it a shot, you'll like it."

"I guess I will then," Salinas said thoughtfully. "What's to lose?"

After their morning workout, Lon and his squad went into the base operations building for their briefing. They were to participate in yet another field operations drill today, their third in the last four months. The last year had brought a heavier than normal training schedule, particularly for the tank, special forces, and flight crews. No one at the operational level knew why although rumors always flew about a possible EastHem invasion in the works. Tensions had been rather high between the two governments lately since EastHem was stationing more warships at their naval base on Callisto, pushing the limits of a treaty signed as part of the Jupiter War armistice. None of Lon's squad minded the increased training in the least. It meant that instead of staying in the classroom all day learning new techniques, or instead of going to the gunnery range to practice old ones, they would don their biosuits and fly out into the wastelands to do what they did best: attack things and blow things up. Today's mission was going to be a fairly realistic anti-tank drill performed with real tanks from the MPG's first battalion.

After each of the four squads under Yee's command was given their operational area, they retreated to the bottom floor of the building where they drew their weapons and their biosuits from the armory.

"Okay, everyone," Lon told his men, "the standard load out will be the M-24 and six hundred rounds per man. Please be sure that you have training ammo instead of the real thing."

Everyone had a little chuckle over that. The training ammunition was an under-appreciated marvel designed by Martian engineers years before. The training rounds were made out of a thin synthetic material injected with helium. They came in everything from four millimeter all the way up to eighty-millimeter tank shells. They were the same size and would fire at the same suicidal velocity out of the various weapons, but instead of penetrating through the biosuits and the flesh beneath as a standard armor piercing round would, they would simply vaporize on contact.

"Matza," Lon said to his most junior member, "you're on the SAW today. Draw two thousand rounds for it."

"Right, sarge," Matza told him, excited to be in charge of the squad's machine gun.

"Galvan and Horishito, you two have the AT's," he said next, referring to the AT-50s, which were portable, shoulder fired anti-tank lasers. "Be sure to load up at least ten charges apiece, twelve if you can fit them. And again, make sure you have the training charges. We wouldn't want to blow the hell out of our own tanks."

"Right," Galvan and Horishito both agreed.

"Appleman," he said to the squad's medic. "You got your kit ready to roll?"

"I sleep with it, sarge," he assured him, hefting it up.

"All right then," Lon said with a smile. "Let's get to it. Our ride will be ready in sixty minutes."

The weapons draw went relatively quickly but it took them the bulk of their time to get into their biosuits. They wore standard MPG suits, the same as the ones the grunts and the tank crews wore out in the field. Each suit was custom fitted to its user and colored in the shades of red camouflage scheme that allowed it to blend in remarkably well in the bleak landscape of the wastelands. They were a vast improvement over the biosuits that the regular WestHem soldiers wore because the MPG suits were specifically designed for use on Mars instead of for use in any extra-terrestrial environment. A WestHem suit had a finite air supply for its user — usually four to six hours worth. In order to stay out in the field longer, a WestHem soldier needed to have spare tanks dropped to him. Martian suits, on the other hand, manufactured their own air from the thin Martian atmosphere. This added up to a smaller storage tank and a considerably less bulky suit. WestHem suits also emitted much more heat during operation, which made them much easier to detect by infrared sensors. An MPG biosuit was designed to slowly vent the body heat that its user produced, expelling it through evaporation via a series of pores all over the surface layer. In a way, it shed heat the same way a human body did, by transferring it into a liquid and then letting the liquid rise to the surface and outgas. Again, this was something that was only possible to do on the surface of Mars, which had an atmosphere, thin as it was. A soldier attempting to use an MPG biosuit on the surface of Ganymede or one of the other Jovian moons would die very quickly.

Once the suits were donned and powered up, a few minutes were spent dialing in the operations frequency that was to be used and calibrating the GPS links that helped them navigate on the surface. Each member of the squad had a radio link constantly open with Lon, who, as the squad leader, had a second link open with the platoon commander. After the radio and navigation tasks were taken care of, each man calibrated his weapon with the combat goggles built into the helmet. The computer in the goggles was hooked to sensors on the outside of the helmet that measured temperature, humidity, wind speed, and several other factors on an ongoing basis. When this information was calibrated with the particular weapon and ammunition type and tied into a sensor on the front of the weapon itself, a targeting recticle would appear in the user's field of vision when the weapon was brought up, showing where the rounds would hit if they were fired at that particular moment. The sensor on the weapon was of the binocular type, meaning that it could judge distance with fairly good accuracy, thus allowing for wind drift and gravity drop on targets that were further away. A small readout in the upper right of the goggle display showed the estimated distance to the target.

Lon sighted his M-24 back and forth a few times at various objects, testing the equipment. He aimed at the walls of the weapons room and then at the far door, watching as the small red circle followed his every move. The readouts seemed to work fine so he lowered the weapon once more and snugged it against his right side.

"Is everyone ready?" he asked his men once they had all finished their own sight-ins.

They were.

"Then lets do it. We got a Hummingbird to catch."

Hummingbird was the slang term for the ETH-70 transport craft that the special forces teams traveled in. It was one of two types of aircraft that had been specifically designed by Martian engineers for the Martian Planetary Guard. Like the biosuits, the Martian aircraft were only useful on the surface of Mars and had been designed to take advantage of the meager atmosphere. Hovers, which were the primary means that WestHem and EastHem troops moved about on the surface of extraterrestrial bodies, were bulky machines that kept aloft by means of directional thrusters on the bottom and back. Hovers were fairly slow moving and horrible gulpers of fuel, with a range of less than two hundred kilometers in the Martian gravity. The Hummingbirds, on the other hand, had two sets of large wings, which could be folded up for easy storage and extended to their full length once outside. These wings eliminated the need for vertical thrusters while in flight, increasing speed and fuel economy. A Hummingbird could haul twelve fully armed troops into the air and transport them more than four hundred kilometers out into the wastelands and back with fuel to spare.

When Lon and his squad entered the hangar deck of the base at 0945 that morning, activity was everywhere. The staging areas were filled with both the smaller Mosquito anti-armor planes — which were gearing up for some training of their own — and the larger, bulkier Hummingbirds. The crew chiefs were walking around most of the aircraft, making final checks of components and armament while the pilots and gunners went through pre-flight checks inside the cockpits. The Hummingbirds all had their back ramps extended into the loading position, awaiting the embarkation of their assigned troops. Their thrusters, which were located under each of the four wing positions, were all in the level flight positioning, facing backward, heat shimmering from their nozzles as they idled. The twenty-millimeter cannons, which were attached to a revolving turret below the nose, were all in the neutral position, facing forward.

"How you doin' today, Lon?" asked Mike Saxton, the crew chief for their assigned Hummingbird as they approached. He was a large man of African descent, dressed in pair of oily red and white coveralls. Since the aircraft hangar was fully pressurized and gravitated, there was no need for him to be dressed in a biosuit.

"Not too bad, Mike," Lon told him after making sure the external speaker for his suit was on. "Is this bucket of bolts airworthy today?"

"Don't be making fun of my hummer," he warned, only half jokingly. "I'll tell Rick to leave your asses out there in the waste."

"My apologies," Lon said, slapping him on the back. "Is this fine piece of machinery ready to take us to our destination?"

"That's better," Mike grinned. "She's all ready for you. Go ahead and board when you're ready."

They boarded, each walking up the thin alloy ramp and into the cramped interior. Though the Hummingbird could transport twelve loaded troops with ease, comfort was not part of the bargain. They crammed in five to a side and strapped themselves into small seats that folded out from the wall. Their weapons they kept against their chests, their packs full of extra ammo and food paste pushed into their backs. In the cockpit in front of them, Rick, the pilot, and Dave Yamata, the systems operator, were running through the pre-flight checklist. Since the aircraft would be depressurized once outside of the hangar, both of them were wearing biosuits as well.

"Ready to move out, sarge?" Rick asked as the pre-flight was completed. "The sooner we blow this scene, the less time we'll have to wait for an airlock."

"We're ready when you are," Lon told him.

"Okay," he said, turning to Dave. "Close us up and run through the final pressure check."

"Closing up," Dave said, pushing a button on the panel. The ramp rose up, pulled by hydraulic arms, and latched into place with a firm clank. "Pressure check in progress... and I got three greens on the panel."

"Copy three greens," Rick said. "Let's get clearance to taxi."

The clearance came a minute later and they began to move as Rick throttled up the hydrogen engine just enough to get them moving. The aircraft turned onto the taxiway and began to make its way towards the airlock complex on the far side of the hanger. Only one Hummingbird sized craft could fit into a single airlock at a time so they had to wait for nearly ten minutes while four Hummingbirds and three Mosquitoes went in front of them. As they waited, talk turned back to Laura Whiting and her now famous speech of the night before.

"I couldn't believe she actually said shit like that on Internet," proclaimed Gavin — who was a high school teacher by trade. "I mean, she told it like it was. She laid out how fucked up our political system is for everyone to hear."

"It was beautiful," agreed Horishito, who was a tram technician for MarsTrans. "I thought she was joking at first. When I realized she was serious, I just about shit my pants."

"I bet those pricks at Agricorp headquarters were the ones to shit their pants," Lon, who was of course an Agricorp employee as of the merger, said with a grin. "I would've loved to seen their faces when she told everyone how evil they were, or how much money they gave her to get her elected. That must've been priceless. Absolutely goddamn priceless."

"Yeah," said Gavin, shifting his AT-50 from one shoulder to the next, "but what are they gonna do to her now?"

"Nothing they can do if the legislature doesn't impeach her," Lon said. "And if everyone sends those pricks the email like Whiting asked, I don't think they'll have the balls to do it."

"They'll do it anyway," Horishito predicted gloomily.

"If they do, then we need to follow through and vote out our fuckin reps if they voted against her," said Mark Corning, a construction worker. "Hell, we need to do that if they even vote to open an investigation. When I sent my letter that's what I told Hennesy I'd do."

"You don't really think Hennesy is watching all of those emails, do you?" asked Horishito.

"Of course not," Corning said. "I bet the bitch don't look at a single fuckin one of them. But someone on her staff does and if enough people sent them in, she'll have to think twice about doing what Agricorp or whatever other fuckin corp that owns her, tells her to do."

Even Horishito had to admit that there was a point there. But he refused to accept that Laura Whiting would simply be allowed to stay in office. "There's no way in hell she'll keep the governor's office after what she said. I respect her for it and all, but you can bet your ass they're gonna find a way to get rid of her as quick as they can by whatever means they can."

"I think if they did that," said Lon, "it would be a very big mistake. Maybe the biggest that anyone has ever made."

With that the talk turned to other matters deemed more important, namely the marijuana they were going to smoke after training today and the women they were going to try to score with. This was a discussion that was as timeless as it was graphic, as crude as it was a part of the male psyche. Just as they were really getting on a roll however, they were given clearance to enter the airlock, something that none of them particularly looked forward to.

"I hate this part," Horishito said, bracing himself against his seat and closing his eyes. He received no words of disagreement.

Rick brought the Hummingbird forward across the taxiway, using small blasts of the thrusters to propel them. The large steel blast doors were standing open on the base side and the aircraft passed through with less than two meters of clearance on each side. He throttled back down once inside, bringing the engines to idle, and then applied the ground brakes when the nose was near the blast doors on the opposite side. "In position," he reported both to the airlock controller and to the special forces team in the back.

"Airlock closing," the computer generated voice replied over the radio link.

The blast doors behind them slid slowly shut upon their tracks, sealing off the airlock from the interior of the base. The moment they were closed the fans began to eject the air from the inside, lowering the atmospheric pressure to the level of the outside.

"Prepare for cessation of artificial gravity," the computer generated voice told Rick and Dave.

"Okay, guys," Rick told his cargo. "Get ready for lightening."

There was no gradual way to shut off the artificial gravity field that existed inside the building areas. It was either on or it was off. It could not be gently lowered from 1G to .3 Gs, the natural gravitational pull of Mars. A computer circuit cut power to the conductor that gravitated the airlock and just like that, everyone and everything, the plane, the weapons, the suit, the fluids within each person's body, lost two-thirds of it's weight. It was not considered to be one of life's great experiences. It gave a terrifying, dizzying sense of falling and spatial disorientation that lasted for almost a minute. Most people who experienced the sensation for the first time became sick to their stomach and vomited. Only the fact that all of Lon's team had been through lightening dozens of times kept them from heaving inside of their helmets.

"Ohhhh," Lon groaned miserably, feeling his stomach turning over. "Sometimes I wonder why I took this fucking job."

Everyone else in the aircraft, pilot and gunner included, matched his sentiments. But, as veterans of the process, all of them recovered by the time the fans finished evacuating the air from the lock.

"Decompression complete," the computer voice told Rick and Dave. "Airlock doors opening."

The blast doors on the exterior side of the lock slid slowly open, revealing a long taxiway that led out to the runways beyond. Red drift sand, a common problem on the Martian surface, marred the paved surface in a few places despite the fact that it had been freshly plowed less than an hour before. Rick throttled up a little and released the brakes, bringing the aircraft out of the lock and onto the staging area just beyond it. Once it was clear the blast doors immediately began to shut behind them to prepare for another cycle.

"Decompressing the aircraft," Dave said, pushing a pad on his computer screen. It was necessary to bleed the air out of the Hummingbird since the troops would be exiting it when they reached their landing area. If this step were not taken then they would all be blown out quite violently the moment the door was opened.

"I copy decompressing," Rick said. He pushed a pad on his own screen. "Unfolding wings."

The four large wings began to extend outward in sections, each piece pushed by mini-hydraulics and clanking neatly into place until the full thirty-meter span was out and ready for flight. This took about twenty seconds to accomplish and once it was done the aircraft, when viewed from above, resembled a very thin letter H turned on its side.

"Six greens on the gear locks," Rick reported.

"Decompression complete," Dave reported right after. "We're now at anticipated pressure for the LZ."

"Copy," said Rick. "Ready to taxi for take-off."

After gaining clearance he throttled up once more and began to roll forward, bumping along on the synthetic rubber landing gear until reaching the end of the north-south runway. Once in position he told the troops to brace for takeoff. Though most air and spacecraft were equipped with artificial gravity and inertial dampers to make the ride as smooth as standing on the surface, combat atmospheric craft did not come with that particular luxury. The heat that such devices produced made detection of the craft far too easy for an enemy.

"Lifting off," Rick said as he pushed the throttles forward to the maximum.

The roar of the hydrogen burning engines filled the craft with noise and vibration as the sudden acceleration pushed everyone towards the rear. Outside, the landscape began to blur by as they went from zero to more than 400 kilometers per hour in less than ten seconds. Because of the thin atmosphere of Mars, the speed one had to travel in order to obtain lift from the wings was considerable. When they reached 480 KPH of forward speed, considerably faster than the speed of sound in that environment, Dave pulled back on the stick and the Hummingbird's wheels broke contact with the runway. They climbed slowly, wobbling a little in the meager ground effect and then climbing above it. Dave pulled a lever next to his seat and the landing gear retracted into the belly of the craft with a thump. He then banked hard to the right, taking them to the east, out over the seemingly endless expanse of greenhouse complexes.

"ETA to the LZ is fifteen minutes," Dave told the troops over the intercom. "This is a combat insertion as you know. Get ready for a bouncing ride."

"Just the way we like it," Lon groaned, closing his eyes and waiting for it to be over. The flight in was his least favorite aspect of his job.

Rick kept them at two hundred meters above the greenhouses in order to keep from violating planetary flight regulations. Once they passed over the last group of them however, he dropped down to less than thirty meters above the ground, hugging the hilly terrain to keep from being detected. The Hummingbird was a bulky aircraft and not terribly maneuverable, especially at the speed it was moving, but he expertly kept it within two meters of his target altitude as they moved over and between hills, as they shot through valleys and old watersheds. He stared forward intently as the terrain moved up and down before him, his hands making adjustments to the stick and throttle.

In the back the ten men of Lon's squad fought down nausea as they pitched up and down, banked back and forth, seemingly randomly and with no forewarning of any kind. This coupled with the lack of outside visual references and the heavy knowledge that only a slight miscalculation on Rick's part would smash them into a hillside at more than 600 KPH, made for very unstable stomachs. They gripped their weapons tightly and most of them followed Lon's example and kept their eyes tightly shut.

Rick circled in a roundabout path through the Sierra Madres Mountains and down to the foothills that bordered it. On the other side of these rolling hills was a broad expanse of relatively flat terrain some five kilometers wide and more than sixty kilometers in length. Such terrain and other cuts through the surface like it were the most likely avenue of advance for any invasion force attacking the planet since they were flat enough to both support a group of orbit to surface landing craft and to move tanks, artillery, and other armored vehicles through. It was in these valleys that the Eden area MPG troops did most of their training.

"One minute to the LZ," Dave announced as they exited from the mountainous area and began to dive through the smaller foothills. "Going in hot."

"Copy," Lon said, fighting with his gorge. It had been a long time since he'd puked during an insertion but it was always a struggle.

Rick slowed to just above stall speed, easing up on the up and down motion a little bit. He banked sharply around the base of a hill and turned back to the east, towards a small gully that was known only by its map coordinates. "LZ in sight," he announced. "Get ready for insertion."

Dave, as the gunner, examined the ground around the landing zone carefully through his scope. An infrared enhanced camera mounted on the belly panned back and forth under magnification, searching for the telltale signatures of biosuits of "enemy" soldiers. It was possible, though very unlikely, that the MPG armored forces that were acting as the opposing force, or OPFOR, in the drill might have sent out patrols of the area. These training sessions were designed to be executed as realistically as possible. "I'm scanning clear," he announced as he saw nothing but empty ground.

"Copy, scanning clear," Lon echoed. He opened his eyes and looked at his troops. "Lock and load guys. It's time to play."

Everyone jacked rounds into the chambers of their weapons. "Let's get the fuck out of this deathtrap," Horishito said.

"Coming in," Rick said, picking his put down spot. He lowered the landing gear. "Brace for landing."

The transition from straight and level flight to a controlled vertical landing was a rather violent affair. Rick pitched upward and simultaneously changed the angle of the engines, directing the thrust downward. The entire aircraft shuddered as if in seizure as airspeed was bled off in a matter of seconds. The nose rose upward at more than forty-five degrees and the occupants were subjected to a jaw-wrenching 3G of deceleration. Once their forward airspeed fell to less than 30 KPH Rick nosed down, bringing them back level and reduced thrust, allowing gravity to pull them to the surface. The heavy duty, puncture-proof tires slammed down onto the dusty surface, bounced once, and then settled into a soft roll which was quickly halted with the brakes.

"On the ground," Rick said, keeping the thrusters at just over idle.

Dave pushed the button that opened the loading ramp. As it clanked downward, thumping to the ground, he pushed another button that released the restraint harnesses of the back passengers. "Go," he told them, continuing to peer into his scope for enemy soldiers. Had he seen any he could have engaged them with the twenty-millimeter cannon.

"Let's go," Lon said, getting carefully to his feet. Though the image of special forces troops was that they jumped up and ran everywhere, the fact was that on the surface of Mars in less than a third of normal gravity, you had to move carefully.

In an orderly fashion all ten of them moved down the ramp and out onto the surface of the planet, their suit boots tramping through the powdery, rocky soil. Dust blown up from the landing and the continued thrust of the engines obscured the terrain around them. Once outside the aircraft they spread apart in a well-practiced maneuver and lay down on the ground ten meters from the ramp, forming a loose circle with all of them facing outward, weapons ready to engage any targets that might be encountered.

"We're down," Lon barked into his radio link, letting the pilot know that he could get back into the air. As long as the Hummingbird was on the ground both it and the troops that it had inserted were vulnerable.

"Copy," Rick's voice said into his ear. "Lifting off. Kick some ass out here."

A moment later the blowing dust grew worse as the thrusters fired back up to full throttle, lifting the aircraft back into the air. When it was ten meters above the ground the thrusters turned slowly back to the rear, restoring forward flight. It moved faster and faster until it was once more capable of sustained flight again. It banked around to the north and moved away, keeping low to the ground. None of the men watched it go.

After a moment the dust began to settle or drift off in the 40 KPH wind and the men began to bark off that the area in front of them was clear.

"Okay," Lon said, gripping the stock of his M-24. "Jefferson, Horishito, Powell, Yamata, Salinas, move off to that group of boulders at my four o'clock. We'll cover. Matza, keep sharp with that SAW."

One by one the five men that Lon had named got to their feet and trotted across the uneven ground. They formed up in a wedge formation, their weapons ready for action, their equipment clanking on their backs. They stepped gingerly, each footfall a deliberate movement designed to keep them from losing their balance in the reduced gravity. Though their movements looked almost comical they were able to move surprisingly quickly and within a minute of exiting the ramp they were in position in the boulder field.

"It's clear over here, sarge," Corporal Salinas, his second-in-command, told him on the closed radio link they used. It was an ultra high frequency channel of minute power, incapable of being picked up more than a half-kilometer away unless a power boost was used. And even if it were picked up, the transmissions were encoded.

"Copy," Lon said. "We're coming up." He waved to the men left with him and they all got to their feet. Utilizing the same trot as those before them, they moved across the landscape and joined their companions. Once they were reunited Lon punched a command into the access panel on the sleeve of his biosuit. A detail map of the area they were in appeared before his eyes. A small red dot in the center of the map, placed there by the suit computer utilizing global positioning satellites in geosynchronous orbit, marked his current location on it. "Right on target," he said, studying the view. He looked to the south, towards a series of small hills. "Right over there," he pointed. "Hill 2718 and Hill 2712. They overlook the AOA of the OPFOR. Salinas, take Gavin and Horishito over to 2718 and hole up with those AT launchers. The rest of us will take 2712 and provide anti-personnel cover. Retreat rally position is going to be that boulder field at grid 7C on your maps."

"Right, sarge," Salinas said, shifting his weapon a little. "Let's go guys," he told Gavin and Horishito. They began to trot across the landscape in that direction.

"Powell," Lon said to one of his more experienced privates, "you take point. Matza, linger back with me with the SAW. Let's move."

They moved, the seven of them assembling into a wedge and moving quickly towards the hill.

The ETT-12 main battle tank was state of the art armor for the WestHem armed forces extra-terrestrial operations. Built in the Alexander Industries armament factory in New Pittsburgh, they weighed in at nearly sixty metric tons (in standard 1G gravity) and could travel at more than one hundred kilometers per hour across nearly any terrain. The engine was a high horsepower hydrogen-burning turbine that required very little maintenance. Crewing three, they sported twin high capacity anti-armor lasers protruding from a housing atop the turret. These lasers were their main guns and could put a hole in just about anything that they hit, no matter how thick or how reinforced. However, as handy a thing as lasers were for anti-vehicle or anti-structure assaults, they did have their limitations. Lasers with a capacity high enough to kill required significant amounts of power and they needed to be charged up before firing, something that took an average of eight to fifteen seconds, depending on the capacity and the power source. This made them virtually useless against personnel or massed light vehicles since rapid fire was impossible. For this reason the ETT-12 was equipped with an 80mm, high explosive round main gun, a 20 mm, high velocity cannon capable of firing nearly three hundred rounds per minute and a smaller, 4mm high velocity commander's weapon capable of firing nearly six hundred rounds per minute. These weapons were of course compatible with the firing computers of the crewmembers' biosuits making it quite easy to put bullets on target.

The Martian Planetary guard, which was technically an arm of the WestHem armed forces (though you would never hear an MPG member or a WestHem marine say so), used the ETT-12 as their main defensive weapon for city defense, which was basically the only thing worth attacking or defending on Mars. Utilizing the sales and income tax that Laura Whiting had proposed and pushed through the legislature after the Jupiter War, the MPG had bought and modified more than a six hundred of the expensive weapons over the years. The 1st battalion of the 6th Armored infantry regiment of the MPG was the main force responsible for point defense of Eden. They had 36 of these ETT-12s as their main striking power. In addition they had 54 top of the line Alexander Industries armored personnel carriers, each of which sported a lower yield anti-tank laser and two light machine guns and could carry a complete squad of infantry apiece. Backing up this force were four mobile anti-air laser vehicles that could fire up to six shots per minute and packed enough power to bring down an orbital lifter if such a thing was needed.

Major Michael Chin, a twelve-year veteran of the MPG (and a middle management employee of Alexander Industries in his real life) was the commander of the 1st of the 6th. Chin and the men under his command had been out in the wastelands since before sunrise that morning, their task to play prey for the special forces and air force. It was a role that they had played many times before in the past, pretending to be an enemy column advancing on Eden.

A tall man of Chinese descent and a fourth generation Martian, Chin was in the turret of one of the tanks in the middle of the column, watching through the view screen that was hooked to an infrared enhanced digital camera on the outside. Taking soft, easy breaths of the canned air from his biosuit, he panned back and forth, searching for any signs of the teams that he knew were out there somewhere. Time and time again those teams had cleaned his battalion's clock and, though he knew such training was invaluable for them, he was tired of being massacred by a bunch of kids with toy lasers. Today he was going to try a new tactic. After all, his orders were to make things as difficult as possible without actually cheating. "Chin to Air-def," he said on the command channel.

"Air-def here, boss," said Lieutenant Garcia, who was in command of the sixteen men who made up the air defense section of the battalion. "Go ahead."

"Get ready for action," he told them. "I can feel those sneaking fucks looking at us now. This is prime ambush ground and they usually call in the Mosquitoes to hit us first."

"Passive scanners are in acquisition mode," Garcia responded. "The lasers are charged and ready to go. Do you want me to go active on the search?"

"Negative on that," Chin replied. "The radar can't detect them worth a shit. All they do is give them a beacon to home in on. Just keep your eyes out. It's coming soon, I can feel it."

"You got it, boss," Garcia told him. "Staying passive and keeping the eyes open."

"Van Pelt," he said next, calling the captain in charge of the infantry squads.

"Yeah, boss," Van Pelt answered right back.

"Get ready to initiate the new plan," he told him. "The moment those Mosquitoes come into view, get those APCs moving towards the hills. Even split, half to the north and half to the south. We're gonna catch those bastards this time and they're gonna be buying every last one of us bong hits and beers after the exercise."

"You got it, boss," Van Pelt said enthusiastically. He had caught some of his commander's optimism.

The special forces teams, though deadly and stealthy, were somewhat predictable in their operation. They had to be with their limited resources. Usually the teams stayed well hidden in the hills above the advance and called in Mosquitoes to make firing runs on the APCs before they showed themselves. MPG doctrine was not to concentrate on the heavy armor but to instead kill as many of the soldiers as possible as far from the battle area as possible, thereby reducing their numbers to ineffective before they got close to their objective. In a battle where the enemy would have to land their ships outside of artillery range of the city defenses (at least 300 kilometers away) and march inward from there, it made the most tactical sense. The MPG was basically a sniping force that fought using guerrilla tactics. Once the Mosquitoes had made their initial runs, the anti-tank crews of the special forces units would open up with their shoulder fired lasers, taking out more of the APCs and forcing the remaining soldiers out into a fight. Once the soldiers unloaded and tried to assemble, the machine gunners and riflemen would open up, picking off as many as they could as quick as they could. They would then withdraw to safety and be extracted by the Hummingbirds before the infantry troops could close with them. Each individual run would not cause serious attrition, but when they came again and again in succession, the numbers quickly added up.

"Not this time," Chin vowed, continuing to scan back and forth. "We're gonna make those fuckers pay this time."

Fifty kilometers to the north, on the other side of the protective hills, two Mosquitoes circled lazily three hundred meters above the ground. Officially called the AA-55 atmospheric attack craft, they were essentially nothing more than flying wings powered by a single hydrogen/methane semi-rocket engine. Looking like a thirty meter boomerang of flimsy design, they could travel through the Martian sky at speeds up to 700 KPH and pull turns of up to 3Gs. Like the Hummingbirds and the MPG biosuits they were functional only on the planet Mars and for this reason the regular WestHem armed forces did not possess them or even acknowledge their possible usefulness.

The name Mosquito came from the derisive comments of a regular WestHem marine general back when the Martian designed and produced aircraft first became a part of the MPG in the early days. This general, who at the time had been the commander of the Marine quick response force stationed on the planetary surface, had been interviewed by one of the Earth based Internet stations for a documentary on the alleged waste of taxpayer money that the MPG represented.

"I don't really see the use for winged aircraft on an extra-terrestrial surface," he had opined for everyone to hear. "Sure, they're cute to look at and they can move faster than the traditional hovers that the real forces use, and I'll even give credit to the Martian engineers who were able to design and produce such a craft in the first place. But when it comes down to practicality on the battlefield, I'm afraid they're seriously lacking. There's no way that such a flimsy target could stand up to modern air defenses over an advancing column. They would be nothing more than annoying mosquitoes buzzing around an EastHem advance, waiting to get swatted. In my opinion the so-called General who runs this force would be much wiser to invest the Martian taxpayer dollars in more tanks, which are truly the cornerstone of any defense."

Of course the Martians had made a habit long ago of holding in contempt nearly everything that was reported on WestHem Internet news. As such, the intended effect of the report, which had been sponsored by none other than Alexander Industries and had been designed to force Jackson and the procurement committee to buy more of their armor, had failed. And the derisive term that had been casually coined by the general had actually endeared itself to the Martians who flew the AA-55 and by those who trained with it. By the time a year had gone by Mosquito was the official name and the fact that mosquitoes had once been one of the deadliest insects on planet Earth had not gone unremarked upon by the Martian forces.

The Mosquito, for all its gracefulness and flimsy design, was basically an armor buster. Mounted on the belly of the craft, in a retractable turret directly beneath the cockpit, was a twin laser cannon nearly as powerful as those on the ETT-12s. This cannon was under direct control of the gunner, who sat behind the pilot, and could be aimed and fired as fast as the gunner could turn his head and put a targeting recticle on a vehicle. The recharge rate of the lasers was a moderate twelve seconds which meant that the standard Mosquito tactic was to rush in at low level from behind surrounding hills or mountains, blast two pieces of armor — usually the APCs in keeping with MPG doctrine — and then buzz back under cover again before anti-air forces could even acquire it. It was a remarkably simple aircraft, with no autopilot and very little avionics besides standard navigation equipment. It was truly a pilot's aircraft in an age when almost everything was computer controlled.

Brian Haggerty was the pilot of the lead Mosquito. He held the stick lightly in his right hand and the throttle lightly in his left, keeping the aircraft in a shallow bank over the staging area. He and his gunner, Colton Rendes, were dressed in standard MPG biosuits and strapped into Martian designed ejection seats that could rocket them clear of the craft in an emergency and then set them gently down on the surface below. The cockpit was a bubble canopy that gave them commanding views of the jagged hills below them. It was a strangely beautiful landscape that neither ever got tired of looking at.

"I'm telling you, Brian," Colton was saying over their open com link, "you have to follow through with this email. This is not the time to be apathetic about politicians. Apathy is what got the human race into this mess in the first place."

Brian snorted a little, half in disgust, half in exasperation. "You're starting to sound like Lisa, my partner," he said. "A goddamn veteran cop and she's spouting on and on about Laura Whiting. She even voted for her. Voted! She was nagging me at end of watch last night to compose that friggin email to my legislature, just like she asked us to do. Like it's really gonna do any fucking good."

"You heard Whiting last night, didn't you?" asked Colton, who was a flight engineer on a MarsTrans surface to orbit craft. "Did that sound like typical political rhetoric to you?"

"That was quite an eye-opening speech," he said. "I'll give you that. And I'll even go so far as to admit that maybe Whiting really is trying to push for independence. But if she really thinks that WestHem is ever going to let us go under any circumstances, she's fucking schizo. Why should I waste my time threatening that dick-wipe politician that fucking Agricorp has assigned to my district? He doesn't give a shit what I say or what I think. All he gives a shit about is what his sponsors, those rich prick Earthling corporate assholes, want him to do. And what they want him to do is impeach Whiting. I'll be surprised if she makes it through the week."

"I'll be surprised if she makes it through the week too," Colton told him. "Believe me, I have as much common sense as any Martian. I know how the fucking system works. But would you agree that it would be better for us to keep Whiting in office than it would be to get rid of her."

"Well... sure," he said. "Anything that pisses off those corporate fucks is all right in my book."

"And since it only takes five minutes to tell your legislature member that you'll sign a petition to have him recalled and that you'll then vote to do it, why shouldn't you take the time? It's not like it costs you anything."

"I just don't think it'll do any good," Brian said. "They don't listen to anyone who doesn't command a corporation."

"Who cares whether it does any good or not?" he asked, a little exasperated. "If he does vote to impeach Whiting and someone does put a petition screen in front of you to recall him, would you put your print on it?"

"Shit, I'd do it now," Brian said.

"And if there were enough signatures to recall the bastard and there was a vote scheduled on that very issue, would you log on and vote to oust him?"

"I suppose I would," he said.

"Then compose an email and tell the prick that," Colton said. "Tell him. Whiting got up on that stage last night and she showed some fucking huevos. Can you imagine what it took for her to do that? The least you could do in return is stand in front of your fucking terminal tonight and compose a little email. If enough people do that today maybe, just maybe, those fucks will be forced to make a decision. And just maybe enough of them will make the decision that we need: to keep Whiting in office. What can it hurt?"

Brian had to admit that he had a point. "What the hell?" he said with a shrug. "I guess I could do it to pay her back for the sheer entertainment value of that speech."

"See?" Colton said, reaching forward and patting him on the shoulder of his suit. "You do have some damn common sense in there."

"Here they come," Lon said, looking at the cloud of dust that was approaching from the eastern horizon. A complete armored battalion was impossible to move from one place to another undetected. It was not the sort of thing that just slipped by while you weren't looking.

"Fuckin aye," said Jackson, who was all the way over on the next hill, maybe a half kilometer away, but who was connected via the UHF radio link. "Right down the old poop shoot."

Lon and those with him were sequestered among a group of fairly large boulders near the crest of the hill. The ancient lava rocks were nice and solid and had been in place here for perhaps that last billion years or so. They would make good cover for the coming fight, especially since the 20mm cannons on the tanks and APCs would be loaded with training rounds. These rounds would hit hard enough to knock a man clean off his feet if impact occurred, but they would not penetrate or cause damage to the biosuits themselves. The rule was that once a man was hit in a vital area such as the chest or head, he was deemed to be dead. His suit, the computer controlling it having been placed in training mode, would then cut off all communications with the other team members unless an emergency override code was given (the utilization of which would automatically cause a cease-fire to be called in the simulated battle) and would render his weapons unable to be fired. Thus the "killed" team member could no longer be of assistance in the battle but could tag along with them as they moved in order to avoid being left behind. The same principal applied to the OPFOR equipment. If a man was hit, his suit computer would take him out of the action. If a tank were hit with the low yield training laser charges, that tank would be shut down and not allowed to participate further in the battle. If an APC took a lethal hit on the sides or top while troops were on board, all of the troops would have their communications links and weapons shut down. If the anti-air vehicles were hit, they too were rendered incapable of firing any further. All of these computer enhancements, be they to the biosuits, the weapons, or the vehicles themselves, were Martian adaptations available only on MPG equipment and designed specifically to make training missions more realistic. The regular WestHem forces, by contrast, exercised mostly in computer simulations to save money and wear and tear on their equipment.

Lon set his M-24 down for a moment and adjusted the magnification of his combat goggles. Instantly, with the help of infrared enhancement, he was able to pick out the individual tanks of the column even though they were still nearly twenty kilometers distant. "Looks like an armored cavalry column of battalion strength," he reported to his men. They had not been privy to what the strength of the OPFOR was going to be. "They have fifty plus APCs, we're talking five hundred troops if they're fully loaded. I also have three... no four SAL-50 anti-air vehicles in the front, middle, and rear of the column."

"I'm reading the same," said Jefferson from his perch. "Moving at about forty KPH."

"That gives us an ETA to contact of about thirty minutes," Lon said. "I'm gonna get hold of the Mosquitoes." He flipped another switch on his computer panel and dialed into the encoded laser frequency. "Striker flight one," he said, keying the radio link. "This is Shadow team six. Are you there?" In order to avoid giving themselves away by leaking radio emissions, his words were converted to digital pulses, which were shot upward 18,000 kilometers by a laser beam to a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit. The suit computer used GPS data to keep a constant fix on the satellite's location in the sky. If Lon had been in a position where the laser was blocked by an obstacle, an indicator in his goggles would have lit up, telling him this.

The delay from talking to reception was about three seconds. "Shadow six, this is striker one," came the voice of Brian Haggerty, one of the many pilots they worked in tandem with on a regular basis. "Go ahead. I'm tracking your current position."

"Copy that you're tracking us," Lon said. In addition to providing secure communications, the laser system also carried placement data, allowing support units to have an accurate fix on friendlies. "We have a visual on an armored column of battalion strength moving eastward through the cut. We count thirty plus ETT-12s, fifty plus APCs, and four SAL-50s. The SAL-50s are at the ends and middle of the column. They're moving west at approximately forty klicks. Estimated time to our position, thirty minutes. I repeat, three zero minutes."

"Copy thirty minutes," Haggerty said. "Get back with us five minutes to strike time with an update and we'll wake them up for you."

"Will do," Lon said. "Shadow six out."

They watched mostly in silence as the column drew closer and closer. The dust cloud that it raised expanded and continued to blow off to the south, carried by the prevailing seasonal winds. Though the sound of the advance did not reach them — sound did not travel very far or very well through the Martian air — the vibration and the rumbling of the ground did. The movement of nearly ninety armored vehicles was enough to shake loose small rocks. It was as they began to come into view without magnification assist that Lon began to notice something different about their formation. It took him a few minutes to pin down exactly what it was. Usually the APCs traveled in a protective ring of tank platoons, all the better to cover the soldiers within. Now the tanks were mostly forward and to the rear, with only a few token pieces covering the flanks.

"Look at how the APCs are formed up," he said when it finally came home to him. "That's not a standard marching formation."

"No," Jefferson said. "It sure ain't. Why do you think they're doing that?"

"That crafty little fuck Chin is up to something," Lon said. "He's trying to screw us out of our beer tonight."

"What's he planning?" asked Gavin. "Why would he leave the APCs bare like that? It doesn't make sense."

"It does if he wants them free for a charge," Jefferson opined. "You think he's trying to spring a little trap on us, sarge?"

"I think that may very well be his intention," Lon said, his eyes tracking over the column. He thought for a few moments as he watched them, his mind whirring in overdrive. His troops respectfully remained silent, allowing him to think. "Maybe," he said at last, "we have become a little too predictable. Maybe we should change things just a bit on this attack."

"Change things?" Jefferson asked. "What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that Chin left his APCs unprotected on the flanks and maybe we can take a little advantage of that. Jefferson, get on the secure link to our Hummingbird and tell them to lift off and get ready for extraction."

"Right, sarge," he said.

"Everyone else, listen up. This is the new plan." He began to talk. Everyone liked what he said.

Brian listened to the update from the special forces team observing the column. Fargo, the squad leader, wanted to go with a change in normal operations, something that was not particularly discouraged in the MPG. It sounded like a fairly good plan so he raised no objections to it, something that would have been his right had there been some question of the safety of the aircraft.

"That sounds doable, shadow six," he answered back once the details were heard. "We're on the way now. ETA to strike is five minutes. We'll let you know when we're thirty seconds out."

"We'll be waiting," Lon's voice assured him after the normal delay. "Shadow six standing by."

Brian switched his frequency switch back to the channel that allowed him to communicate with the plane on his wing. "Did you copy all of that, John?" he asked.

"I copied," John Valenzuela, the pilot of the plane, told him. "Sounds like fun, going in without much opposition for once."

"Well, don't get too happy about it," Brian warned. "They still have a shitload of handheld anti-air lasers down there. They're harder to track on but it only takes one."

"Happy?" John asked with a laugh. "Who the hell could be happy around here? Let's do it. I'm right on your ass."

"Where you belong," Brian said, applying throttle and banking sharply to the right.

Moving almost as one object, the two Mosquitoes dove down towards the ground and leveled off at less than twenty meters about it. They accelerated to optimum low-level penetration speed and headed for the hills that guarded the valley. Using a map window on his heads up display to navigate with, Brian shot between hills and dove through gullies, cutting back and forth, up and down, but always moving towards the target area.

"Charge up the laser," Brian told Colton. "Targets will be the APCs, as always."

"Charging," Colton said, looking at his panel. "And I confirm we're in training mode. Low yield shots only."

"Three minutes to target area," Brian said, cutting hard to the right to avoid a particularly large hill. "I'm gonna come up from the west, right over the top of the team on the ground and then head back in over the hills beyond them."

"Sounds like a plan," John answered.

They flew on, heading into the larger hills now, forcing them to maneuver more violently. They bounced about, cut back and forth and the red hills flashed around them on both sides, nothing but blurs. The wings bent and flexed, dipping up and down with the turns. The engine thrummed, gulping fuel and oxygen as it was accelerated and decelerated. Brian kept them in the valleys as much as he could, denying the OPFOR infrared sensors even the barest glimpse of them. It was what Mosquito pilots were best at.

"Thirty seconds," Brian announced over the laser net when they got close. "Do your stuff, shadow six."

"Gavin, Horishito," Lon said when he heard this. "Strike is thirty seconds out. Do it!"

"Copy," both said in unison. From their own perches atop their hill, in the safety of the boulders, they aimed their charged AT-50 tubes down on the column below. Both had already been assigned their targets — two of the anti-air vehicles — and, with the assistance of the magnification setting on their goggles, they sighted in and put their crosshairs directly on the sides, where the engines were.

Less than a second apart they pushed the discharge buttons sending the laser energy out at the speed of light. They scored two direct hits and just like that the advancing column had lost half of its anti-air capabilities.

"Sir," came the excited voice of sergeant Bracken, the second-in-command of the anti-air division. "Two laser flashes from the hills. We've lost two of the SALs! The lieutenant was in one of them."

"What the fuck?" Chin said, panning madly to see what was happening. Other reports began to come in on the frequency now, all of them reporting laser flashes on the hillside. What the hell was this? Had the special forces teams changed the way they operated?

To give him credit, Chin reacted quickly to the situation. "All tank units," he said into the tactical channel. "Open up on the hillside where the flashes came from. Put some fire on those fuckers! Van Pelt!"

"Here, boss," Van Pelt said instantly.

"Move your people in! I want every soldier you have converging on that hill group!"

"Copy," he said.

"Displace," Jefferson yelled the moment the lasers were fired. "Get the fuck out of here before the return fire comes in."

Gavin and Horishito did not have to be told twice. They rolled backwards, down the hill, and then crawled to the right, dragging their laser tubes with them. Jefferson, holding his M-24, brought up the rear. Before they could even get ten feet away training rounds, both large and small caliber, began slamming into the rocks around them, hitting with thuds loud enough to be heard even through the thin air and the insulating biosuit helmet. Tiny bits of soft plastic shrapnel sprayed over them. Other rounds whizzed overhead, an experience that was more sensed than felt or seen.

As soon as they reached their new positions both men ejected the spent charging batteries from their lasers, letting them fall to the ground. The charges were plastic, fifteen centimeters square by four centimeters thick, and colored yellow, indicating they were for training only. They grabbed fresh ones from their packs and slammed them into the slots, pushing the charge button as soon as they were in place.

Fire belched from the main guns of the tanks as well as the smaller, commanders' weapons. Hundreds of rounds per second were launched towards the spot where the two laser flashes had come in the hope that the offenders would be hit by one of them. Meanwhile the APCs, on order from Van Pelt, had all turned and were rushing at top speed at the hills, the soldiers inside of them anxious to get in the fight and put a hurt on the special forces teams that had tormented them for so long. They knew that if they could get to those hills in time they could catch the teams before they retreated to the safety of their Hummingbird.

"Keep up the covering fire on that hill," Chin ordered. "Spread it out a little. Plaster that whole fucking area!"

Before the tanks could begin to spread their volume around a little bit however, the Mosquitoes joined the battle.

"Coming into firing range," Brian announced to both his gunner and his wingman. "Let's pop some APCs!"

He pulled up over the last hill, flying almost directly over the top of Lon and his men. With a quick bank to the right he was now paralleling the valley, streaking along the side of it at more than seven hundred kilometers per hour. In the back seat Colton was looking out the canopy, his goggles placing an X on wherever the laser cannon would hit if fired at the moment. As he turned his head, so did the X, as he looked up or down, so did it. On the belly of the aircraft, the twin cannon complex moved back and forth with his motions as well, swiveling on its turret. The targets came suddenly into view, an entire line of tiny APCs rolling across the ground below. He moved his head and put the X on one of them, simultaneously pushing the firing button in his hand. The laser flashed and instantly was hitting the target, telling its computer to shut it down and to declare the twelve men inside of it dead. Another turn of the head and the X was on another APC. Another push of the button and another vehicle and everyone in it were out of the battle. Behind them John and his gunner did the same.

And then it was time to get out. Brian cut sharply back to the right while the lasers went into automatic recharge mode for another run. Before the remaining anti-air vehicles of the column even realized that an attack was underway, the Mosquitoes were back in the safety of the hills and out of range. It was a picture perfect Mosquito run.

"Charged," yelled Horishito from his new firing position. A second later this declaration was echoed by Gavin.

"Good," said Jefferson, who was peering out at the column below from between the rocks. He watched the advancing APCs and the flashing of the tank guns. Rounds were now starting to hit around them as the tanks spread out their fire. "Now take out those other two SALs," he ordered. "Gavin, you get the left one. Horishito, you take the right. Let's clear the air for the Mosquitoes before those bastards overrun us."

Without bothering to acknowledge their orders they aimed their weapons downward, each of them seeking the distinctive box shape of the surface to air laser vehicles. Horishito found his first. He moved his weapon until the firing recticle rested on its side and then he gently squeezed the trigger. There was no kick from the laser as it discharged, nor was there any sound or any light visible in anything other than the infrared spectrum. But down on the target there was a bright flash as the laser energy expended itself against the steel side of the vehicle.

"That's a kill," Horishito announced, rolling out of his position and preparing to crawl to the next.

Gavin fired a few seconds later, just as the tanks switched their concentration on the new firing hole. His shot was also a kill, which he gleefully announced.

"Strike one," Lon announced over the secure net. "The SALs are all down. I repeat, the SALs are all down. We have APCs closing our position. We could use a little help over here."

"On the way back," Brian's voice replied. "We're coming in from the north and egressing to the west this time."

Chin watched helplessly as his tactical display showed all four of his anti-air assets a lethal red color. He no longer had the ability to fight off the Mosquitoes without dismounting some of his infantry troops. "Those bastards," he whispered to himself, shaking his head. He could not help however, feeling a sincere measure of respect for them.

He keyed up his radio link. "Van Pelt," he said, shouting over the sound of the guns on his command tank. "They've knocked out our SALs. Get some dismounts out with anti-air lasers as quick as you can. Those Mosquitoes will be coming back! They'll chew us up if we don't have something to swat them away with."

"Copy, boss," Van Pelt answered, his voice resigned. Chin understood. A perfect plan to catch the special forces team with their pants down had just gone to shit. By changing tactics they had forced him to take his soldiers out of their APCs and put them on the ground where they were most vulnerable.

The Mosquitoes shot back over the battlefield, rising up from behind the hills and making an almost leisurely run. Lon, watching them as they passed, saw their lasers flash in the infrared and just like that four more of the APCs were dead. They banked off to the left and disappeared, spinning around to make another run.

"We've got troops dismounting," Jefferson announced from his position with the laser team. "Four o'clock."

Lon looked down and saw that eight of the APCs had stopped. Their guns were now blazing to provide cover for the biosuited infantry troops taking up position behind them. Many of the troops had laser tubes in their hands. They began to pan through the sky, searching for the Mosquitoes. "Horishito, Gavin," he said, "keep blasting those APCs as quick as you can get your weapons charged. Displace between shots. Go for the lead ones first."

"Copy," Horishito and Gavin answered in unison.

"The rest of you," Lon said, "start putting fire on those troops."

Following his own orders, Lon aimed his M-24 through a gap in the rocks and put his recticle on a group covering behind one of the APCs. His weapon was set for three round bursts. He pushed the firing button smoothly and the rifle fired with short, high pitched pops, the casings ejecting to the right and behind him, falling with exaggerated slowness in the weak gravity and clattering on the rocks. Though the bullets were being launched from the weapon at extremely high velocity, the recoil was negligible thanks to the design of the rifle's action. The rounds could be seen in the infrared spectrum as rapid streaks of red moving downrange. He moved the recticle slightly and fired again. Dust began to rise from the area where the bullets were impacting and several of the troops were hit in the chest and head. From around him came the pops and crackles of other weapons, including the 5mm squad automatic weapon being fired by Matza. Lon was gratified to see that the newest member of his squad was operating the bipod mounted SAW very well. He was using short, controlled bursts and aiming at the greatest concentrations of troops.

"Strike one," Lon said into the laser link as he fired. "This is shadow six. Be advised, dismounts are out with hand held SALs. We're engaging them with small arms fire."

"Copy, shadow six," Haggarty's voice replied. "Keep 'em occupied if you can. We're coming up for another pass in about ten seconds."

"Van Pelt," Chin yelled over the continued thumping of the tank guns, "get some fire on those small arms positions. They're killing the anti-air crews!"

"Just gave the order, boss," Van Pelt replied. "Sections five through eight are shifting fire. I'll have the empty APCs keep plastering the AT-50 positions."

"How long until we can get some dismounts on those hills?"

"Another thirty seconds or so," Van Pelt told him. "The first units are coming into position now."

Even as he said this an infrared flash appeared from the hill and another APC died. Two seconds later, before fire could even be shifted to the new position, another flash took out another one.

"Goddamn they're good with those things," Chin said with frustrated admiration. He already knew that he had lost the battle. The simple ten man squad of special forces soldiers and their air cover had already "killed" fifteen of his vehicles and more than a hundred men. All he could hope to do now was catch them before they escaped; something that was doubtful at best.

"Mosquitoes! Six o'clock low!" someone screamed over the net.

Chin looked behind him and saw the distinctive thin shapes of the anti-tank craft screaming out of the hills and heading directly for them. He could see the cannon turrets on the bottom spinning back and forth, seeking new targets. The dismounted soldiers, most of whom were cowering behind the meager cover of their APCs, began panning their hand-held lasers back and forth, trying to get a fix on one of the aircraft. One of the men stood to free up his range of motion and was promptly hit in the head by automatic weapons fire, the rounds spraying misty vapor off of his helmet and instantly shutting him down. He kicked the dirt in frustration and then sat down to wait out the battle.

The cannons on the Mosquitoes flashed and four more of the APCs were dead in the dirt. Six of the anti-air crews managed to pull off a shot at them but none hit. They whizzed over the far end of the column and disappeared back into the hills.

Tank and APC rounds were now slamming into their positions with alarming frequency. Rocks, dust, and soft shrapnel were flying through the air in an actual cloud, pelting everyone's helmet with debris. Down in the valley the APC's were pulling up to the hillside, positioning themselves to dismount their ground troops, who would then start moving in force up the slope to engage them. Though the tactical display showing in his goggles told him that all of his men were still alive, he knew that would change if they stayed much longer. It was time to do what special forces did best.

"Displace and retreat," Lon ordered, firing one more burst down at the soldiers below. "Rally at the LZ. Let's get the fuck out of here."

In an orderly fashion the men pulled their weapons in and rolled down the back of the hill until they were safe from stray rounds. Matza safed the SAW and slung it over his back. Gavin and Horishito did the same to their AT-50s. Everyone else slung their M-24s on their shoulders and began moving as rapidly as possible down the hill.

"Strike one," Lon said to the Mosquito crews. "We're bugging out. No casualties taken. Thanks for the fun, guys."

"Anytime, Lonnie," Haggarty told him. "We owe you guys a bong hit tonight for slamming those SALs for us. This was the most fun I've had in a year."

"We'll take you up on that, Brian," Lon answered. "See you there."

It took them only a few minutes to reach the bottom of the hills. Once there they trotted as fast as they could to the north, putting a few more hills between themselves and the battle area. They puffed hard as they went, all of them showing discharge warnings on their air supply screen. This was understandable and expected in post-combat maneuvers. Finally they rounded the last hill and they were at the landing zone.

"Deploy in defensive positions," Lon told them.

They formed a protective circle in the boulder field, weapons trained outward.

"Jefferson," Lon said. "Are you still in contact with the hummer?"

"They're moving in now, sarge," Jefferson responded. "ETA less than a minute."

The ETA turned out to be accurate. From the north the bulky flying H that was the Hummingbird came over the hills at stall speed, it's wheels down, and then nosed up, it's thrusters showing an intense red on the infrared displays. It dropped out of the sky and thumped to the ground, raising a large cloud of red dust that obscured it completely.

"Get on board," Lon barked. "Move, move!"

They moved, rushing over the sandy soil and into the dust cloud, their infrared sensors guiding them to the open ramp. One by one they trotted up and took a seat, quickly strapping themselves in and securing their weapons. Each person called out their name and the word secured once they were ready for flight. When the tenth person was safe and accounted for Dave pushed the ramp button and sealed them up.

"Lifting off," said Rick, applying throttle even as he did so. The aircraft shuddered and pushed into the sky, moving forward as the thrusters were directed towards the rear. Within a minute they were out of the area.

"Digital perfect," Lon said, slumping into his seat as they pitched and dived through the hills. "Good mission, guys. Damn good mission."

"Van Pelt here, boss," came the voice over the radio link ten minutes later.

Chin was watching his tactical display as the small blue dots that represented the dismounted infantry moved over the map. More than a hundred soldiers had advanced without opposition to the top of the hills where the ambush had come from. "Go ahead," he said, already knowing what was going to be said.

"We found their firing positions," he responded. "They've bugged out. No casualties left behind."

"Damn," Chin muttered. He had been hoping for at least one "dead" special forces member. Had any of them been "killed" in the battle, they would have been left behind by their companions and forced to endure a ride back to the base with the OPFOR in one of the "dead" tanks or APCs. It was something that had happened a few times before but not often. "Copy that," he said into the radio link. "Are you in pursuit of them?"

"We are," he confirmed. "Advance elements are already at the bottom of the hill as you can see on you display. It's not looking real good for catching them though."

"Give it a shot anyway," Chin ordered. "We have to go through the motions, don't we?"

Jeff Creek lived on the 63rd floor of the Bingham Tower Public Housing building in apartment 6312. Prior to his marriage to his longtime girlfriend Belinda six months before, he had lived on the 79th floor of the building with his parents. Now that he was married however, he was entitled under the federal and planetary welfare laws to his own one bedroom apartment. In addition to this, every two weeks he and his wife were given 835 dollars for food and clothing, sixty dollars worth of alcoholic beverage credits, and eighty dollars worth of marijuana and tobacco credits. Of course these credits were only redeemable at Agricorp subsidiary intoxicant stores and could only be used to purchase the lowest grades of product available but you took what you could get.

Jeff, like most of the welfare class, rose late in the morning as a habit. Why shouldn't he? There was no job for him to get up and go to nor was there any point in going out to look for one. It was 10:58 when he pulled himself from the cheap mattress that was his bed. Wearing only a pair of tattered shorts Jeff walked to the bathroom of the apartment, which was connected to both the small living room/kitchen portion and the bedroom by connecting doors. He urinated into the rust stained toilet and then told the house computer system to turn on the shower. Recognizing his voice pattern and using his preset temperature preference, it turned on the valves, setting free a feeble spray of warm water that trickled down from the old, leaking pipe. He stripped off his shorts, tossing them into the corner of the room and stepped inside, taking five minutes to scrub himself clean.

"Belinda," he yelled out into the living room once he was done. "Where's the fuckin clean laundry?"

Belinda was watching a romance drama on the main Internet screen and sipping from her second Fruity of the day. "Ain't no fuckin money to do laundry," she yelled back, not even glancing in his direction. "We spent it all on food."

"What the hell am I supposed to wear?" he demanded, stepping out into the living room naked.

"Ask me if I give a fuck," she said. "Now shut your ass. I'm trying to watch this."

"Bitch," he muttered, trotting back into the bedroom. He dug around in the heaping laundry pile by the door until he found the least offensive shirt and shorts that he could. He pulled them on his body and then donned a pair of leather moccasins, the standard footwear on Mars. He ran a comb through his hair, arranging the strands into something approaching presentable, and then picked up his gun and his PC, stuffing both into the waistband of his shorts. He reached into a drawer on a cheap nightstand and pulled out his bag of marijuana and his pipe.

"Where you going?" Belinda asked as he moved through the living room towards the door.

"Out," he said simply.

"Well be sure to be back tonight sometime," she answered listlessly. "You have to fuck me tonight. I'm ovulating."

"Whatever," he said, opening the sliding door and stepping out into the hall.

The hallway of the 63rd floor had once been carpeted in a fecal-brown industrial grade covering. Years of being urinated on, having cigarettes tapped and dumped upon it, and being painted with gang graffiti had resulted in its condemnation by the health department on one of their bi-decade inspections. Since then it had been removed, leaving only the bare concrete of the floor. Now the concrete itself had gang graffiti and puddles of urine or vomit and thousands of other unidentifiable but equally disgusting markings. The walls were also prime canvas for graffiti and overlapping gang epitaphs from various ages lined it ceiling to floor on both sides in every imaginable color. Doors to other apartments were spaced every five meters on both sides and several cross hallways led off into different parts of the building. A few people were wandering around the halls as he made his way to the elevators, most of them shuffling along and trying to look tough. He passed several current Capitalist members, getting respectful nods from them in deference to his gang tattoo with the large R over the top of it proclaiming his honorably retired status.

He lit a cigarette as he waited for the up elevator to arrive, puffing thoughtfully and wondering if he was even going to be able to produce an erection for that bitch Belinda tonight. It was something that was getting harder and harder to do even though he badly wanted the extra income and bigger apartment that parenthood guaranteed him. He couldn't stand her and he was finding that getting sexually excited for someone that you hated was not as easy as it had once been. He found himself thinking, almost against his will, that maybe his friend Matt was right. Maybe it was a mistake to marry the first person to come along just to achieve the status that went with it.

The elevator doors slid open revealing the dank interior. Two women were inside chatting to each other about the Laura Whiting speech the previous night, their tones animated and profane. Both had baskets of fresh laundry from the laundry room in the basement of the building. Neither acknowledged him in any way as he stepped inside.

"Ninety-three," he told the elevator computer and it acknowledged him by lighting up the numeral on its display board. The doors clanked shut and the floor indicator began to blur rapidly upward. No movement of any kind was felt inside the elevator itself. Even though they were shooting upwards at more than five floors per second the inertial dampening properties of the artificial gravity field kept them from feeling it.

The numbers came to an abrupt halt at 93 and the doors slid open once more. He stepped out into a hallway that was virtually identical to the one that he had entered from. He turned left and began walking through the halls, following a course he had walked perhaps ten thousand times in his life. Several twists and turns brought him in front of an apartment door marked 9345. A pinhole camera was set into the door at head level and a small button was set into the wall at chest level. He pushed the button, setting off a buzzer inside.

The door slid open a minute later and Andrew Mendez, Matt's father, was standing there. He was a portly man of thirty-seven years, his considerable stomach, bare due to his lack of a shirt, hanging over the waistband of his shorts. He sported a full mustache and beard and on his right arm was the exact same tattoo that Jeff and Matt sported: that of a retired Capitalist.

"What's up, Jeff?" the elder Mendez greeted with a smile.

"My dick, like always," Jeff replied.

They exchanged the age-old handshake of the Capitalists members: two squeezes, a clasp, and a banging of the fists hard enough to cause momentary pain. Both did it reflexively, without more than a passing thought.

"Is Matt around?" Jeff asked once the preliminaries were taken care of.

Andrew sighed. "He's always around," he said. "Can't get the little bastard to leave this place. Imagine, eighteen years old and still living at home. When are you gonna talk him into marrying that Sharon bitch so we can have this house to ourselves?"

"I've been trying, Mr. M," Jeff told him. "You know how Matt is though."

"Oh yeah," he said, stepping aside and letting him in. "He brews dust with his own recipe, that's for sure. He's in his bedroom, doing something on the terminal like always."

"Thanks, Mr. M," he said, heading that way.

Carla Mendez was in the kitchen. She was a thin woman with prematurely graying hair. That and the hopeless expression that was always on her face conspired to make her look nearly fifty years old instead of the thirty-six that she was. She was scrubbing dishes with an old washrag and setting them in the rinse tray. Though the apartment possessed an automatic dishwasher it was more than sixty years old and had not worked in generations. It was now utilized for storage space, which was always short in welfare apartments. "Hi, Jeff," she greeted as he passed. "Is your wife knocked up yet?"

"Not yet," he told her politely. "We have a fuck scheduled for tonight. Maybe I'll be able to plant something."

"Best of luck to you," she said, picking up another dish from the soapy water. "It's so nice to have the bigger apartment."

"I can't wait for it," he said sincerely.

He knocked on the door of Matt's room and a moment later it slid open, allowing him entry. Like all secondary bedrooms in public housing, it was very small, only four meters by three. A simple mattress on the floor was his bed and a simple plastic desk beside it held his main Internet terminal. A few bits of laundry and a few empty Fruity bottles littered the floor. Matt himself was sitting at the desk watching a news program on one of the big three channels.

"What's the word, brother?" Matt greeted, leaning back in his chair and extending his hand.

"Fuckin boredom, that's the word," Jeff said. They exchanged the Capitalist shake. "What the hell you watching now?"

"A smear program on Whiting," he said. "It didn't take them long to get one together. It's pretty damn funny actually. They're saying that she's a secret communist with ties to EastHem fascist groups. They even have people that claim to be acquaintances of hers that go to the meetings with her."

"They do work fast, don't they?" Jeff said, rolling his eyes a little. He grabbed a seat on Matt's mattress. He pulled out his bag of marijuana and his pipe. "Strange how none of this ever came up before the speech last night. Want to burn some?"

"Sure, fire up," Matt said. While Jeff started stuffing the pipe he changed back to the MarsGroup primary channel, which was showing a special feature on the inauguration speech the night before. Mindy Ming, one of the senior anchors, was analyzing it line-by-line, paying particular attention to the economic plans.

"Can't you put some fuckin porn on?" Jeff asked. "I'm sick of hearing about that Whiting bitch."

"This is a historical moment, bro," Matt told him. "Mark my words. You'll be glad I made you watch all this shit later on."

"Let's pretend I'm glad now and put on some porn," he replied, striking a light with his laser igniter. He applied it to the pipe and took a tremendous hit.

"You can get porn anytime," Jeff told him, taking the offered pipe and lighter. "How often do you get to see the corporations smeared on Internet? I'm telling you, bro, it's a beautiful thing that Whiting said last night, fuckin beautiful. That speech is going to immortalized no matter how this shit all turns out, it's going to be right up there with the Gettysburg Address and Martin Luther King's I have a dream spiel."

Jeff blew out his hit, releasing a cloud of acrid smelling smoke into the unventilated room. He shook his head a little. "You are undoubtedly the strangest fucking person I've ever hung out with," he said. "Why do I come over here so much?"

"Because deep down, you know I'm right," Matt told him with a grin. He struck a light and inhaled his first hit of the day. He passed the pipe back over. "So," he squeaked, holding the smoke in his lungs, "did you compose that email to Vic Cargill?"

"No, I didn't compose any goddamn email to Vic Cargill," he said. "I told you I wasn't going to. I don't correspond with fucking politicians. They don't represent me or my family and they don't do shit for me."

"Change ain't gonna happen unless we get involved," Matt said. "The only way the legislature is gonna be stopped from impeaching her is if enough emails roll in to convince those sell-out bastards that we're serious about recalling them if they do. That asshole Cargill represents the Helvetia district..."

"He ain't ever lived in the hood," Jeff said. "Who made him represent us? I didn't vote for him."

"Neither did I," Matt said. "He lives on the edge of downtown, just south of the Garden, in a little sliver of the city that was added to the Helvetia voting district just so someone like him could squeak in instead of a true ghetto dweller. I looked up his record on the Internet last night. Do you know that he was elected by less than a thousand votes? And that's not the margin, that's the total. Only those pricks in the two housing buildings that are part of the Helvetia district were the ones to vote in the election is what I'm thinking. But that don't matter. Vermin or not, we're entitled to organize and sign recall petitions and we're entitled to vote in the recall election whether we voted for him in the first place or not. We need to let him know that we'll hold him accountable for his actions."

"It's a waste of fucking time," Jeff insisted.

"So what? Time is all we got here. What else you gonna do? Go to work? Go fuck your wife? Hell, just do it. You don't have to be polite or nothing. All you have do is tell him that you won't stand for him trying to impeach Whiting. If my parents could do it than you can do it. And it feels good to tell one of those pricks off. It feels real good."

"Really?" he asked, actually starting to warm to the idea a little. He could see how it would be gratifying to talk to a politician in his own words, even if it was a slim to none chance that the politician would ever watch it.

"Really," Matt assured him. "Just give it a shot. You can use my terminal."

Jeff took another large hit, holding it in while he mulled the suggestion over. Finally he blew it out. "What the hell?" he said with a shrug. "Set me up and I'll do it."

"That's the way to show some common sense," Mark said with a grin. He turned to the Internet terminal. "Computer, bring up email program and authorize user Jeff Creek to patch in."

The screen cleared from the MarsGroup program and brought up the email program in its place. "User Jeff Creek's voice print is on file. Proceed when ready."

Matt got up from his chair and waved his best friend to it. "It's all you, bro," he said.

Jeff handed the pipe and the lighter over and then took his place in Matt's chair, sitting down before the screen. "What do I say?" he asked.

"Just make it short and sweet," he told him. "Identify yourself to him and then explain that you will sign a petition to recall him and then vote for the same if he votes to open an impeachment investigation into Laura Whiting. Don't threaten him with violence or anything like that though. You'd be breaking the law if you did that."

"I wouldn't want to break the law now, would I?"

"Nope, not here," Matt said. "Just tell him the facts and send it off. His address is already in my database so don't worry about looking it up."

"All right," he said. "But give me the pipe back. It's part of my image."

Matt chuckled and handed it over.

Jeff looked at the screen. "Computer, compose mail from me to Vic Cargill."

"User Jeff Creek confirmed," the computer told him. "The address of Martian Planetary Legislature representative Victor Cargill of the Helvetia Heights district is on file. Record when ready."

Jeff thought for a moment and then said: "Record." The red light on the screen lit up and the small camera on the screen locked onto his face. Jeff smiled and took a large hit of his pipe, blowing the smoke directly onto the camera. "Check it, fuckface," he said, putting a tough expression on his face. "The name's Jeff Creek and I'm one of your constituents here in this shithole known as Helvetia Heights. I ain't never voted for nothing or no one before but you can bet your ass that if you start fucking around and trying to impeach Laura Whiting, I'll be the first motherfucker to sign a petition to kick your ass out of office. And then once that petition is all signed and legal and they ask us to vote to get rid of you, I'll be signing on to do that shit too. Don't fuck with Whiting, my man. Don't even think of fucking with her. That's all." He put the pipe to his mouth and took another hit. "End recording," he squeaked. The camera blinked back off. "How was that?" he asked Matt.

"Absolutely fucking beautiful," Matt said. "You got a way with words, you know that?"

"Shit," Jeff said. "I can't believe I just did that."

"Email composed," the computer told him. "Would you like to review it?"

"Naw, baby," he replied. "Just send the shit off before I change my mind."

"Email sent," the computer told him.

"Now how about we smoke out a little more and then go score some Fruity?" he asked.

"Sounds like a plan," Matt said.

The Troop Club was a chain of taverns that was owned by a subsidiary of Barkling Agricultural Industries, the third largest food producer on Mars now that the Agricorp-Interplanetary Food merger had been consummated. Only a minute portion of the intoxicant distribution holdings of BAI, Troop Club taverns were nevertheless a lucrative, low overhead venture. Located just outside of military establishments throughout WestHem's territory, they had managed to snare an incredible thirty-eight percent of the "off-duty military personnel market" and their very name had achieved the coveted status of "generic product identification" among their target group. What this meant is that when a soldier, whether stationed in Standard City or on Triad or in Alaska or anywhere else, wanted to go for a drink after duties, the phrase used was inevitably "let's go to the Troop Club" whether or not they were actually going to that particular tavern or whether or not there even was an official Troop Club branch operating outside of their base. The Troop Club had achieved the same status with this label as Coke had when carbonated cola was discussed or as Tylenol had when over-the-counter acetaminophen was discussed.

Indeed in Eden there was an entire three-block section lined with drinking and smoking establishments, all of them corporate owned of course, just outside of the main Martian Planetary Guard base and the main WestHem Marine Barracks. Though on Friday and Saturday nights all of these bars would be filled to capacity with both marines and MPG troops, it was The Troop Club that was the largest, with a capacity of more than six hundred, and the first to fill up. Soldiers only tended to spill over to the other establishments when The Troop Club became too crowded to accommodate any others.

The scene inside of the Eden Troop Club was fairly typical on this particular Saturday afternoon. The majority of the MPG troops had finished their training rotations for the day and many of them had gone over to drink reasonably cheap beers or harder alcohol and to smoke BAI Sensimilian buds. Cocktail waitresses, all of them dressed in tight shorts and chest-hugging tops, all of them physically attractive, circulated between the tables and the gaming areas where darts and billiards were being played. Twelve bartenders were on duty behind the three bar complexes that lined the walls mixing drinks and distributing pipes to the customers. Loud modern music, heavy with synthesized bass and drums, played from the surround sound system at a level that was just below the conversation hampering point. As always in this particular part of the solar system, the MPG troops and the marines segregated themselves from each other with the former occupying the largest main bar and the pool tables while the latter stuck to the dart boards and the smaller secondary bars.

Lon Fargo and Brian Haggarty, the two men primarily responsible for giving Major Michael Chin the worst pounding of the day were sitting at one of the tables near the bar drinking icy cold Martian Storm beers supplied by the very man they had pounded. Chin was sitting with them, drinking a Martian Storm of his own and smoking from a custom-made marijuana pipe that he carried with him in a small felt lined case.

"This shit's not bad," he commented, exhaling a fairly large hit of the house Sensimilian. "It's too bad you can't get that nice green that they serve in O'Riley's here though. In my opinion that's the finest bud in the solar system."

"But it's grown by Agricorp," Lon said, stuffing a hit into a bar pipe. "I should know. I've serviced enough humidifiers in the greenhouse since the merger. They got plants six meters high and spaced every meter that are just packed with buds. The smell in the place is enough to get you loaded all by itself."

"You ever try to stuff a few in your pocket?" asked Brian who, though he was a sworn police officer, had no moral problem with the idea of stealing something from Agricorp.

"Are you kidding?" Lon said. "The security in the bud greenhouses is as tight as at the damn fusion plants. Tighter even. They scan you when you go into the place and again when you go out. And one of the fuckin security guards follows you around while you're in there and watches everything you do."

"Wouldn't want any of those buds to slip away without someone paying for them, would we?" asked Chin sarcastically. "That might cut Agricorp's profits down a couple thousand from the trillions that it is."

"Yes," said Brian, sipping from his bottle. "It's a fine line, isn't it? The whole economy could collapse if you let something like that happen."

"That's what's so funny about the whole thing," Lon told them. "All that security equipment and personnel has to cost more every year than they would lose from theft by not having it. The picking is done automatically by stripping machines. Hell, the only ones allowed in the greenhouses are the horticulture teams and the maintenance guys. And the horticulture guys are smart enough to grow their own if they want some."

"Corporate mentality," Chin said. "Protect profits at all costs. We get it over at Alexander too. Even if it means spending a billion to prevent the potential loss of a million, they'll do it. They just can't stand the idea that someone might be getting high somewhere for free."

"Kind of like we are right now?" Lon said, grinning at the man he had defeated. "Those of us that kicked the shit out of a mechanized battalion today?" This caused a burst of laughter from the special forces troops at all of the surrounding tables.

"Fuck you," Chin said sourly, taking a slug from his beer. "You bastards got lucky. It'll never happen again."

"I read your mind out there, Chin," Lon told him, begging to differ. "When I saw your APCs all lined up nice and neat without tanks covering their flanks I knew you were up to something. And it wasn't a bad plan either. You almost caught us up there."

"Yeah," Chin said, "and I almost didn't lose two hundred of my men to those portable anti-tank lasers you have. You little sneaking fucks are unnatural, you know that?"

"It's what we do best," Lon agreed.

As Chin, Lon, and Brian drank at one table, their men drank with their counterparts at others. Captains and lieutenants of the armored cav shared spaces with the corporals and the privates that had massacred them out in the wastelands that day. There was a mutual respect between them that was independent of their respective ranks within the MPG. Though WestHem troops tended to segregate themselves along clear rank lines in their off hours, there was no such custom among the volunteers of the planetary guard. The officers of the cav did not feel superior to the privates of the special forces. All were merely weekend warriors with other, more menial jobs on the outside.

Of course a prevalent topic of conversation among the various groups, other than the exercises that had just taken place, was the Laura Whiting speech and the aftermath of it. At nearly every table, as men and women sipped beers and puffed from pipes, the talk would circle around and always end up again with the discussion of the upcoming legislature assembly on Monday morning. The vast majority of the troops agreed with the principal of what Whiting was doing but felt that she had not the slightest chance of succeeding in her venture. Despite this cynicism however, well over three-quarters of those Martians present admitted to having sent email to their representative threatening a recall vote. Of the quarter that had not, nearly every last one took the stance that it was only because they felt it was a waste of time. It wasn't that they liked their representatives or they thought they were representing them honestly and fairly. No one actually expressed that view. They just couldn't conceive of change happening in their lifetime, or in their children's lifetime. The solar system was what the solar system was.

It was here that a queer form of peer pressure took over. As more alcohol and more THC flowed through more bloodstreams, those that had sent email began to chide those who hadn't. They used the same arguments that were being used planet wide by other such groups, although with perhaps a bit more profanity. And, as it was doing all over the planet, the peer pressure began to have an effect. Personal computers were unclipped from waistbands and communications software was accessed. Drunken MPG member after drunken MPG member gave ranting speeches to their respective representatives in the legislature, most slurring their words quite badly, a few forgetting what they were talking about and having to revise, but everyone gleefully having their say. Major Chin himself, who had neglected to send an email of his own because of fears of repercussion from his employer (not an unreasonable fear, he was about as high on the corporate ladder at Alexander Industries as a person of Martian birth could climb), took one last pipe hit and then stood up on the table to compose his message. This started a trend among the other members and soon every table had someone standing on it and reciting a rambling, often obscene message to their local politician.

All of this revelry soon attracted attention from the other side of the establishment, where the WestHem regular marines were drinking and smoking. In WestHem culture the Marine Corps were considered an elite group of fighting men, the most respected and revered in the armed services profession. In a society with nearly thirty percent unemployment it was deemed a great honor to be allowed to join the marines and usually such appointments were given to those with family connections or those who scored extremely high on the ASVAB testing and the physical agility exam — a test that was grueling indeed. Though the majority of the marines in the bar were either enlisted rank or NCOs, they were all well built specimens of masculinity and all had been trained in various techniques of hand-to-hand combat. They also tended to be arrogant, almost bullying types that had little respect or regard for their Martian counterparts.

A particularly large squad sergeant was the first to foment the confrontation between the two groups. He had been stationed on Mars, which he considered a shithole, for nearly two years now and he hated everything and everyone that had been born on the miserable rock that they called a planet. And now, just as the football game piped to the bar's Internet screen was starting to really take shape, the ranting and yells coming from the tables on the other side of the room was drowning out all of the sound. He stood up and said a few words to the group of sergeants and corporals around him. They stood up and walked with him to the nearest table where a young MPG private of the armored cav — a man who had been "killed" early in the day when his APC had been blasted by a Mosquito — was just finishing up his email to his representative. Without saying a word the marine sergeant walked up to the table and kicked it over, sending the young private crashing to the ground and causing his PC to smash to pieces.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing, asshole?" demanded a drunken MPG lieutenant who had been sitting at the table. He stood and stepped up to the hulking marine where the top of his head came to approximately shoulder level.

"I'm quieting you fucking greenies down," said the sergeant. "You're getting on my goddamn nerves."

"You don't like it?" the MPG lieutenant told him. "Go drink somewhere else then."

The marine sergeant's eyes burned into him. "Why don't you and the rest of these little pretend soldiers go somewhere else," he countered. "This is a bar for real fighting men, not a bunch of greenie want-to-be boy scouts whose mommies let them out once a week to jerk off on their tanks."

This junior high school level insult had little effect on the Martians in the room. They were used to such comments from the Earthlings that lived on their planet. It did seem to cause quite a bit of hilarity among the marines however. They laughed as if this was the wittiest thing they had ever heard.

"Look," said the MPG lieutenant, "why don't you just stay over on your half of the bar and we'll stay on ours. We don't bitch at you when you start cheering and throwing shit at the terminals because of some sports game, so why should you..."

The marine sergeant put his hand on his chest and pushed him backwards, sending him crashing into the young private who had been picking up the pieces of his shattered computer. The marines behind and around all broke up into another round of derisive laughter at this spectacle. Immediately the men that served in the insulted lieutenant's platoon jumped to their feet, their hands balled into fists, ready to do battle. They moved in on their targets. The moment the other marines saw this, they began to move in as well. Though the numbers were pretty much even on each side, the marines were much bigger than the MPG members. There was little doubt what the outcome of a battle would be.

"Stand down!" a Martian accented voice shouted from behind the MPG members. It was voice with unmistakable command in it. It belonged to Major Chin. The MPG members, hearing it, all stopped in their tracks, whether they were members of Chin's chain of command or not.

"What's a matter with the little pussy greenies?" asked the marine sergeant in a baby voice as he saw them halt. "Don't wanna fight the real men? Afraid you might hurt your little hands?"

"Remember our prime directive, people," Chin said. "It applies here as much as it does on the battlefield."

It was exactly the right thing to say. The prime directive of the MPG, penned by General Jackson himself, was: Pick your fights carefully, try not to get hurt, and never fight face to face if you could avoid it. The MPG were sneaking, sniping cowards and proud of it. The MPG members all turned their cheeks and walked back to their seats. The lieutenant and the private picked themselves off the floor and dusted themselves off. They swallowed their pride and began righting their table. Though the marines tried to get another rise out of their quarry, they found themselves ignored. Soon they went back to the bar and started watching the game again, confident that they had bested their enemy.

Vic Cargill had been elected as the representative of district 38 for the past three terms. Though he was responsible for a district of one million Martian citizens, just like every other representative, he had the dubious honor of having the lowest voter participation on the planet three terms running. This was because the vast majority of his district encompassed the huge Helvetia Heights section of Eden, a horrid, squalid ghetto that he had never actually set foot in. Had his district encompassed only Helvetia Heights it was entirely possible that he, or anyone else for the matter, would not have received even a single vote to put him into office. The ghetto inhabitants simply did not vote. But the people that had drawn the district boundaries had been smart enough to extend district 38 just a little bit into the adjoining downtown neighborhood, allowing it to include several upper-end and lower-upper-end housing complexes. It was in these complexes that Cargill himself lived and it was from these complexes that all of his votes came — less than a thousand of them in the last election.

Cargill was basically a minor league player in the great political game that was Martian politics. He was a second generation Martian and a first generation politician, encouraged to go into the business by his father, who was an upper management partner in a semi-prestigious law firm. Vic's main sponsor in his political career was Equatorial Real Estate Holdings, a multi-billion dollar corporation that had made its fortune by developing, purchasing, and constructing housing units in the Eden and Libby areas. In Eden ERE boasted a 22 percent share of the upper and middle income housing market and a whopping 45 percent share of the government compensated housing market (in other words: the welfare apartments). Vic's job, as one of their mules, was to push through and vote on laws that helped increase the amount that the Martian government would pay to house "disadvantaged" people in ERE apartments. It was a job that he had done fairly well since his first term. He and the other politicians owned by ERE had already managed to increase government rent responsibilities by two percent in the last session alone. This success had led to increased campaign contributions and increased "gifts" from his grateful sponsor.

Cargill had naturally been as shocked and horrified as any other politician when he had heard Laura Whiting's speech the night before. This had not been because he liked or respected Whiting. On the contrary, Whiting was in the opposing political party and she was also sponsored by Agricorp, a corporation whose interests were in opposition to ERE's. After all, if the government paid more money for welfare housing for the vermin, that meant there was less money available for the vermin to spend on Agricorp products. Whiting and her other Agricorp sponsored chums had killed several of his bills in committee in the past, actions that always angered the ERE lobbyists that controlled his life. No, the reason Cargill had been so horrified at the events of the previous night had not been personal, they had been professional. The thought that any politician would get up before a live audience and tell them what the political game was really like, the fact that she would denounce all politicians as corrupt and living only for their sponsors, that was what was offensive. The public simply could not be told things like that. True, most Martians knew these things anyway, but she had legitimized these thoughts, had confirmed them. Even if ERE lobbyists from all levels on the ladder had not been emailing and conferencing him non-stop since the speech had ended, he still would have been a prime mover to get that bitch out of office.

He was in his own office now; a small rented space on the 182nd floor of a low-rent downtown office building. He had a window, something that only about a third of the offices in this building featured, but he may as well not have. All it looked out upon was the office building across the street and the ones on either side. Only by standing directly against the window and looking directly upward could he see the red Martian sky. Only by looking directly down could he see the street level. His office was a place that he had rarely been in on a weekend before but the current crisis had forced him, as well as most of the other representatives, in on their traditional day of rest.

At the moment he was sitting behind his desk, staring at his Internet terminal, kissing the ass of yet another high-level ERE lobbyist, most of whom had also been called in on days off. "I understand," he was telling the suited image before him. "Believe me, I don't think any of the reps, no matter what party they're in, no matter what corporation funded their campaign, will have any problem voting for an investigation into Whiting. She's crossed way over the line. She's no longer one of us."

"That's what we thought as well," the lobbyist told him testily. "But we've already received some disturbing rebuffs from the other reps we do business with. Two of them are starting to hint that public pressure may force them to reconsider their previous stance."

"Public pressure?" Cargill scoffed, feeling nothing but contempt. "What the hell does that mean? There ain't no such thing, especially not in my district, where nine out of ten of the vermin have never earned a dollar in their lives. I'd be surprised if those ignorant animals are smart enough to turn on their Internet terminals, let alone use them to vote with. Hell, I would venture to say that most of them don't even know who Laura Whiting is or what she did last night."

"Those are our feelings as well," the lobbyist said, his Earthling accent thick and crisp. "But we just wanted to make sure that everyone that we've... helped over the years does the right thing when the time comes."

"Oh you can bet your ass that I'll do the right thing," Cargill said. "Whiting is as good as gone."

"We're glad to hear you say that," he said with a smile.

They exchanged a few more pleasantries with each other and then signed off. Once the terminal was blank Cargill sighed and opened his desk drawer, taking out a bottle of Vodka. He poured himself a healthy shot and put it in his stomach. He then lit up a cigarette and took a long, satisfying puff.

His terminal flared to life again a moment later, his secretary's face staring out if it. "Sir," she said to him, "do you have a minute?"

"Why?" he asked wearily. "Is another one of those damn lobbyists calling? How many more goddamned times do I have to reassure them?"

"It's not a lobbyist," she told him. "It's Linda. She'd like to have a word with you."

Linda Clark was his chief of staff. She was also his mistress of more than six years. "Send her in," he said, smiling at the thought of a little sexual tryst in his office.

But Linda was not interested in sexual activity at the moment. Her young, pretty face was all business as she came in through the sliding door. "Vic," she told him, "we have a problem."

"Who the hell doesn't have a problem today?" he asked rhetorically.

"It's about your constituents," she said, sitting in the chair before the desk without waiting for an invitation.

He rolled his eyes upward. "You mean the vermin? What possible problem could there be with them? As long as their Internet programs run and their intoxicant credits keep rolling, they stay in their little shithole apartments."

"They've been sending emails to you," she told him. "A lot of emails. All of them threatening recall proceedings if you vote to open an investigation into Whiting."

He was having trouble believing her. "A lot of emails from the vermin? Impossible. How many are we talking about? A few hundred? That can't possibly..."

"Try two hundred and ninety-six thousand," she interrupted. "And that's as of the last five minutes or so. They're still pouring in at a rate of more than a three hundred per minute."

"Two hundred and ninety six thousand?" he asked incredulously, sure that he had heard her wrong.

He hadn't. "That's correct," she assured him. "One hundred and sixty-three thousand came in last night, within the two hour time period following Whiting's speech. Now it seems that a second wave of them is underway. The numbers started to pick up about 10:30 and have been steadily climbing since. Of course we haven't been able to open them all — there's simply too many for that — but we've had the computer scan them all for basic content and every last one of them is a threat for recall if you vote for Whiting's investigation."

Cargill shook his head a little. "Incredible," he whispered, unable to think of anything else.

"Let me show you a typical one," she said, "Just so you know what we're dealing with here." She looked at the ceiling, where the computer voice recognition microphone was installed. "Computer, load and play one of the emails received in the last hour. Select randomly."

"Loading," the computer's voice said.

A moment later the screen cleared and showed a scruffy, thug-like young man in his late teens. The text on the bottom identified the sender as: Jeffrey Creek, Age 19. Creek was taking a puff on a cheap marijuana pipe that had been fashioned from discarded food containers. He held the smoke for a moment and then blew it directly onto the camera lens, momentarily blurring the image. When it cleared, he began to talk. "Check it, fuckface. The name's Jeff Creek and I'm one of your constituents here in this shithole known as Helvetia Heights. I ain't never voted for nothing or no one before but you can bet your ass that if you start fucking around and trying to impeach Laura Whiting, I'll be the first motherfucker to sign a petition to kick your ass out of office. And then once that petition is all signed and legal and they ask us to vote to get rid of you, I'll be signing on to do that shit too. Don't fuck with Whiting, my man. Don't even think of fucking with her. That's all." The image blinked off and the computer informed them that the recording was at an end.

"How uncouth," Vic said, disgusted. "Do they really expect me to take that kind of thing seriously?"

"That's a pretty typical recording," Linda said. "I've looked at several hundred of them myself and his sentiments are basically what they're saying."

"Who really cares what those ignorant vermin are saying?" Vic asked. "So they figured out how to log onto the email program and send mail. What of it? You don't really think they'd actually be able to mount a recall campaign against me, do you?"

"I didn't think so at first," she said. "But now... now that two hundred and ninety-six thousand of them have sent email saying the same thing, I'm not so sure."

"What?"

"More than a quarter of a million and counting," she said. "All of them angry, embittered shouts by the people you represent. Whiting told them that they have a constitutional right to vote you out of office and they've apparently locked onto that thought and embraced it. Surely among quarter of a million there are a few with the drive and the intelligence to organize petition drives and to rouse up others to go collect signatures."

"I hardly think so," he said. "That requires work, something that the vermin avoid like the plague."

She shook her head. "Don't underestimate them, Vic," she said. "They may be unemployed but they are not ignorant. They're frustrated with the system and they blame the politicians and the corporations for keeping them where they are."

"That's ridiculous," he said, automatically spouting the company line.

"Ridiculous or not," she said. "It's what they believe. They will be watching the assembly on Monday morning. They'll be watching and when the Lieutenant Governor asks the legislature to open hearings into Laura Whiting, they will take note of how you vote. It is all public record under the constitution. And if you vote to impeach her, I have no doubt that by the time the day is over there will be hundreds if not thousands of vermin out in the Heights getting fingerprints on petition screens. Within a matter of days your recall will be on the ballet and they will vote you out. They can have you back in the private sector in less than a month."

Vic's mouth was wide as he listened to her. What she was saying was so bizarre, so unheard of. "How can I tell my sponsor that I'm not going to vote the way they want? How can I tell them that? If I don't do what they tell me to, they'll withdraw their funding for my campaigns and they'll find someone else to give it to."

She shrugged. "Which action will kill you first?" she asked. "You can at least rest assured that you're not going through this alone. From what I hear all of the other reps are getting email in even bigger numbers."

Barbara Garcia was a two term representative from the Shiloh Park section of Eden. Her constituents were a mixture of working class Martians that lived in the northern part of the district and welfare class that lived in the southern. She had grown up the daughter of an agricultural worker and she was — thanks to her intelligence and frightfully high placement scores — the first in eight generations to attend college. With her degree in political theory from the University of Mars at Eden, she had gone on to law school and the Eden city council, the usual stepping-stone for a career in Martian politics. From there her popularity with her main sponsor — Agricorp — had made her a shoe-in for the Planetary Legislature.

Barbara had always played the game well during her career, knowing that it was the only game in town and that in order to succeed she would have to follow the established rules. She had taken campaign contributions from Agricorp and others ever since her first run at the city council. She had gone on the all expenses paid space cruises to Saturn and Neptune and Mercury, riding in luxury cabins and being pampered to her heart's delight. She had even taken unreported contributions when they were offered, contributions that had swollen her net worth to well over two million dollars. But despite these "perks of the job", as they were called when they were discussed at all, she had always felt more than a little disgusted with herself. She knew that politics was not supposed to be this way, that she was part of a perversion that had gone on for centuries now. There had been a time when she had tried to tell herself that she was only staying in the game for the good of the people she represented but those naïve thoughts had long since died within her.

Except now Laura Whiting had reawakened them. What Whiting had done the night before had been incredible, outrageous, the most shocking thing imaginable and Barbara could not help but feel a strong surge of respect for the woman. She was trying to change the game! After all of these years, after all of the lies and back dealing and jerking off of the public, someone was actually trying to make a difference! Amazing.

Granted, Barbara had initially had every intention of doing exactly what her sponsors wished of her and voting for an impeachment investigation of the new governor. After all, though she respected Whiting for her stand, political survival was still the most important thing in her life. She was qualified to do nothing else in this life but serve in the legislature. As much as she found herself admiring Whiting and her views, she knew that Whiting was as good as gone and the game would then go on as it always had and as it always would. She had planned to have a drink in Whiting's honor the next time she tipped a glass but also to vote as was required and to even deride the governor in the media if reporters asked her questions.

And then the emails had started to roll in. An incredible three hundred thousand of them were sent to her staff in the first three hours following Whiting's speech. Another one hundred and eighty thousand had come in since. Nearly half of her constituents, including a good portion of the welfare class, had taken the time to compose messages to her and according to the computer scans all of the messages, every last one said the same thing: vote to open an investigation into Whiting and you're gone. Had someone told her two days before that something like this would happen, she would have thought them insane. Martians never got involved in politics, especially not the welfare class. They rarely voted, they rarely protested anything in an organized fashion, and they never tried to recall their representatives. But now they were threatening just that, and in no uncertain terms either. Barbara and her chief of staff were both of the opinion that these were not idle threats either. Whiting had really riled the people up.

"So what are you going to do?" Steve Ying, the chief of staff in question, asked her now as they sat in her office.

Barbara's office was somewhat nicer than Vic Cargill's, mostly because of the higher campaign contribution rate that she drew. She actually had something of a view from her window. She was at the edge of the developed area and could see the spaceport off to the left about twenty kilometers distant. As she considered her subordinate's question she watched an orbital craft, probably filled with agricultural products, lift into the sky, its hydrogen powered engine spewing white-hot flame as it ascended. "I was just sworn in for my second term yesterday," she said thoughtfully after the craft had disappeared beyond the horizon.

"Yes," Steve said. "That's one possible way to look at it. You have another eighteen months before you have to start worrying about re-election. No matter how much you piss off Agricorp and your other sponsors, you can't be drummed out until the end of your term, at least not unless they take an active role in getting rid of you."

Barbara knew well what that meant. An active role was a drastic action designed to get rid of a troublesome politician in a hurry. It was in fact what they were trying to do to Whiting. It meant that the corporations pulled out all of the stops and did everything in their power to discredit and smear the person and force public outrage upon them. "I don't think that they would go that far for little old me," she said. "If it was just me and me alone who voted no on the investigation, perhaps they would, but it isn't going to be just me, is it?"

He shook his head. "From what I hear, every representative is getting about the same volume of email from their constituents. Even Vic Cargill is being overwhelmed and you know what his district is like."

"Yes," she said, "Helvetia Heights. A most pleasant area of town. It's remarkable that the people in his district have embraced this cause as well. Truly remarkable."

Steve nodded. "My thoughts exactly," he said. "It goes to show just how deep this thing has become. We're truly in uncharted territory here."

"And the water is infested with sharks," she agreed. "What we do now is going to have some very long lasting implications."

"So it sounds like you're going to vote no on the investigation?" he asked her.

"I don't really see another option. I should be safe enough from any drastic repercussions. Agricorp will be mightily pissed off at me and it's possible they may be forced to withdraw their support for me in the next election, but..."

"But?"

"But if Laura Whiting succeeds in her plan, there will be no next election."

Steve looked at her as if she were mad. "You think there's a chance she'll gain independence for us?" he asked her.

"She has the support of the people," Barbara said. "And she has a gift for riling them up. As long as she is given Internet time to speak her views — and MarsGroup will undoubtedly grant her that — there's virtually no limit to what she can do."

"The corporations and the WestHem government will never allow it," Steve said. "The best that Whiting can hope for is to survive the impeachment attempt. She'll probably be able to do that but she'll still be gone within the month. They'll find some way to get rid of her, legal or not. I wouldn't even put arranging an assassination past them."

"Nor would I," Barbara told him. "But did you ever think for a minute that Whiting is smart enough to have taken that into consideration? She's been playing the political game perfectly for years, all the time planning to do what she did last night. Her goal is to make us independent. She has to know that those in power will do almost anything to get rid of her. And knowing that, she has to have taken precautions against it, just as she took precautions against impeachment. She's not naïve, Steve. I believe that she knows exactly what she is doing and I believe that she may even be ultimately successful."

Steve was having a hard time with this concept although her arguments did sound logical. "So what are you saying, Barb?" he asked.

"I'm saying that I'm going to support her."

"Support her?" he asked, wide-eyed. "Surely you don't mean what I think you mean."

"I do," she confirmed. "Start arranging a press conference for me tonight. I'm going to go live and denounce my sponsorship and announce my support for the new governor and for Martian independence."

Steve was appalled. "Barbara, that's madness," he told her. "Even if you think that Whiting has a small chance of succeeding, you must realize that in all likelihood she will not. If you just vote no on the impeachment because of public pressure, you might be able to survive politically. Agricorp will probably be able to forgive you for that since everyone else will be forced to do it as well. But if you actually announce that you support Whiting, you're dead, maybe even literally!"

Barbara shook her head at him sadly. "You don't understand, do you?" she asked him.

"Understand what?"

"Laura Whiting is right for what she's doing. This has gone beyond a political issue. When you have the vermin contacting politicians and threatening recall of them in the numbers that we've seen, you have an issue that they feel rather strongly about. The people want to be free of WestHem and it is our job as their elected representatives to do everything in our power to bring that about. I've done what my sponsors have wanted me to do my entire career, ever since I was voting for beverage contracts on the school board. I've never been able to do what the people who elected me wanted done. My soul aches because of that and it always has. I'm a Martian and its time to start balancing the scales a little bit. I'll probably go down in flames for this stand, but at least I'll go down a hero to the Martian people and not a corrupt politician."

"My God," Steve said frightfully. "You've gone ideological."

She laughed a little. "That I have. You're a very good chief of staff, Steve, but if you do not wish to be a part of what I'm going to be doing, I'll accept you resignation. You shouldn't have much trouble getting hired with someone else."

He thought about that for the briefest of moments. "I guess I'll stick with you," he told her fatalistically. "What the hell? I'm a Martian too, ain't I?"

"I guess you are," she said happily. "Now how about scheduling that press conference for me."

"I'll get right on it."

"And let my secretary know that I'm no longer taking calls from lobbyists."

"Right."

At 325 stories in height — nearly 1800 meters from base to roof — the Agricorp building was the tallest in the solar system. It stood sentinel over the downtown Eden area, towering more than 300 meters higher than any of its neighbors. More than three hundred thousand people worked in the building, most of them for the entity that had lent its name to the structure. Lobbyists, accountants, security consultants, management types, auditors, and hundreds of other job classifications all poured into the building each and every day and toiled there for eight to twelve hours or more — all of them working to keep the great empire's Martian operations running and profitable.

William Smith, as the CEO of Martian operations, naturally had his office on the very top of the building. The view was commanding. Looking southward from his huge picture window, he could see the thousands of other high rises that made up Eden and the stark border on the edge of the city where the wastelands began. The Sierra Madres Mountains could easily be seen as well, the peaks poking up over the horizon. It was a view that other men might have killed for in a city where all that could usually be seen out one's window was the bulk of another building. It was a view that Smith had long since ceased to even notice.

As the sun sank behind the horizon to the west, Smith was sitting at his large desk, his bottom planted in a genuine leather chair that had cost more than beginning apple pickers earned in a month. There were two Internet terminals on the desk before him and he was using one to hold a conference call while the other was tuned to a big three station.

"What in the hell is going on around here?" he demanded of his caller. "Has everyone gone completely insane?"

"Sir," said Corban Hayes, the Martian director of the Federal Law Enforcement Bureau office, "I realize that maybe things are starting to spiral a little out of control here, but..."

"A little out of control?" Smith shouted, leaning closer to the screen. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but did I or did I not just watch three of the planetary legislature members — politicians that have been bought and paid for and are supposed to be representing our goddamn interests here — go on live Internet and say that they support Laura Whiting? That they support independence for Mars? Maybe you saw something different than I did, Hayes, but it sure as hell looked a lot like that to me."

"That is true, sir," Hayes told him complacently. "Three of them did do that. And I will also agree that a good portion of the rest of them will be forced to vote against opening an impeachment investigation into Whiting."

"So that greenie bitch is going to remain in office!" he yelled. "She is going to remain the governor of this planet and she has somehow managed to pervert three of our reps over to her twisted way of thinking. This is not a little out of control, Hayes, this is a goddamn nightmare."

"I'll admit that I was somewhat surprised by the response of the greenies to her speech," he said. "Who would have thought that greenies would respond in the sheer numbers that they did to her call for recall email? It's inconceivable."

"It's inconceivable but it has happened," Smith said. "That woman has to go and go quickly before she does any more damage here."

"You have the big three working on a discreditation campaign," Hayes reminded. "I saw a few of the programs that they managed to get out today. Very impressive. I particularly liked the one that linked her with EastHem interests."

"Yes," Smith said. "That was very good, very fast work on the part of the big three. The problem is that hardly any Martians watched it. I talked to Lancaster over at InfoServe a few minutes before I called you. He says that according to the media tracking computers most of the greenies are watching MarsGroup channels. MarsGroup! That sleazy, rabble-rousing excuse for a legitimate corporation. And all MarsGroup has been publishing or airing has been favorable profiles and bios on Whiting. They're canonizing the bitch and those greenies are eating it up!"

Hayes shook his head a little, as if bewildered. "That's a pattern we've noted in the past with the greenies," he said. "They put very little stock in the legitimate news programs for some reason. They prefer the bland, left-wing drivel that they get on MarsGroup, God knows why."

"Is there any way to shut MarsGroup down?" he asked. "Some federal law against inciting riots or something like that?"

"We could probably swing a federal order of some sort on that basis," Hayes told him. "But I'm afraid that that would be a bad idea. We would technically be violating our own constitution by doing that and no matter what reason we offered the greenies for doing it, they would perceive that it was to silence the Whiting viewpoint. I don't even want to imagine what chaos would result from that."

"Those ignorant greenies?" Smith said with contempt. "What trouble could they be? I say go ahead and do it."

"Those ignorant greenies have just sent in more than forty million emails to their elected representatives," Hayes reminded him. "Like it or not, they've achieved organization on this matter and they have very strong feelings about it. I'm sorry, sir, but I don't think that shutting MarsGroup down via federal order will serve WestHem interests very well. I'll run it by my superiors in Denver of course, but I'm going to recommend that it not be done. It's too dangerous."

"Then how are we going to keep them from getting riled up any further?"

"The main goal, the only goal remains to get rid of Whiting as quickly as possible. Without her leading them the greenies will quickly go back to the way they always have been — troublesome, ignorant, but controllable."

"Which brings us back to the question of how we do it," he said. "The discreditation campaign is being ignored and the impeachment is probably going to fail. What does that leave us? Can you arrange an accident for her? Or a lunatic assassin?"

"That's a possibility," he said without hesitation. "And it's one that I'll have my most trusted people look into. A more likely possibility is one that we've already discussed: a corruption indictment. Like you said before, Whiting admitted to taking unreported campaign contributions throughout her career. Granted, all politicians engage in this habit, but that does not present much of a problem. We're only talking about Whiting here. We can leave the other politicians completely out of the argument."

"Didn't you say that you would have to indict the corporate people for offering these contributions? I seem to recall you speaking out against this course of action yesterday."

"I did then," Hayes said. "But I didn't realize that more conventional methods of removal would be neutralized. I'm now starting to think we might have to resort to that."

"And what about the return indictments?" Smith wanted to know. "I can't have you discrediting Agricorp or one of our sister corporations on charges of bribery. It's bad for public relations. Do you have a way around that?"

"You'll need a scapegoat that you can blame it on," Hayes told him. "Pick some upper-level management type that you can live without and make it look like he and he alone got a little overzealous in trying to recruit Whiting. Rewrite your financial records so that it looks like he embezzled the money out of your assets to transfer them to Whiting. His motive could be movement up the corporate ladder. He was after your job, sir, and was willing to go to any lengths, break any rules to get it. After all, your position is worth much more in terms of money and prestige than anything he could have embezzled, right?"

Smith nodded his head thoughtfully. "Not bad," he said. "And I think I have just the person in mind."

"Great," Hayes said. "Of course you'll also have to burn a lobbyist or two and a few middle management types in order to make this work, but I'm sure you'll have no problem thinning a few out."

"No, no problem at all," he said without hesitation or emotion.

"Okay then," Hayes said with a smile. "Assuming of course that the impeachment attempt flops, I'll get my guys working on the bribery investigation first thing tomorrow. It shouldn't take too much to get a subpoena for Whiting's bank account and financial records issued in light of her admissions during her speech. Once we have your money tracked to her I'll get back with you and we'll work out a way to weave the trail into the people you pick. If all goes well we should have enough to indict her in about two weeks."

Sunday was usually a day of rest on Mars, much the same as it always had been on Earth. Office buildings were typically closed and empty of everyone but the security force. The public transportation system ran fewer trains across the tops of the city roofs and those that they did run were usually half-empty at best. Even the crime rate had been noted to take a significant dip on Sundays. Seemingly even the criminals needed a day to kick back and relax as well.

On this particular Sunday on Mars there was not much resting going on however, at least not among the movers and the shakers of the planet. Emails continued to roll in to the legislature representatives, at a slower rate than the day before but still quite rapidly. The representatives that received them all spent the greater part of the day in their respective offices, all of them planning strategy on how to deal with the coming flak of the Whiting impeachment proceedings. During the course of the day eight more representatives — six women and two men, all Martians of more than three generations — called press conferences to announce their support of Whiting and her goal. All of them banned lobbyists of any kind from their offices and publicly denounced all corporate contacts.

The lobbyists themselves spent their day in front of their Internet terminals trying to cajole the remaining representatives to vote for impeachment proceedings the following day. They begged, pleaded, threatened, offered bribes, and did every other underhanded thing they had learned over the years to try to convince the men and women to act in accordance with the corporate wishes. It was all to no avail. Every last one of them, even the Speaker of the Assembly herself, was forced to tell their sponsor's representatives that they simply could not do it this time, that too much was at stake. Most of them apologized sincerely for not being able to play by the rules but they were firm in their refusals and unwavering in their responses.

The corporate heads of the various Martian operations were also forced to spend most of their day in their offices as well. Their job was to take reports from their lobbyists and then call up the various representatives personally to offer one last round of threats and pleas. Again, despite the warnings of removed support in the next election, the legislature stood firm. As Vic Cargill had been told the previous day, it was a simple matter of what would kill the politicians' career first and most assuredly. In every case they were forced to conclude that they would be out for good in weeks if they voted for impeachment proceedings but that they just might survive if they voted against it. After all, the corporations couldn't withdraw support from all of them, could they?

The small red planet turned on its axis and Sunday passed into Monday morning. At precisely 9:00 AM, Eden time, the entire planetary legislature assembled in their chambers in the capital building to be welcomed for their new session. MarsGroup and all of the big three media corporations carried the meeting live on their networks. The ratings computers confirmed that more than forty-five million households, an incredible, unheard of ninety-six percent of all viewers, were watching the meeting, most of them on the MarsGroup stations. The speaker conducted the roll and then turned the floor over to the newly inaugurated Lieutenant Governor at the latter's request.

Scott Benton took the podium and gave a very passionate, very moving ten-minute speech regarding the fallacies of the new governor. He was an exceptional public speaker and he almost managed to sound sincere as he lauded the legislature to open impeachment hearings on the grounds of misrepresentation of office. He asked the speaker to please put the issue on the floor immediately and to follow it up with a vote. The speaker, as she was honor bound to do, did so.

"There is a motion on the floor at the request of Lieutenant Governor Benton," she said tonelessly into her microphone. "The motion is that this assembly of planetary representatives open an impeachment investigation into Governor Laura Whiting. Do I have a second for the motion?"

The assembly chamber remained silent as a mouse. The motion died right there on the floor for lack of a second. In a way, it was almost anticlimactic.

"The motion will be shelved," the speaker said blandly, as if she were dismissing nothing more important than a motion on what to have for lunch that day.

"Wait a minute," Benton said, standing and approaching her. "You can't just..."

"You are out of order, Lieutenant Governor," the speaker said, looking at him. "The motion has died. Resume your seat please."

"You don't understand," he said. "This motion has to be..."

"Take your seat," she repeated. "If you do not do so immediately, I will have security remove you."

He took his seat, fuming as he went.

"And now," the speaker said, "I have another special request. This one is from Governor Whiting. She has asked to say a few words to you before we convene the session and I have granted her request. Governor?"

Laura Whiting came onto the stage, dressed in a simple pair of dress shorts and a cotton blouse. Her long brown hair was down around her shoulders instead of pinned into a bun. She had a smile upon her face as she took the podium and thanked the speaker.

"Members of the Planetary Legislature and people of Mars that are watching this broadcast, I thank both of you for the support you've given me so far. With your help I have passed the first hurdle in my path to securing Martian independence."

Chapter 3

Though there had been many advances in communications technology since the beginning of the space colonization age there was one constant that never changed and probably never would. No matter what carrier for the signal was used, be it encrypted laser beams or modulating radio waves, they could move no faster than the speed of light. As such it was impossible for a person on Mars to hold a real-time conversation with a person on Earth. Even at the closest approach of the two planets — a mere fifty-six million kilometers — it took a message more than three minutes to travel from one place to another. Now, three months after the inauguration, with the two planets within ten degrees of being as far apart as they ever got, it took just under twenty minutes. And even that was not the extreme end of the communications lag. Once the sun became positioned between the two planets it would effectively block all radio waves from traveling from one place to the other in a direct line. All correspondence would then have to be routed first to a communications array in orbit around Jupiter, a step that added anywhere from forty minutes to two hours to the trip, depending upon just where Jupiter was located in the great scheme of things at the time. This period of "extended relay lag" as it was known in government documents, came once every twenty-four months and lasted for six weeks at a time. The next such period was calculated to begin in a little over five weeks.

William Smith sincerely wished that it were upon them right now.

He sat in his desk chair behind his desk in his office, a place that he felt he had been spending far too much time in during the last twelve weeks. He had just watched a scathing communiqué from Steve Carlson, CEO and chief stockholder of Agricorp and arguably the richest man in the solar system; a communiqué that had demanded the most immediate response. To say that Carlson was displeased with the recent events on Mars — a planet where seventy-four percent of his company's products were grown or manufactured — was the equivalent of saying that World War III had been a little skirmish. Agricorp stock, once the staple of the New York Stock Exchange, had fallen by more than a hundred dollars a share thanks to the perceived instabilities caused by the current political crisis. And Carlson, who had calmly expected the troublesome Whiting to be either discredited or dead by her second week in office, was now demanding answers of the man that was supposed to have overseen her removal.

"I thought that you knew how to play the game for keeps," he had told Smith in his icy, unforgiving voice. "I thought you knew what measures needed to be utilized to protect corporate interests over on that flying dust ball they call a planet. Maybe entrusting you with the day-to-day operations of our most important holdings was a mistake. Please report back to me immediately with an explanation of why this communist greenie bitch is still in office over there and still ranting about independence and nationalization."

In the world of corporate politics, where everything was said in doublespeak and innuendo, those were harsh, scathing words indeed. Smith knew that he was within bare inches of losing everything he had worked for over the years. All of the grappling and struggling and back-stabbing that he had done to rise to the position he now held, all of it would be for nothing if the Laura Whiting situation was not brought under control one way or the other. What had started out as an annoyance had quickly become the worst crisis of his entire career.

He sighed and opened up his desk drawer, pulling out a sterling silver box that was about the size of a charging battery for a hand-held laser. Inside was an airtight compartment stuffed with clipped marijuana buds harvested from the Agricorp greenhouses. The buds were of course the very finest available, the kind that were only sold in country club bars and exclusive restaurants for more than eighty dollars per hit. Smith received them for free of course. It was one of the perks of his job. In a felt compartment next to the buds was a small pipe that had been carved from genuine ivory, one of the most expensive substances in the solar system. He loaded the pipe up with a healthy sized pinch and ignited it, drawing deeply. He had been smoking a lot of marijuana lately, just to take edge off.

After exhaling and letting the THC work its way to his tired brain, he put his paraphernalia away and put the box back in his drawer. He then looked at his Internet terminal, which was in stand-by mode, the Agricorp logo the only thing showing. "Computer," he said, "communications software."

"Communications software up," the computer answered as the screen changed.

"Addressee is Steve Carlson, CEO." He took another deep breath and consulted some handwritten notes he had composed. "Begin recording."

The camera light on his terminal blinked on and he looked at the screen, his eyes making solid contact with it, his face showing the pleasant, subservient expression he used when talking to those higher on the ladder than himself. He spent a few moments spouting pleasantries, asking about Carlson's wife, children, and mistress just as if this were a normal business communiqué. Once that was accomplished he turned to the meat of the matter.

"I understand completely your concern that the Laura Whiting matter is still going on despite the passage of twelve weeks since her inauguration," he said. "I also understand the fact that you, as the head of the corporation, would question my abilities as CEO of Martian operations for failing to deal with it. I have no doubt that were our positions reversed, I would be asking the same questions of you and would expect detailed answers. I have always been a loyal manager for this corporation and I must tell you that I have done everything within my power here to dislodge Whiting from high office by one means or another. I have pulled out all of the stops and somehow she has managed to think ahead of us at every step of the way. Whiting is not a typical greenie, Steve, not in the least. Sometimes I'm forced to wonder if she's really a greenie at all. Allow me to summarize the measures we've attempted so far and how she has managed to counter them.

"The impeachment attempt. This was our first attempt to remove her from office and, though it had never been used before, it was the pre-planned method for dealing with such a gross abuse of trust on the part of a politician. The set-up for it was executed perfectly and without anything in the way of opposition from competing corporations. After all, Whiting was not just spouting damaging statements towards Agricorp, but towards all corporations and in fact our very way of life. Every Earth-based corporation on this planet rallied their lobbyists within hours of her inauguration speech and began putting pressure on the members of the legislature that they sponsored. Between us we owned every last one of the sixty-two members of this body and she should have been impeached unanimously within a week of taking her oath.

"Well, you already know how that one worked out. Whiting is a very charismatic speaker and she was somehow able to convince the common greenies to put enough pressure on their elected representatives to derail this process before it was even started. What was worse was the fact that she was able to pervert eleven of the representatives over to her point of view before a vote was even called for.

"And I'm afraid that this perversion of the representatives did not end there. As of this morning here in Eden, a grand total of twenty-nine planetary representatives, twelve of whom had been primarily sponsored by Agricorp, have renounced their previous affiliations and announced support for Whiting and her goals. These representatives will no longer take calls from lobbyists of any kind and will not respond to requests for communications from corporate heads. The Speaker of the Legislature is thankfully still in support of the corporations and she is still one of our employees as it were, but even she has been muted to a certain degree by the happenings here on this planet. For all of her power she is still nothing more than an elected representative that is vulnerable to the recall vote from her constituents. This has forced her to walk a very fine line in regards to which laws she votes upon and what other actions she takes. If she is perceived as being too biased towards us or any other corporation, we may very well lose her to a mass recall vote.

"That brings me to the second way we attempted to remove Whiting from office, namely the media blitz of negative publicity. As you are aware this is the most common and most effective way that we have of dealing with a rogue politician and it's something that has worked well since long before the colonization of this miserable planet. In this case I'm afraid that it is failing. Again, this is not due to any lack of participation on the part of other corporations. On the contrary, each one of the big three media conglomerates have been outdoing themselves in this effort. You receive the feeds back on Earth so I'm sure you know that you can hardly turn on a terminal to one of the big three channels or read one of their publications without finding something negative about Whiting. They've done stories about her past ties with militia groups, they've done stories about her business dealings and skewed votes as a representative, they've done stories hinting that she is a lesbian and a child molester. I'm sure that the people of Earth, if they've been watching this, are completely appalled by Whiting and are probably demanding her immediate removal. But here on Mars we're not dealing with rational people. These greenies watch the media shows but instead of demanding her removal or her indictment, they mock them. They regard them as comedy entertainment. Over the past seven weeks it has developed into something of a ritual that they gather in large groups, smoke marijuana and watch the latest show on Whiting so they can laugh at it. They have discussions in the Internet bulletin boards about how ridiculous the accusations were. The more inflammatory the charges brought are, the more amusing they seem to find it. Even Whiting herself has been poking fun at these shows in those damn bi-weekly addresses that she gives on MarsGroup. I'm afraid that we will not be able to count on the media blitz being any sort of deterrent to her behavior or any sort of vehicle for her removal.

"And then there are some of the other options that we've discussed in the past, namely those involving the Federal Law Enforcement Bureau, which as I'm sure you're aware has always been a great friend to all things corporate. I've been in constant contact with Corban Hayes, the director of the Martian FLEB offices here on Mars, ever since this crisis began. My instinct as a manager is to try to blame this fiasco on him and his agents, first for clearing Whiting for high office in the first place and then for failing to get her out once her true colors became known. That is my instinct but in this case I simply cannot assign any blame to him. As early as the third day of this crisis Hayes and his agents began a thorough investigation into Whiting on corruption and bribery charges. After all, she admitted during her inaugural address and in several subsequent speeches that she took unreported money from various corporations including Agricorp. You'll recall that I explained the plan that the two of us concocted to place blame on Sandy Callahan and several of her middle-management team for giving those bribes. While this would have cost us Callahan and a few others, and while it would have cast a slight pall upon our public relations, it should have resulted in Whiting's indictment and removal from office. Hayes was able to secure a search warrant for Whiting's financial records and bank accounts and everything seemed to be going well and then we hit the snag that killed the plan. All of that unreported money that we gave her over the years — every last dollar of it from the time she was an Eden city council member to her election to governor — it's still sitting in her election account. As incredible as that sounds, all twenty-three million dollars was logged and transferred from her personal account to her campaign account and it is still there, duly documented and technically completely legal from her standpoint. She did not spend so much as a dime of it for her own use. It is doubtful that Hayes would even be able to get an indictment of her on that basis, let alone a conviction. So that is how that plan fell through and it also goes to show just how long Whiting has been planning this little scheme of hers.

"That brought Hayes and myself to the final, most drastic plan for Whiting's removal, that of... well... arranging for an assassin to stalk her and remove her permanently. By the time we reached this point we were desperate, having exhausted almost all other options. Hayes was certainly agreeable enough to making the arrangements and he even had a plan in his files for how to go about such a thing. The problem with this plan is not in the conception or the assets but in the execution. Whiting has an elite battalion of the Martian Planetary Guard providing around the clock security for her. Now most of the MPG are bumbling boobs that like to dress up as soldiers on the weekend and play with guns, but the VIP security arm are not cut from this same mold. They are full-time members of the MPG and they train extensively with the latest weapons and techniques. They know their stuff and Hayes is of the opinion that it would be almost as hard to get to Whiting as it would be to get to one of the executive council members. He is, of course, still looking into the possibilities of the assassin plot but I have been told that it probably will not be feasible unless the MPG drops their guard to some degree."

Smith looked up at the ceiling for a moment, taking a deep breath and allowing the camera to keep rolling. He looked back at the screen. "Steve," he said, "that is my explanation for why Whiting is still in office. I hope you accept it and I hope you will agree that I've done all that I possibly can from my end. I'm dealing with greenies here and sometimes I find it hard to believe that they are actually the same species as we are, their thinking is so different. Now that I've had my say I hope you'll continue to listen to me long enough to tell you just how bad things really are here on Mars and how critical it is that something is done about her.

"Whiting's speeches on MarsGroup are the biggest threat. Twice a week, on Wednesday and Saturday at 6:00 New Pittsburgh time, she goes live and gives a ten to twenty minute speech. I've sent copies of them to you and I'm sure you'll agree that she sounds like a raving madwoman spouting a bunch of drivel about freedom and independence and government for the people. She's a goddamn communist, no doubt about it. That is how we perceive her speeches however. These ignorant greenies adore her and they hang on her every word. Each one of those speeches gets more than a ninety percent market share of the viewers on the planet. Ninety percent! Think about that for a moment. Ninety percent is an unheard of amount for any one show no matter what it is and this politician is achieving that with her rants. And believe me when I say that the greenies are not watching her for the sheer entertainment value that she represents, they actually buy into what she is saying. These greenies are actually starting to think that they should be free of WestHem. There are increasing reports of pro-separatist graffiti on corporate buildings and property. I'm afraid that if this trend continues we may start to have some sort of work slowdown or other job action in the greenhouses. I don't have to tell you what that might do to profits.

"The most detrimental effect that we're feeling down here though is the loss of control over the legislature, which has always been our most powerful weapon for keeping the greenies of the labor pool under control. Because of the defection of twenty-nine of the representatives in this body and because of the public pressure on the others that Whiting is fomenting, we have been unable to push through a single one of the twelve bills we had planned for this session. Six of these bills were planetary tax breaks towards food production operations and would have saved us nearly a trillion over the course of the year. The other six were easements on health and safety rules that would have saved us another half a trillion. How long will it be before things start working in reverse and this corrupted legislature body starts proposing increased taxes or greater health and safety requirements? I fear it won't be long at all.

"Steve, I've done everything that I can do from my end. I don't think I've slept a complete night since that bitch was sworn in. I've pulled in every favor and I've threatened almost every person with any sort of power on this shithole planet. None of it has worked. I'm sorry I've failed you and failed the company but please believe that it was not for lack of trying. You can replace me of course and I would understand completely if you did, but you have to realize that my replacement would be stuck with the very same problems and he would not have the same connections here on Mars that I have developed.

"The bottom line is that all of the solutions available on this planet for dealing with this problem have been exhausted. What we need is bigger pressure on bigger people and that means the executive council members and the federal apparatus on your end of the solar system. My suggestion would be that you try to get the FLEB director on Earth to allow Hayes and his people to start cracking down on these greenies as hard as they can. Once you start throwing them in jail and hounding them, they'll think twice about being so vocal in their protestations. And most important of all we need to find a way to remove Whiting from office. That will be the thing that will most effectively defuse this situation. The longer she remains in office, the worse this thing is going to get.

"Awaiting your reply and your instructions. Signing off. End recording."

The camera light blinked off and he let his subservient face slack.

"Email is ready," the computer told him. "Would you like to review?"

"No," he replied. "Just send it off. Use the highest level of encryption."

"Sending mail with level five encryption sequence," he was told. "Would you like to compose more mail?"

"No," he said testily. "Shut down communications software and give me some music. Something classical."

As the soft sound of synthetic instruments filled his office he reached in his drawer and pulled out his sterling silver case once again. He set up another hit and began to wait for the reply.

Meanwhile, 325 stories below, a black and white police cart came driving slowly down Agricorp Avenue, in no particular hurry. Brian and Lisa were inside, Brian behind the wheel, Lisa clucking in amusement at the text upon their dispatch screen. They were not often sent into this part of downtown although it was technically their area of responsibility. Not a lot of crime happened in the business district since most of the office buildings, the monstrous Agricorp included, had their own private security force.

"That must be our victim," Lisa said, pointing as they approached the solar system's tallest building. Sitting outside one of the side entrances on a planter in the street was a middle-aged man in a business suit. He was holding a towel to his face while two Agricorp security guards flanked him.

"Must be," Brian said, pulling to the curb next to them. "Looks like an officious Earthling prick to me."

"One of the ones that's been fucking and raping us all these years," she agreed. "I can't imagine why anyone would want to assault him."

"He probably can't either," Brian said.

They stepped out of the cart and shut the doors, both pausing to adjust their weapons belts before walking over to their victim. The security guards, both of whom were undoubtedly Martians, were clearly amused by the predicament of the man they were supposed to be protecting. Dressed in light blue armor that was more decorative than functional, they had barely concealed smiles upon their faces. One of them, the male half of the team, walked over and met them halfway.

"What do we got?" Lisa asked, pulling her patrol computer from her belt and flipping it open. "An upset corporate manager?"

"You know it," the guard said, letting his smile come forth now that he was no longer in view of the victim. "Mr. Ronald Jerome the Third there is one of the bigwigs in the subsidiary accounting division. It seems that as he was leaving the building to go home this afternoon a group of vermin happened across him and roughed him up a bit."

"I guess the vermin are good for something, aren't they?" Brian said whimsically.

"It's only 1500," Lisa said, checking her watch. "What the hell is he doing leaving work now for?"

"He's one of the upper echelon pricks," the guard replied. "They make the fresh meat work ninety hours a week here but the bosses pretty much come and go whenever the hell they feel like it. They come staggering in here between 1100 and 1300 and then go staggering back out again a few hours later. No one is really sure what it is they even do in there but it must not be very important."

"Are you kidding?" Brian said. "They're the ones that keep this great planet running. Where would we be without Agricorp and their bad-ass management team?"

"Free?" Lisa asked.

"You got that shit right," the guard said. "Anyway, he's all livid that he got manhandled by this 'gang of thugs' as he calls them. He's demanding that you go find them and take them to prison."

This cracked both of the cops up. "Prison for simple assault on an Earthling," Lisa said, shaking her head a little. "What fucking planet does he think he lives on? Christ."

"Let's go talk to him," Brian suggested. "This oughtta be fun."

They walked over, both making little effort to put their professional faces back on. There had been a time not too long before when an assault by a welfare class person upon a corporate person would have been a big deal. A full investigation would have been launched and teams of police officers would have been sent out to comb the ghettos until the perpetrator of perpetrators were found. Once arrested they would have had the proverbial book thrown at them, very likely receiving an extended prison sentence. In WestHem society the question was not what the crime was but who the victim had been. Crimes against corporations and corporate employees were considered much graver than crimes — up to and including murder — against working or welfare class.

But that had been before the inauguration of Laura Whiting and her bi-weekly speeches on MarsGroup. Her dissertations on the inner workings of the various corporations, of how they achieved the blatant political manipulation that kept them in perpetual power, had had a tremendous effect on the people of Mars, both welfare and working class. True everyone had always known that the corporations were the real government of the planet and of WestHem itself, but human nature had commanded that they not think about things that they could not change. What Whiting had done was force them to think about the way things were and to think about the fairness of the situation.

"Life is not fair," Whiting had said in one of her speeches shortly after the successful deflection of the impeachment proceedings. "That is one of our most common sayings as a species. Life is not fair and there's nothing you can do about it. We're taught that in school, in our Internet programming, in the movies that we watch and in the literature that we read. Everyone knows — they know — that life is just not fair and that is that. We know that because that is what they tell us. Isn't that right?

"But has it ever occurred to you, fellow Martians, that they only tell people things like that so that we will accept it, so that we will not try to change the system and come up with something that is fair? Because when you think about it, who is life not fair to? Is it not fair to you, the common people of this planet, or is it not fair to the leaders and the corporations that rule us?

"I don't think I have to have an opinion poll put out to hear your answers. You know and I know that life is not fair to you. The advantages go to those that have the money and the power. And if you were to try and take some of those advantages, some of that fairness, and shift it over to your side, that would necessarily take some of it away from their side. They don't want that. So they tell you just to accept the fact that life isn't fair. They tell you that in a thousand different ways each and every day from the time you are born throughout your entire life until you and everyone else becomes convinced that this is an indisputable fact of life, an unbreakable natural law. It carries the same weight as a law of physics. Parents teach this concept to their children, they believe in it so much. Teachers teach it to their students. Life is not fair and you'll just have to live with that and do the best that you can with the crumbs that you've been given. Isn't that how it is?

"But did you ever stop to think, even for a moment, even just fleetingly, why life has to be unfair? There really are no natural laws that say this has to be so. Fairness and unfairness is a human state of mind and their executions are products of human society. Why shouldn't life be fair? Why couldn't it?"

Of all of the speeches of Laura Whiting it had been this one that had done the most to open the eyes of the Martian people. The power of her words lie not in her presentation but in the blatant simplicity. Why couldn't life be fair? Why couldn't a system that insured life was fair to everyone be developed and put in place? There really was no reason except for the obvious one: the corporations and the government that they controlled did not want life to be fair. They did not want fairness and they would fight with everything that they had to keep it away, to banish it from the very thoughts of the people that had been without it for so long.

And after the speech in which the Martians had it explained to them that life did not really have to be unfair, Laura Whiting had then followed this up with other speeches outlining just how things were unfair in specific instances and just how this benefited those in power. She laid out the inner workings of the Martian and the WestHem systems in a way that high school civics instructors would never have dreamed of. "Money," she told them. "Everything comes down to the common denominator of money. Those that have the most of it are able to use it to pervert even the most moral of us to do their bidding. And who has the most money on this planet? Who controls the flow of money on this planet? Who runs the industries that make this planet such a valuable commodity to the WestHem system?"

Nobody had to be told that Earthlings was the answer to this question. Earthlings owned more than ninety-six percent of the holdings on Mars yet they made up less than two percent of the population at any given time. They made decisions each and every day from their glittering high-rise buildings, decisions that could take away the livelihood of thousands upon thousands of Martians, yet the Earthlings were never laid off and sentenced to perpetual welfare status. The Earthlings employed Martians in their corporations and had them do all of the manual labor, all of the paperwork, all of the cleaning and guarding, yet the Martians were rarely, if ever, invited into upper management positions within those companies. Martians were rarely if ever put in charge of decision making. Martians were allowed into the WestHem armed services where they served with distinction in all branches but they were rarely promoted to officer rank and they were never promoted to command rank.

Whiting pointed out these fallacies and many others to the Martian people twice a week and she had succeeded in transforming what had been seething resentment towards the Earthlings into white hot hatred of them. As William Smith had noted to his superiors, anti-Earthling graffiti had begun to spring up everywhere, on every building where Earthlings could be found. Leaflets expounding everything from general strikes to actual terrorist violence had begun to appear on apartment doors and bulletin boards in housing buildings. And reports of violence against Earthlings — usually random in nature and usually little more than minor harassment — had begun to crop up everywhere on the planet. Though Laura Whiting did not advocate these violent acts in her speeches — on the contrary, she begged her people to show restraint — years of frustration and apathy were being released and it was inevitable that many of the Martians would chose the most basic of human natures to express their discontent.

What was perhaps the most startling about this wave of anti-Earthling violence and vandalism was not its existence in the first place but the acceptance that the Martian criminal justice system showed towards it. There had never been any official memos on the matter, there had never even been verbal instruction from superiors, but through a strange form of osmosis the message had been passed up and down the ranks of the system, from the lowliest patrol cops to the judges and lawyers that ran the show: Crimes against corporate Earthlings were no longer the big deal that they had once been. Why should they be? Why should those that exploited and raped the planet receive special treatment? Reports were still taken of course but gone were the days that resources were wasted in any way tracking down the perpetrators of acts that were being looked at less and less as crimes with each passing Laura Whiting speech.

"So," Lisa asked their latest victim, "what seems to be the problem here today?"

"What seems to be the problem?" Mr. Ronald Jerome III asked, his cultured Earthling accent sounded decidedly high-pitched and whiny. "Look at my face!" He took the towel away revealing a left eye that was starting to swell. "Look at what those vermin did to me!"

"Somebody popped you in the face did they?" Lisa said.

"A whole group of them attacked me!" he yelled. "They surrounded me when I came out of the building and they started pushing me from person to person, calling me the most horrible names. They took my PC off of my belt and smashed it on the ground!" He pointed to the remains of his personal computer. It was lying against the base of the planter in a heap of plastic parts and microchips, it's screen broken cleanly in half. He seemed particularly outraged about this.

"That's a shame," Brian said without the slightest trace of sincerity. "That looks like it was one of those top of the line models."

"Probably set you back twelve hundred bucks getting a new one," Lisa added, making a few notations on her computer. "You look like you can afford it though, rich corporate Earthling like you. Hell, what do they pay you here?"

"That's none of your business," he said indignantly.

"I guess not," Lisa agreed. "I was just asking. Being a poor Martian and all, I can't really afford stuff like that."

"I'm not here to talk about your problems," Jerome said sternly.

"Of course you aren't," she said complacently. "Please continue with your narrative."

"Right," he said, nodding carefully, unsure whether he was being condescended to or not but strongly suspecting that he was. "So anyway, after they smashed my PC up, they threw me to the ground and one of them kicked me. He kicked me right in the face!"

"With his foot?" Lisa asked blankly.

"Of course with his foot! What else do people kick with? What's the matter with you people? I've been assaulted by a bunch of vermin! I want you to do something about it!"

"We are doing something about it," Lisa told him. "We're taking a report."

"To hell with your report! I want them caught!" he yelled. "I demand you go out and find them right now!"

"You demand?" Lisa said, letting a little chuckle escape. "Listen to this crap, Bri. He demands."

"He does seem very pushy, doesn't he?" he said, picking at a piece of fuzz on his chest armor.

Jerome looked at them in disbelief, clearly unaccustomed to being treated this way by mere civil servants — and greenie civil servants at that. "Are you telling me that you're not going to do anything about this... this crime?"

"I told you," Lisa said, "we're taking a report. We'll log it as a misdemeanor assault and it'll go into the tracking computer as such."

"And that's it?" he asked.

Lisa shrugged. "The detective division will take a look at it when they get around to it," she told him. "That'll be when they work their way through the felony assaults that they have pending first."

"And how long will that take?"

"Actually," Lisa said with a smile, "they'll probably never get around to it. You see, there are about five times as many felony assaults that come in as there are detectives to handle them. That's because the politicians that your little corporation and the others bribe to do their bidding won't let us kick loose any money to build jails and prisons. Therefore there's nowhere to put criminals even if we do catch them and since the criminals all know they won't be punished, there's really no reason for them not to assault someone when the opportunity arises. But you don't want to hear all about our greenie problems, do you? My point is that they have a hard time closing out the felony assault complaints so the misdemeanor assaults — like what happened to you — just sit there and accumulate month by month. I heard there was more than a hundred thousand of them pending, that sound about right to you, Bri?"

"Yep," Brian agreed. "That sounds pretty much on the mark."

"I am an Agricorp executive," the man said self-righteously. "I was attacked by vermin! Surely you don't consider that an ordinary crime do you?"

"A crime's a crime," Lisa told him.

"And a report's a report," Brian added. "Welcome to the wonderful world of Martian law enforcement. A world that your corporation helped create."

The man kicked at the pieces of his PC angrily. "You can't treat me like this," he told them. "Your administration will hear about this!"

Lisa and Brian both shrugged disinterestedly, both knowing that the captains and the deputy chiefs, career oriented pricks that they were, no longer officially gave a shit what corporate executives complained about. "You go ahead and tell them," Lisa said. "But in the meantime, you wanna make the report or what? It doesn't really matter to me."

"You'll be vermin by the end of the week," the man threatened. "I swear to you. I'll have your jobs!" With that he stomped off, taking his towel with him as he headed for the MarsTrans station two blocks over.

"I guess that'll be a no then," Brian said.

"I guess so," Lisa agreed, clearing the screen of her patrol computer and putting it back on her belt.

Six o'clock that evening found Matt and Jeff sitting in the latter's apartment, each with a fresh bottle of Fruity in their hands, watching the large Internet screen in the living room. They sat in scarred and battered plastic chairs that were older than their parents — furniture that had been purchased in a welfare store when Jeff and his new bride had set up housekeeping. In the kitchen Belinda was mixing up some sort of dish made from the cheap hamburger that was sold in the welfare grocery stores. The smell of cooking meat permeated the small living area.

On the screen Laura Whiting was just getting into her latest speech. The bi-weekly addresses were something that neither of the former gang members ever missed. There was something hypnotic and irresistible about being told by a politician just how they were all being fucked raw by the powers that be. The subject of today's speech was particularly interesting to them. It had to do with the perpetual class struggle between the Martian welfare class and the working class.

"You have to understand," she told her audience, "that this struggle is deliberate and pre-meditated by the corporations and the government that they've imposed upon us. It serves their interests for there to be strife between these two classes of people. If we are busy fighting each other and concentrating our energies on hating each other and what the other group stands for, we are much too distracted to concentrate any energy on the real enemy, the one who has put us in this position in the first place. It is a trick that is as old as repressive governments themselves. The British used it on the Irish Catholics and Protestants. The Americans used it on the poor whites and poor blacks of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It's the old conquer by division trick and it has worked well here on Mars ever since the end of the Agricultural Rush.

"Most of those that we flippantly refer to as 'vermin' are not in that position because of their own choice. Most of them would sincerely love to put in an honest day's work and take home money that they've earned instead of having it handed to them by the government. But they cannot. There simply are not enough jobs under this system that we have. And every year the unemployment rate grows worse and worse as the corporations merge and adjust and adapt cost cutting measures in a quest for more profits. How long will it be before we reach forty percent unemployment? How long until four out of every ten people on this planet are called vermin? Not very long if we go on like this. Not very long at all.

"And how, you may ask me, does WestHem and the corporations perpetuate this class struggle between the welfare and the working? I've told you the why, but what about the how? It's quite simple really. They already have human nature working on their side — human nature that just loves to find a group of people that one's own group can hate. All they really have to do is take something from the more advantageous of the two classes and give it to the lesser. In this case I'm talking about welfare money. Working class tax dollars — already outrageously high in comparison to what upper class and corporations pay — is used to buy food, housing, alcohol and marijuana, health insurance, and lawyer insurance for the welfare recipients. It is used to give them their bi-monthly allotments of spending money. Now this act in and of itself is not really a bad thing. We should help those that are disadvantaged. But what it does is cast a stigma on the welfare class and cause resentment among the working class. This resentment is turned to hatred when the prices of food and clothing and housing are raised without a corresponding increase in working class salaries. The working class are forced to struggle to survive, working hard every day just to make enough to keep their children fed and their rent paid and they are given no assistance whatsoever in their endeavor. In a way they are made to feel punished because they work. At the same time the welfare class are handed everything that they need and are discouraged from even looking for work. They are taken care of as far as basic needs but they are forced to endure prejudice and mistreatment by police officers, healthcare workers, and others that they deal with in their lives.

"People, this has got to stop! If we're going to be successful in gaining our independence the welfare and the working classes are going to have to work together. Hospitals, doctors, nurses, you need to stop treating people differently because of their employment status and what kind of health insurance they have. If you participate in this prejudice, you are helping the corporations keep us down. Police officers, teachers, transit workers, you need to stop treating the welfare class differently than you do people with jobs. They are human beings just like yourself and they are Martians — the descendants of those who came to this planet to escape from the squalor of Earth. Just because your family has somehow managed to escape from this engineered squalor so far, you do not need to look down upon and mistreat those whose families have not. The welfare class do not choose to be put on welfare, they do not enjoy taking our handouts, but they simply have no other choice in this world that has been created for us."

"Fuckin aye," Jeff cried, sitting up a little straighter. "That bitch really knows how to tell it. And to think, I blew her off a couple months ago as just another scumbag politician."

"I always told you she was different," Matt said, sipping from his bottle. "I'm starting to think that she just might pull this independence bid off. After all, she's beaten the corporations at every turn so far."

"So far," Jeff agreed. "She's got a long haul ahead of her, but maybe she will."

"And what if she does?" Belinda asked sourly, her words thick and slurred from the two bottles of Fruity that she'd swallowed while cooking. "What if this bitch that everyone's talking about actually does manage to get us independent? Do you really think anything is going to change around here? We'll still be unemployed vermin living off of welfare money and drinking this crappy brew that they make out of apple piss."

Jeff usually ignored his wife when she talked. If he was forced to acknowledge her it was usually in an argumentative tone. This time however, he spoke calmly to her. "So what if nothing does change?" he asked her.

"What?" she asked, not grasping what he was talking about.

"What if Laura Whiting takes over and everyone's worst fear comes true and she turns out to be some Adolph Hitler fascist dictator who only wanted to rule the fuckin world? So what if that happens? Would we be any worse off than we are right now?"

"That's not the point," Belinda said.

"It is the point," he told her. "I personally don't think that anything is going to come of this shit. I think that WestHem is going to find a way to get rid of her pretty soon and everything is going to go back to the way it always has been. But right now, she's tweaking some serious sack among those WestHem fucks and I love every goddamn minute of it. And if there's the slightest chance that we might have our miserable lives improved by what she's doing, shouldn't we support her? Shouldn't we help if we can?"

Belinda shook her head in disgust. "You're getting as bad as your friend there," she told him. "Talking about improvement and independence and shit like that. I guess three generations as vermin hasn't taught you much. Wait 'til you're five generations in like me."

"Fuck off," he told her. "You don't understand shit. Why don't you go finish up that slop you're cooking?"

She did so, after only a minor argument to the contrary. In truth Jeff could see that even Belinda was feeling some hope despite her cynical blabbering to the contrary. Wasn't she always coming in and out of the room when Whiting was speaking, pretending not to be interested but keeping one ear tuned to the screen? Wasn't she always looking through MarsGroup articles regarding the latest Whiting exploits and then pushing them to the background if he happened to come in the room? Belinda's attitude was typical among many of the welfare class. They pretended to be disinterested because they wanted to be able to say "I told you so" if Whiting ultimately failed.

Matt ate dinner with the Creeks, something he did several nights a week, and then, after fortifying themselves with another bottle of Fruity apiece, the two friends donned their darkest clothing and headed out of the building to perform what had become their favorite activity over the last month. They took with them a can apiece of industrial spray paint that they had shoplifted from the welfare mart and they walked through the darkened streets towards the downtown area. They moved beneath the glass roof, a canopy of billions of brightly burning stars visible in the gaps between high rises. Sticking to the sidewalks and walking as close to the buildings as they could get, it took them twenty minutes to reach their target area - a lower-end commercial district on the border between the Heights and downtown. The streets here were lined with shopping complexes and moderate rent office buildings. Since businesses and office buildings — intoxicant shops excepted - were all closed this time of night there were very few people out and about.

"How about there?" Jeff asked, pointing at the entrance to the FurnitureCorp building. This was a 114-story tower that housed the administration of much of the planet's rent-to-own furniture industry, an industry that preyed heavily upon the Martian welfare class and working poor. It was of course owned and operated by Earthlings.

"Nobody's tagged it yet," Matt said with a smile. "Fuckin amazing. Let's do it."

They walked down the street, moving casually, as if they weren't the least bit interested in their surroundings. In reality they were using their peripheral vision to scan all around them, their street senses searching for cops, witnesses, or anyone else that they didn't want or expect to see. Except for a few bums sleeping in the street planters, there was no one. As they passed the entrance to the building they saw a guard sitting behind a desk inside but no one else. The guard was a Martian, as were all security guards on the planet, and probably nothing to worry about. Experience had already taught them that security guards — the closest working people to vermin in stature — would happily look the other way on this kind of mission. The security cameras at the front of the building were something else though. Matt got the first one. Though it was four meters up he was able to hit it with a blast of his spray can by jumping up and twisting around before firing. This was a well-practiced technique, garnered from basketball skills, designed to blind the camera without allowing it to get a digital shot of his face first.

"Good one," Jeff said, impressed. "You're getting better at that." He then proceeded to do the second camera, walking towards it with his head hunched down until the last second. He jumped, twisted in mid-air, and gave a pinpoint blast of red paint right on the lens. A direct shot. Now that both cameras were out of action, it was time to go to work.

On the thick plexiglass of the building front, they each painted their epitaphs. Using broad strokes of the can, Matt wrote FREE MARS in red letters nearly a meter high. He double-underlined it for effect. Jeff's writing was a little more artistic. In calligraphic script he wrote: EARTHLINGS GO HOME. The guard inside of the building clearly saw them doing this but ignored their actions completely except for a slight grin and a quick thumbs up. He would pretend to discover the vandalism later on in his shift.

"Goddamn this is fun," Jeff said as they headed down the street in search of another target. "It's almost as fun as running dust over from the greenhouse supply yards."

It took them awhile to find another target to hit. It was not that there were no corporate owned buildings to deface, it was that most of them had already been tagged several times. FREE MARS, EARTHLINGS GO HOME, FUCK ALL EARTHLINGS, AUTOMONY NOW, and FUCK THE CORPORATIONS were the dominant mottos seen, painted in varying heights and colors on the fronts of nearly every building. Persistence soon paid off however and they found the Caldwell Building, home of the fourth largest lawsuit insurance provider in WestHem. The front windows here were agreeably clean, just begging for a fresh coat of anti-Earthling epitaphs. They provided them and then went out in search of yet another building, a quest they were successful in six blocks over at the Logiburn and Meyers high rise, home to the sixth largest law firm on Mars.

After defacing the law firm's front windows they moved north along the street, searching for another target. They made it about three blocks before hearing the electric hum of police carts approaching from behind them. Veterans of police shakedowns, both knew instantly just by the speed they were traveling, that they were going to stop them. Both instinctively looked around for an escape route out of the area — an alley or a maintenance access road that they could run to and make their escape. There were none in easy reach. It seemed that the cops knew what they were doing, not making their approach until their quarry was well out in the open.

"Oh shit," Matt said, resigned. He was very nervous. They had been defacing corporate buildings after all, an act that would have gained them prison time not too long before. Was it possible that the rumors that they had heard about the cops looking the other way about such things were wrong? It sure seemed so since they were about to stop them.

"Just be static," Jeff said as the two carts pulled to a stop behind them. "Maybe we can talk our way out of this shit."

The four doors of the two carts clanked open and four helmeted, armored Eden police officers stepped out, all of them slipping their tanners into their belts. The cop closest to them — the name badge on his armor identified him as Broward — took two steps towards them. Like any ghetto inhabitants worth their salt, Jeff and Matt pretended not to notice them and kept walking.

"Hold up a second there, you two," Broward said, taking a few more steps closer, his entire body braced to run after them if they tried to make a break for it.

They stopped and turned to face them, tough but neutral expressions upon their face. Both kept their hands at their sides, well clear of the holstered guns they carried under their shirts. Broward looked them up and down and then stepped even closer, his own hand resting on the butt of his tanner. His entourage followed behind him, spreading out a bit to provide cover.

"What are you two doing out here tonight?" Broward asked them.

"Nothin," they both muttered, giving the standard ghetto answer to such an inquiry.

"Nothing huh?" he said, looking from one to the other. "We got a report that a couple of guys were going around the neighborhood spray-painting things on buildings. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?"

"No," Matt said, shaking his head.

"Haven't seen nothin like that," Jeff said.

"Really now?" Broward said. "The report identified these people as gang member looking types, very out of place in this part of town. They're reported to have Capitalist tattoos on their arms, kind of like the ones you two are sporting."

Knowing that they were caught, both Jeff and Matt simply shrugged. What else was there to do? In a minute they would be taken into custody and hauled down to the booking area for processing. It was something that both had gone through several times before, although never for crimes against corporations.

"What's that all over your hands?" Broward asked them next.

They looked at their hands, seeing that they were obviously splattered with paint residue. "I was painting some furniture earlier," Matt said sarcastically. "I forgot to wash up."

"Me too," Jeff put in. "Water don't run too good in the Heights buildings. You know how it is."

"Yeah," Broward said, nodding his head a little. "I heard that about them buildings. So what are you two doing in this part of town? Just taking a little walk to enjoy the night?"

"That's right," Jeff said.

"We like the night," said Matt.

The cop continued to look them up and down for a moment, his blue eyes piercing. Finally he nodded, as if satisfied. "Good enough then," he said. "I guess you've explained yourselves."

"Couldn't be our guys," one of the other cops said.

"Nope," said another. "Just some furniture painters out for a walk in the commercial district. Our mistake."

"Huh?" Matt said, confused, wondering what sort of game they were playing.

Apparently they were not playing a game however. "You two have yourselves a nice night," Broward told them. "We apologize for the inconvenience. And if you see any gang member types going around and painting graffiti on corporate buildings, you give us call, okay?"

"Yes," said one of the others. "That's certainly a crime that we need to stamp out."

"Umm... sure..." Matt said, thinking that this was the most bizarre experience he had ever had. "We'll uh... do that."

Broward gave them a little two-fingered salute. With that, all four of them walked back to their patrol carts, their tanners clanking, and got inside. A moment later they were driving off, their taillights fading quickly with distance.

"Holy shit," Jeff said, watching them go. "Did that really just happen?"

"I think it did," Matt agreed blankly, still unable to believe that they were still standing there after being pretty much caught red handed. They hadn't even scanned them! They hadn't even asked them for their PCs for identification!

They stood there for more than two minutes, looking at the empty street, their brains trying to convince them that they had just hallucinated the entire episode. "Well," Matt finally said, "shall we carry on?"

"I guess so," Jeff said.

They began to walk again, looking for their next target.

Stanley Clinton had been the director of the Federal Law Enforcement Bureau for nearly ten years. As such, he was accustomed to occasionally briefing the WestHem executive council — that group of nine elected representatives that had replaced the single-person presidency shortly after World War III — on various security issues. Never however, had he dreaded a briefing as much as this one.

He had flown from the rooftop of the FLEB building in downtown Denver — the WestHem capital city — in his private, computer operated VTOL craft, landing after a ten-minute flight on the restricted back lawn of the capital building itself. From there he had been escorted inside of the 220 story triangular high-rise, the tallest building on planet earth, and up to the 218th floor, where the executive briefing room was located.

The briefing room was not very large but it was opulently furnished with genuine oak tables and chairs and top of the line Internet screens equipped with the very best encryption gear available. The window on the western exposure looked out upon the snow capped peaks of the Rocky Mountains, which were starkly visible in the clear air. Denver had once been one of the smoggiest cities in the nation but smog was now a thing of the distant past thanks to fusion power and hydrogen burning engines.

Only two of the executive council members were present for Clinton's briefing. John Calvato, who represented to eastern North American district of WestHem, and, at three-quarters of the way through his second six-year term, was the senior member. As such he carried more power than the other members and was accorded with the title Chief Executive Councilperson. Like all council members he was tall, physically attractive, and a good actor for the Internet cameras. He was also a third generation billionaire, something that was an unofficial requirement for the highest office. His chief sponsors on the election circuit were Agricorp, who owned six of the nine members, and CompWest, WestHem's primary computer software developer.

The other member present for the briefing was Loretta Williams, a first termer in her early fifties. She was one of the junior members but she was the elected councilperson that was supposedly representing Mars (as well as Ganymede and the Pacific Islands of Earth) although she had only been there once and had never been a resident. She too was owned lock, stock, and barrel by Agricorp and the other food production corporations, having received more than a billion dollars in campaign contributions and other handouts from them over the years of her career. It was Williams who would present the official federal government face to the growing crisis on Mars. Already she had been on Internet multiple times stating in no uncertain terms that Laura Whiting was a corrupt, possibly mentally ill person and that the WestHem government would not now and never would in the future consider negotiating independence with the Martians. "That planet is a part of this great nation," she had been quoted as saying. "It is WestHem that colonized and built that planet and it is WestHem business interests that have paid for everything that is present there. Mars is a part of our union — as much a part as Cuba and Argentina and Ganymede — and they always will be."

That was the official WestHem line on the Martian situation — a line that the corporations who had put the politicians where they were insisted upon. It was a line that Clinton and the sixteen thousand FLEB agents under his command would uphold to the death. It was the line that the big three were feeding the people on Earth and were attempting to feed the people on Mars.

"Welcome, Mr. Clinton," Williams said with an accommodating smile as he entered the room and closed the door behind him. "How was your trip over?"

"It was fine, Madam Councilperson," he said with a slight smile. "The air was very still today, hardly any turbulence to speak of. And the secret service was particularly fast about clearance for landing."

"That's nice to hear," she said. "Sometimes they are a bit too diligent in their duties. Won't you sit down?"

He sat down. Williams exchanged a few more pleasantries with him, most having to do with his family and his office. She then congratulated him on his ongoing campaign against the scourge of software piracy and illegal music file duplication. Since being appointed as director, convictions for those most heinous crimes had increased by more than eighteen percent, as had the prison terms handed out for them. Through this all Calvato simply sat in place, a frowning, irritated expression upon his face, his brown eyes boring into the FLEB director.

"Now then," Williams said once the preliminaries were taken care of, "about this Laura Whiting situation."

"Yes Ma'am," Clinton said with a nod.

"I don't believe I have to tell you that some very important people are becoming increasingly upset about her continued presence in that capital building. It has been more than two months now since she showed us just what kind of person she was; two months and she is still in office, still riling up those greenies into a fury, and still getting on the Internet twice a week shouting about independence. Can you explain this, Mr. Clinton? Because frankly, we on the council and some of our more important constituents are starting to wonder if perhaps a new FLEB director would be able to handle things more efficiently."

"I understand their concern," Clinton said without hesitation. "And I understand how it may seem that we in the bureau are not doing our jobs. To tell you the truth, I never imagined that it would take this long to make Laura Whiting go away but she has proven to be very crafty to this point. Obviously this little independence game is something that she has been planning for years. And her manipulation of the Martian people, well that is quite simply an ability that we had not factored into our equations. What we have on Mars right now is the unsavory reality that the elected representatives of the planet are actually ignoring those who have sponsored them and instead are responding to the demands of the common people."

"That is unacceptable," Calvato said, speaking for the first time. "Having the ignorant greenies making the decisions on that planet is putting at risk trillions of dollars in investments."

"We understand that, sir," Clinton said. "And believe me when I say that we are working as hard as we can to reverse this before it gets any further. As I said, the problem is that Whiting has managed to anticipate and neutralize all of our traditional means of removing a troublesome politician." He then went on to explain everything that had been attempted so far: the criminal investigations of bribery, the media smear campaign, even the assassination plot, and how they had all failed. Williams and Calvato did not seem terribly impressed with his explanations.

"All that we've heard here are excuses," Williams told him. "What we need is action, and quickly. The problem has now spread beyond Laura Whiting. The greenies themselves are on the verge of getting out of control. We have reports that they are distributing fliers on apartment doors about independence, that they are spray-painting epitaphs on corporate buildings. How long will it be until they start rioting in the streets? How long will it be before they start doing more damage to corporate property than mere graffiti? I can even foresee them trying to arrange some sort of general strike or something like that. I don't have to tell you what that could do to the profits of the various WestHem interests on that planet."

"No Ma'am, you don't," he said humbly.

"You need to start cracking down on those greenies," Williams said. "I expect you to continue working on the Whiting problem, which is the root of the matter after all, but these greenies need to have the fear of God put in them, they need to be shown that following and responding to such an obvious madwoman is not in their best interests."

"Crack down on the greenies, Ma'am?" he asked slowly, knowing instinctively that this was a very bad idea and also knowing that neither Williams nor anyone else on the council had been the one to come up with it. No, cracking down sounded like the sort of thing that corporate heads such as Steve Carlson of Agricorp would come up with. To a man used to operating a huge business and corrupting politicians, this would seem the logical course to follow when people were not doing as they were told. After all, it worked with middle management and blue-collar workers didn't it? It worked with politicians (except for Laura Whiting and the Martian planetary legislature) didn't it? Why wouldn't it work with common people? With vermin? And if the idea had come from the corporate heads, the executive council would not be swayed from this course. Being swayed from a direct order by Carlson or his companions would mean that they risked be cracked down upon.

"You heard me correctly," Williams told him. "We want your agents on Mars to let those greenies know, in no uncertain terms, that these acts of defiance against our business interests will not be tolerated. We want them thrown in jail and held there!"

"We've tried that," Clinton said. "The problem is that graffiti and so forth are crimes against the planet, not the federal government. This puts them under the jurisdiction of the planetary criminal justice system: the local police and the local judges. These people are all greenies. And while we'd always considered the judges and lawyers and police chiefs to be... well... reliable, it seems that we were wrong about that. They are simply not taking action against these crimes. I have even received reports that police officers have caught the perpetrators red-handed and just let them go. We are having the same problems with assaults against the managers and officers of the corporations."

"If they're not federal crimes than you make them federal crimes," Williams told him. "You call it terrorism or treason or whatever you want, but you have your agents on Mars start making some arrests. Get the word out on that planet that the feds are now involved in this fight and you get it out quickly, with action. If you start hauling these radical elements off and extraditing them to Earth for trial, I guarantee you that those greenies will think twice about being so vocal or so artistic."

"These are extreme times," Calvato said. "And extreme measures are called for."

"Yes sir, yes Ma'am," Clinton replied, not showing the dread he was feeling at these orders.

"We expect this to be done immediately," Williams said. "And remember, the removal of Laura Whiting is still the highest of your priorities. Get rid of her by whatever means is necessary. Whatever means! If you do not, we'll be getting rid of you."

"Yes Ma'am," he said.

The meeting went on for a while longer — closing pleasantries were required by protocol after all — but that was really what had needed to be said. Soon Clinton was escorted from the building and back out to his VTOL on the lawn.

"Enjoy your flight, sir," the secret service agent that had been his escort told him as he climbed into the cockpit of the aircraft.

"Right," he said sourly, closing the canopy and settling into his seat. He strapped in and then put his finger to the computer screen below the windshield.

The computer analyzed his fingerprint and, after concluding that he was an authorized user of the craft, lit up with the opening display. "Good afternoon, Director Clinton," it told him politely. "Awaiting command."

"Flight mode," he told it. "Destination: FLEB building, Denver."

"Warm up sequence beginning," it replied, the hydrogen turbine engines mounted on the wings immediately flaring to life with a hum. The propellers, which were currently in the take-off/landing position, facing upward, began to turn. Clinton felt cool air from the ventilation system blowing on his face.

He sat back in his seat and tried to relax while the computer sent the aircraft through a pre-flight systems and hardware check and obtained authorization for take-off from the Secret Service air traffic computer system. The authorization was given after only a two-minute wait and the engines wound up to high RPMs for take-off. The aircraft lifted into the sky a moment later, rising slowly to an altitude of one thousand meters above the ground before the engines tilted forward, changing the angle of the propellers and imparting forward flight. Guided by detailed mapping software and an extensive system of global positioning satellites, it darted and banked over the downtown Denver area, automatically avoiding other such aircraft and finally settling down to a soft landing on the roof of the FLEB building five minutes later.

Clinton climbed out and made his way to a secured, private elevator. Two minutes later he was back in his office, loosening his tie and staring at his computer screen. He had one of his staff bring him a stiff bourbon and coke and then called up his communications software.

"This will be a priority message for Corban Hayes, director of Martian field operations."

"Record when ready," the machine told him.

He began to talk, laying out a set of instructions for his underling that were very much against his better judgment.

Two days later, in Eden, Lisa and Brian were working a patrol shift in the downtown area. Their call volume had been much lower over the past month than they were accustomed to and those calls that they did go to seemed to be less violent and less sordid. Once there they had found themselves being subjected to an increasingly dwindling amount of physical and verbal abuse by the welfare class citizens that they dealt with. Though both were hardened, cynical veterans of patrol services, they could think of no other explanation for the drop in crime and abuse than Laura Whiting and her speeches. It seemed that the vermin were taking her words to heart.

"It's eerie in a way," Lisa said as they drove slowly down the daylight streets of the ghetto section of downtown. "Nobody's flipping us off, nobody's grabbing their crotch, nobody's throwing empty Fruity bottles at us. What's the planet come to?"

"They don't love us anymore," Brian said, watching the throngs of vermin that were hanging out on every planter box, in front of every public housing building. They were all doing the usual vermin things — drinking Fruity, smoking from marijuana pipes, watching porno shows on their PCs — but most of them were completely ignoring the passing police cart. A few had even waved at them, something that had been so unusual as to be unheard of not long before. As Lisa had said, it was eerie in a way. It was like everyone had been given some sort of happy gas.

"Incoming call," said the dash-mounted computer, which was linked to the dispatch system via cellular technology. A second later, rows of text appeared on the screen, describing their latest assignment.

"What is it?" asked Lisa, who was behind the wheel.

"A request to assist a FLEB team on a takedown," he said.

"A FLEB team?" Lisa said in disgust. Assisting FLEB agents in apprehension of federal criminals was not a common thing, but it was not exactly uncommon either. "Those assholes? What do they got this time? Another bunch of software pirates?"

"It doesn't say," he told her, reading through the rest of it. "The staging location is over at 101st and Broadway. They sent over Delta-53 and Bravo-56 as well."

"Three patrol units to help take down someone?" Lisa said, shaking her head a little. "That's a lot of guns for a software pirate."

"Big waste of our time if you ask me," he replied, pushing the acknowledge button on the terminal. "Why can't those federal fucks take care of their own pick-ups?"

"They need someone to tell them how to do it, don't they?" she replied, making both of them chuckle. It was a well known fact that the FLEB agents, though sworn law enforcement officers and despite a tough guy reputation garnered by Internet shows, were severely lacking when it came to street sense and tactical matters. It was said in Martian law enforcement circles that the average FLEB agent couldn't find Phobos with a telescope and a tracking computer.

The trip to 101st and Broadway took about five minutes. When they arrived there they found two black FLEB vans parked outside in a truck-loading zone behind a low rent apartment complex. The FLEB vans were electric panel trucks with the emblem of their agency stenciled on the sides. Both Lisa and Brian were amused to see that someone had spray-painted FREE MARS on the side of one of them in bright red paint. Standing outside of the vans were ten agents, all of them dressed in heavy Kevlar armor gear and carrying M-24 rifles. They looked a little like accountants playing dress up for a Halloween party. One of them walked over to the police cart as it parked, approaching on the passenger side.

"What's up?" Brian asked, opening his door but not stepping out.

"Special agent Walker," the man introduced himself. He was in his late forties and spoke with a heavy Earthling accent. "I'm in charge of this strike team today."

"Static," Brian answered, deliberately thickening his own Martian accent. "So what's the deal? Got some software pirates or something you need to take down?"

"No," he said with a shake of the head. "Not pirates. Terrorists."

Brian shared a look of puzzlement with Lisa. "Terrorists?" he asked. "What kind of terrorists?"

"A whole group of them," he said. "Violent Martian separatists. We have information that they're planning to plant explosives near federal installations here on the planet."

"Explosives?" Lisa asked incredulously. "Where the hell would vermin get explosives?"

"That's what we're going to find out," Walker assured them. "Our information is that there are at least six of them up there, maybe more. They may be armed."

"Everybody's armed on Mars," Brian said. "This is a WestHem colony. Home of the right to bear arms, remember?"

"Right," Walker said. "So that's why we wanted you locals here with us. We just want the back-up in case we need it. We'll move in as soon as the other two units get here."

Brian and Lisa shared another look. "Uh... just what sort of information do you have that leads you to believe there are terrorists up there?" Lisa asked.

"Sorry," Walker told her. "That's confidential. So anyway, they're up on the 93rd floor of the building here, apartment 9312. We have a door breach and the plan is to just go in and strike and then get out. Be sure to grab your M-24s when we go up."

"Do we have a warrant for all of this?" Brian asked.

"Of course we do," he told them. "A federal magistrate signed one out less than an hour ago."

"A federal warrant huh?" Lisa said.

"That's right," Walker told her. "Is there a problem with that? If so, we can always contact your watch commander to rectify it."

She scowled at his thinly veiled threat. "It's your show, Mr. Walker," she said, reaching under her seat and unclipping her M-24 from its holder.

The other two patrol units arrived a few minutes later and, after they were briefed on the plan of action, everyone headed into the building. It was a typical public housing building and the lobby was full of the usual assortment of unemployed people sipping from Fruity bottles and smoking out. They all gave curious looks to the armed squad of feds and police officers but kept their distance. Walker, leading the parade, walked to the bank of elevators in the rear.

"Okay," he said to everyone. "Half of you take the left elevator and half of you take the right. Don't let any riders in as you go up and we'll assemble up on the 93rd. My maps show that 9312 is sixty meters to the south of the elevator bank. Any questions?"

None of the feds had any, but Lisa did. "Excuse me," she said. "I have a suggestion."

"What is it, officer?" he asked somewhat impatiently.

"Well, it's somewhat traditional in a case like this for everyone to assemble on the floor above where the target apartment is and then walk down the closest staircase. That way, you see, if your suspects have a look-out or just happen to be outside at that particular moment, they don't notice you gathering for the strike."

Walker considered that for a moment. "You know," he said brightly, "that's a good idea. Let's do it."

"Christ," Lisa mumbled to herself, resisting the urge to roll her eyes back. Her good idea was basic police academy training.

They did it, all of them riding up to 94 in two shifts. Once up there they went to the back emergency staircase and down a flight. They passed several people in the halls and on the staircase itself, all of them giving an extremely wide berth to the group of armed and armored men and women.

Walker opened the staircase door on 93 and, after a quick, careless look, waved everyone forward into a hallway that was lined with gang graffiti and anti-Earthling sentiments. They all walked along behind him, their weapons clanking, their boots squeaking, until they reached the doorway labeled 9312. Walker and two of his men then prepared to breach the door.

"Look at these morons," Lisa said softly, without moving her lips. Her throat microphone transmitted her words only to the police officers in the group. "They're standing in front of the freakin door while they do that."

"What do they teach them in FLEB academy?" replied Scott James, on of the other real cops. "You'd think for a two year program they'd be a little smarter than that."

"They're college educated you know," Brian put in. "I guess all of that higher learning pushes out the common sense."

While the cops all laughed among themselves about the sad tactical performance they were witnessing, Walker placed the door breach module against the power box of the door. The door breach was a device that sent out a strong but brief electromagnetic pulse, causing disruption of the locking mechanism on cheap automatic doors. It worked it's magic now and the door slid open about half an inch, just enough for another agent to put a crowbar into the gap. He began to pry, forcing the door the rest of the way open. Had the inhabitants of the apartment been armed and willing to, they could have easily gunned down several of the FLEB people since they were standing directly in the doorway instead of off to the side of it like real cops. But they were allowed to get away with it in this instance. With guns raised the FLEB squad rushed inside, all of them screaming at the residents to get down but all of them using different phrases.

"Fucking morons," Lisa said again as she and Brian and the rest of the Eden police officers went through the doorway behind them, M-24s raised in the firing position.

The apartment was a two bedroom with a relatively large living room area. Some old furniture, all of it threadbare and falling apart, all of it undoubtedly from the welfare store or from a rent-to-own shop, was arranged symmetrically on the cheap carpet. On the table next to an Internet terminal was a commercial grade hard-copy printer that could churn out twenty to thirty sheets of hemp paper per minute. Pamphlets, presumably that had come out of the printer, were stacked everywhere, most of them in stacks of a hundred or so and fastened with rubber bands. On the front of them were the words: MARTIAN INDEPENDENCE — NOT JUST A DREAM!

The inhabitants of the apartment — two men and two women, all of them dressed in faded cheap shorts and shirts — were grabbed by their hair or clothing and shoved to the carpet by the FLEB agents. They were thrown roughly down and had steel-toed boots placed against their necks while other agents held the barrels of M-24s to their heads. They were all screaming and yelling, pleading with the black-outfitted agents to tell them what was going on.

"Shut the fuck up, greenie slime," Walker yelled at them, raising his boot and kicking one of the women in the side hard enough to make her gasp out her air.

Brian, Lisa, and the others looked on in shock at the treatment. Though they were no fans of vermin and though they were all of the opinion that they were forced to be too gentle with those they arrested, the unprovoked violence that the FLEB agents were utilizing was appalling to them. What had these people done to deserve this?

"Get 'em cuffed up," Walker ordered his people. "I want them downstairs in the van right away."

The agents applied their cuffs to the various wrists and cinched them down brutally tight, causing actual bleeding in one of the men.

"Walker," Brian said, after witnessing this, "don't you think you're being a little rough here?"

Walker gave him a seething glare. "I am in charge of this operation," he replied. "I do not recall asking you for advice in how to handle my prisoners. If it's a little too much for you to take, you can just go back downstairs."

Brian glared back but said nothing. Soon Walker returned to his task.

The four men and women, all of them moaning and grunting, all of them still asking what they had done, were jerked rudely to their feet and pushed towards the doorway. Six of the FLEB agents went with them and led them down the hallway. This left Walker and three of his agents in addition to Brian, Lisa, and the others. The agents fanned out through the two bedrooms and the kitchen where they began dumping drawers out and upturning beds.

"You locals are dismissed now," Walker said to Brian. "Thanks for your help."

"What the hell is going on here?" Brian demanded. "Are you trying to tell me that those people were terrorists?"

"I'm not trying to tell you anything," Walker said. "They are charged with plotting to attack a federal building. They will be extradited to Earth for trial."

"Extradited to Earth?" Lisa said. "Why the hell would you do that? There's a federal court right here in Eden."

"It is felt that Martian jurors might not be... well... exactly impartial," Walker said. "Considering the recent events on this planet it has been decided that all federal prisoners will be tried in Denver or Sau Paulo."

"Unbelievable," said one of the other cops, a six-year veteran of patrol services. "What kind of trial are they going to get on Earth?"

"A fair one," Walker said. "It's the WestHem way."

"And just where is the evidence that they were planning a bombing?" Brian asked. "All I see here are a bunch of leaflets about Martian independence. Those are protected under the first amendment of the WestHem constitution, are they not?"

"There will be evidence here somewhere," Walker assured them. "They'll have it on their computer files or in their bedroom. There will be something."

"This is not right," Lisa said. "What the hell are you feds trying to pull here?"

"We're not pulling anything," Walker said sternly. "We're just trying to keep some greenie vermin in line. You're cops aren't you? Why the hell are you taking up for these slimebags? I'd think you'd be glad to get them off the streets."

"You thought wrong," Brian said. "They weren't doing anything but printing up fliers. What evidence did you have against them? What information did you use to get your warrant?"

"As I said before, that is not your concern. You folks are dismissed. Thank you for your assistance."

"Walker," Lisa started. "I think..."

"Don't think," he interrupted. "It doesn't suit your... species. You're dismissed. Leave my crime scene immediately or I'll have you charged with interference with a federal investigation."

Lieutenant Margaret Duran was sitting behind a desk in the downtown substation, going over some reports that had been filed by her watch the previous shift. She was smoking a cigarette and sipping out of a bottle of water. Soft music issued from the speakers of her Internet terminal. She was in a good mood, as she had been prone to lately, and she hummed along with the melody as she worked. As a veteran watch commander she was accustomed to dealing with some very sticky issues, both with the troops that she commanded and with the administrative cops that commanded her. Her position was somewhat of a buffer between the management of the police department and the labor that actually performed the work. Strife had always been present between these two groups as the working cops tried to do their jobs with what they'd been given and the captains and deputy chiefs tried to worship the gods of public opinion. But lately, since the push towards Martian independence had really started to take form, things had mellowed between these two groups quite a bit. Management was suddenly not as prone to making new, ever oppressive policies designed to break the backs of the working cops and keep them in line. And the cops were not as prone to slovenliness or morale problems as they had been, probably — in part anyway — because they weren't nearly as busy anymore. It was a strange but true phenomenon that crime had actually dropped significantly since the Whiting inauguration and the defeat of the impeachment movement. Could it be that for the first time the Martian people were experiencing hope? Duran sometimes wondered if that was the case, and as cynical and hardened as twenty-five years of Eden law enforcement had made her, she really could not come up with any other explanation.

"Incoming communication from four-delta-five-nine," her computer terminal suddenly spoke up, relaying a message from the dispatch computer. "Would you like to accept?"

Unit 4-D-59. That was Wong and Haggerty, two of her better cops. She took a moment to wonder why they would bypass their sergeant in the chain of command with whatever problem they had. It was a minor breach in protocol that possibly bespoke of a situation that they didn't think he could deal with on his own. Her happy mood faded just a tad. She had a pretty good idea of what the problem might be. Already some rumors from other parts of the department had filtered her way. "Put them on screen," she told the computer with a sigh.

Haggerty's face appeared a moment later, his eyes showing troublesome concern. "Sorry to bother you, lieutenant," he said. "But there's something that I think we should talk to you about."

"No problem," she said. "What's up?"

"It might be better," he suggested, "if we could meet face to face. I don't really want to put it out on the airwaves. No hurry, just if you get a chance to get out on the streets this shift..."

"I'll be right out," she told him, knowing that it was best not to put requests like that off. "All I was doing was looking over these atrocities you people call reports anyway. How about 35th Street and 6th Avenue, in the loading area of the Schuyler building? That's where the night shift cops like to hide and sleep, isn't it?"

Brian chuckled a little. "I wouldn't know anything about that, lieutenant," he said. "But I know the place. We'll be there in about ten minutes."

Duran saved her work on the computer and then stood up from her chair and stretched for a moment, relieving some of the pain in her aching back. She walked to the corner of the office and picked up her armor vest, slipping it over her shoulders and fastening it into place. She then donned her helmet, which had her rank emblem stenciled on the front of it, and activated her exterior radio link. "This is watch commander 5-alpha," she told the dispatch computer through the link. "I'll be out in the field for a bit."

"Watch commander 5-alpha out in the field," the computer acknowledged.

A short walk brought her to the cart parking area of the building. She climbed into the non-descript cart that was assigned to the lieutenants of the downtown district and drove out through the secured gate that guarded access to the building. She wound her way through the crowded downtown streets and five minutes later pulled into the wide unloading zone behind the Schuyler building. The patrol cart belonging to Wong and Haggerty was already there waiting for her. She pulled up next to them and rolled down her window. "Hi, guys," she greeted, lifting the visor on her helmet.

"Thanks for coming, lieutenant," Haggerty said, flipping his own visor up. "We're really sorry to bother you and all."

"Don't sweat it," she said. "It's what they pay me the big bucks for. So what's the problem?"

"Well," Haggerty told her, seemingly unsure how to describe his dilemma, "we just got done with an assist call for some FLEB agents."

"FLEB agents huh?" she said, her suspicions about what this had to do with effectively confirmed.

"A whole shitload of FLEB agents," Wong said. "Ten of them."

"And let me guess," she said. "This was not to go pick up a couple of music or software pirates, was it?"

"No," Haggerty said. "It wasn't." He then went on to describe the experience that they had had in the public housing building.

Duran listened intently and with growing alarm as she was told of the brutality that the FLEB agents had employed in the takedown of the suspected "terrorists". Kicking arrestees in the head? Calling them greenies? Cinching the cuffs down tight enough to cause bleeding? In this world ruled by lawyers and their abuse of force lawsuits, these were shocking actions indeed, events that would have led to a prison sentence had an Eden cop performed them.

"But the violence was just one thing," Wong said when Haggerty was done. "Those people weren't doing anything illegal! All they were doing was printing up pamphlets to distribute on people's doors. The same kind I got on my door the other day! There were no explosives in there, hell, I didn't even see any guns."

"And you never saw the warrant that they had?" Duran asked them.

"They wouldn't discuss it," said Haggerty. "Every time we asked them about their evidence or their warrant, they told us it wasn't our concern. Finally they threatened us with arrest if we didn't clear out of there. When we got back downstairs the people that they'd arrested were already gone."

"Have those people lost their freaking minds?" Wong asked. "How could they do something like that? How can they get away with it?"

Duran sighed. "You're not the only ones that have had this problem," she told them.

"No?" Wong asked, raising her eyebrows.

"I haven't heard anything solid yet, but I've heard rumors that a few other watch commanders throughout the city had some similar meetings with their patrol teams and have been told similar tales. It seems that the FLEB is cracking down on the more vocal anti-Earthling elements."

"What are we going to do about it?" Haggerty demanded. "Lieutenant, I don't ever want to go on one of those raids again. I mean, I never liked helping those pricks take down someone who copied software on their computer but at least that is against the law. This was something that's protected by the fucking constitution. And vermin or not, those people did not deserve to be treated like that."

Duran sighed. "If this would've happened a few months ago," she said, "I would've been forced to tell you that you were stuck. But times have changed in the last few months, haven't they?"

"They sure have," Haggerty agreed. "And it looks like those corporate pricks are sicking their pet thugs on us because of it."

"That's my take on it," she said. "So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to give you permission to refuse to take part in any FLEB assistance call if they will not show you the warrant and the writ they used to obtain it. If they do show it to you and it looks funky, you have continued permission to refuse to participate."

Haggerty and Wong looked at her wide-eyed. She understood the source of her awe. She had just taken it upon herself to make a broad reaching decision about cooperation with the FLEB. Again, this was something that she wouldn't have dreamed of before the Laura Whiting inauguration. But as she had told her subordinates, times were different now. She suspected that her decision would be backed up by her captain and by the deputy chief above him. She suspected that she might even be applauded for making it.

"Do you have a problem with my orders?" she asked them, hiding a smile.

"No, lieutenant," Wong said. "Not at all."

"Good," she said. "I'll have it shipped to all the patrol units on my watch as well. Report any incidents with FLEB agents to me immediately. In the meantime, I guess I should go arrange a meeting with Deputy Chief Durham, shouldn't I?"

All over the planet that day, teams of FLEB agents fanned out and made arrests of people they called terrorists. They went out in teams of five or ten, in one or two black vans, always with armor and automatic weapons, and usually with teams of unsuspecting local police along as back-up. They breached door after door in welfare and working class apartment buildings alike, throwing to the ground those they found inside and hauling them away to local FLEB offices. In most cases the "terrorists" that they arrested were those that had been printing pamphlets or who had been the organizers of the recall drives that had threatened the legislature. In each case the warrants used were from the local federal magistrate instead of a superior court judge and in each case the writ that was used to obtain the warrant was not shown to any assisting police officers.

The evening news channels all featured the sweeps as their top stories. This included both the big three Internet channels and the MarsGroup channels, although their respective takes on the subject were somewhat different. On the big three stations the newscasters would announce how the diligent and overworked FLEB agents of the various cities had wrapped up a complex and far-reaching terrorist conspiracy investigation by arresting hundreds of alleged terrorists in a coordinated sweep. Video clips would be shown in which scruffy, unshaven Martians were being led out of housing buildings and placed in the FLEB vans with others. Agents were interviewed from each head office and they would describe the "terrorist writings" and "other, more dangerous items" they had uncovered in their search. They described intricate plots that these terrorists were engaged in to blow up federal buildings, spaceports, even the Martian capital itself. The implication was that Laura Whiting and a few of her consorts were behind these groups. While it was true that not very many Martians watched these broadcasts or believed them if they did, they were beamed to Earth and viewed by the WestHem citizens there. On Earth the reaction was blind outrage that radical Martians were getting away with such things.

On the MarsGroup stations however, the reports were a little different. Outraged Martian reporters went on camera to inform the public that innocent citizens executing their constitutional right to free speech and assembly were being dragged away by federal agents. Police officers that had been present at the raids were interviewed (in all cases with the blessings of their department brass) and they described the brutality they had observed as well as the lack of any tangible evidence. A senior reporter on the most popular of the MarsGroup channels demanded of the Earthlings to disclose the evidence that the arrestees were being held under. "Let's see the warrants," she demanded. "Let's see the writs that brought forth those warrants. And most important of all, let's see the evidence against these people that justifies their extradition from our planet!" Laura Whiting herself appeared in a special segment demanding much the same answers from federal authorities. She described the FLEB as "fascist SS troops" bent on destroying the separatist movement that was underway. "They're trying to intimidate you, fellow Martians," she warned the people. "They're trying to intimidate you into dropping this great cause. Don't let them be successful."

By the time the sun set over the Martian cities that night, the populace was in a state of near rebellion. This state was intensified the next morning when MarsGroup shots of the arrestees being marched onto surface to orbit ships bound for Triad and eventually Earth were aired. At ten o'clock Eden time Chief Robert Daniels of the Eden Police Department gave a press conference in which he announced that his department would immediately cease cooperation with the Federal Law Enforcement Bureau. "We will offer no further assistance in the rounding up of what seems to be innocent Martian civilians. We will provide no back-up, no tactical advice, no computer searches, nothing, unless they can provide our administration with detailed arrest writs and proper warrants." By eleven o'clock that morning, three other police departments, including the New Pittsburgh police, had made similar announcements. By noon, all of them had.

This did not stop the FLEB from conducting more raids however. By the end of office hours Eden time, more than sixty more Martians had been taken from their homes and shuttled off to federal holding cells, all of them charged with inciting terrorism or conspiracy to commit terrorism. Most of these incidents were reported upon by MarsGroup stations, fueling the fire even more.

But the biggest event, the one that truly pushed the Martian people over the edge, occurred the following day in New Pittsburgh. A team of ten FLEB agents went to a welfare housing building on the east side of that city and breached an apartment door where six men and women were printing up some admittedly radical pamphlets calling for acts of violence against FLEB "storm troopers". These six people, members of a newly formed group that called themselves the Free Mars Society, saw their door being forced open and knew what it meant. They elected not to go quietly. Using the cheap handguns that nearly every ghetto inhabitant carried, they opened fire the moment the FLEB agents came through the door, aiming for the head and taking down two of them with shots to the face. The remaining FLEB force opened up with their M-24s, spraying bullets throughout the apartment and killing everyone, including a small child asleep in a crib.

The incident might have gone unnoticed or uncommented upon except for the fact that a MarsGroup reporter team had just happened to be in the neighborhood and had spotted the FLEB van parked outside of the building. The reporters and their camera managed to make it up to the apartment in question and get shots of the interior broadcast to their office before the remaining FLEB members took them into custody on incitement charges and smashed their equipment. The clip was played over and over again on the various MarsGroup channels, several times every hour. It was downloaded from MarsGroup Internet sites and emailed all around the planet. By the time the dinner hour fell, nearly everyone on Mars had seen it. When the Martian people saw the bullet riddled corpses of their fellow citizens and the black-suited and armored FLEB agents standing over them with their weapons, chaos erupted.

This chaos was fanned into fury that night by than Laura Whiting during her regular speech.

"These people are Nazis!" she yelled into the camera, her eyes blazing. "They come storming into private homes with automatic weapon waving warrants that are shaky at best and they act surprised when the people take up arms against them? While I do not advocate shooting it out with these FLEB thugs if they should happen to choose your apartment to raid, in truth, what is the option? Our people are being hauled off of their planet to Earth where they will be crucified in staged trials and sentenced to life in some shithole Earthling federal prison. I certainly understand why our citizens in New Pittsburgh, who were doing nothing more than executing their constitutional rights, elected to chose violence to combat this."

It was less than an hour after Whiting's broadcast that a riot erupted at the New Pittsburgh federal building in the downtown portion of that city. Hundreds of angry Martians, welfare and working class alike, gathered at all of the entrances and lay siege to the structure. They fired guns at the entrances, putting countless holes in the tempered plexiglass and badly damaging three of the doors. They painted profane words on the walls and doors — epitaphs that made EARTHLINGS GO HOME seem like a term of endearment. They smashed all of the security cameras and threw bottles of Fruity and Agricorp juice, littering the entryways with broken glass. They managed to get into the back lot of the building where they overturned and smashed six of the black vans that had been used to carry strike teams. Through it all the terrified federal agents and employees barricaded themselves inside, the agents armed with M-24s but knowing that they would not be able to gun down everyone who tried to get them if the crowd somehow managed to make it inside.

The New Pittsburgh Police Department finally broke the riot up after more than two hours of desperate calls for assistance from inside the building. The NPPD officers fired no shots, used no tear gas, and made no threats to the crowd. They simply told them that enough was enough and asked them to give it a rest for the night. Surprisingly enough, the crowd complied, all of them throwing a few last bottles or firing a few last bullets and then wandering away towards the tram stations or their housing complexes. No arrests were made or even attempted and the federal employees actually witnessed some of the rioters shaking hands with the police officers.

Director Hayes, hearing of the event, placed an angry call to the chief of the NPPD, demanding an explanation for the delayed response of his officers and the lack of any arrests. The chief shrugged off the inquiry with a flippant remark and then disconnected him. Subsequent calls were not put through.

When the crowd began to gather outside the building on the next night, the FLEB agents reacted a little differently. This time they were expecting the rioters and they had brought in extra troops and weapons for the occasion. Forty agents, all of them in full gear and armed with M-24s, pushed out the doorway of the building once the crowd of Martians began to swell and surround them. They ordered them to disperse, pointing their weapons as they shouted this. The Martians held their ground and began to lob bottles and other debris, bouncing them off of helmets and armored vests and knocking several of the agents to their knees. No one ever knew who fired the first shot but within seconds the clattering of automatic weapons filled the air and Martians began to drop to the ground, blood flying from their bodies, heads exploding into brains and chunks of skull as the high velocity rounds ripped into them. The surviving rioters ran blindly away in a panic, a few of them returning fire with their handguns but none of them causing a lethal wound. Soon the streets were filled with New Pittsburgh police carts and dip-hoe carts, their crews horrified by the carnage that had resulted. The media, both MarsGroup and the big three, soon followed. The final toll would be 43 Martians killed and 34 wounded.

Laura Whiting made a special address the next morning, demanding an independent investigation into the incident. It was a request that was all but ignored by both the big three media giants and the FLEB themselves. Two days later the FLEB office placed the blame for the shooting on the Martian rioters and the New Pittsburgh Police Department. No suspensions or disciplinary actions against any FLEB agents occurred, a fact that was leaked to MarsGroup reporters by Martian clerical staff who worked for the FLEB. Within hours of the ruling, the entire planet knew about it.

The following day the Martian people expressed their displeasure. The first incident occurred in New Pittsburgh, which was quickly becoming the focal point of much of the anti-fed movement. Two FLEB agents on a routine stakeout of a suspected "terrorist haven" were dragged from their van by an angry mob of Martian welfare class. They had their helmets and armor ripped from their bodies and they were beaten with their own firearms so severely that both were comatose when the police finally broke up the crowd. Though neither would die from their injuries, both would be medically retired because of the incident. No arrests were ever made.

A few hours later, in Libby on the equatorial plain, an entire ten-person team of agents about to conduct a strike were mobbed by a similar crowd as they waited for the elevators to arrive to take them up to their target. In this case two of the agents were killed, shot through the head by their own weapons, and six were beaten badly enough to require hospitalization. Again, no arrests were made by the responding police officers.

Throughout that day and the next, many other, less severe incidents took place in all of the Martian cities as FLEB agents went out to their assignments and angry Martians reacted to the slaughter in New Pittsburgh. These incidents would send several agents to local hospitals and result in the deaths of three Martians. But the biggest incident of retaliation took place three days after the New Pittsburgh Slaughter — as it was being called — in Eden.

"Incoming multiple agency response call," the dispatch computer said in it's calm, cool, collected voice. A second later, rows of text appeared on the screen.

"What is it?" asked Lisa, who was behind the wheel of the cart on this day. It had been another slow shift and she was ready for a little action to break up the monotony. A multiple agency response meant that something big was going down.

"34th Street and 7th Avenue," Brian told her, reading from the screen. "Heavy smoke in the streets. Multiple calls from citizens and the fire suppression systems have been activated at that intersection. Some of the call-ins seem to think a vehicle of some sort is burning."

"A vehicle huh?" Lisa said, turning the cart around and flipping on the emergency lights. "That could be nasty if it's a delivery truck carrying chemicals or something."

"Yep," Brian agreed, reaching under his seat and pulling out his gas mask.

In the enclosed environment of the Martian cities, fire was treated with considerably more respect than it was on Earth. On Mars, there was no outside to go to when things started to burn and the smoke had no natural way to escape from the area. Visibility would quickly be obliterated as smoke built up under the glass roof and people blocks away could easily be choked to death on noxious fumes if they were trapped in the vicinity. Though automatic fire suppression sprinklers were every twenty meters on the streets and every five meters in every building, they were good only for extinguishing minor blazes in the earliest stages of development. Major blazes, as this one seemed to be based on the dispatch information, required the use of high-pressure water hoses and lots of manpower. For this reason all public safety employees, the police included, were trained in firefighting and dispatched in large numbers whenever such an incident occurred.

"Holy shit," Brian said as they approached the area. "I guess something's burning all right." Though they were still six blocks away a haze of black smoke was quickly accumulating up along the ceiling. It grew into a thick fog further down the street. Hundreds of people, many of them coughing and with soot on their faces, were rushing out of the area, making it difficult for Lisa to navigate the cart through them. "Computer," he asked, "are any units on scene yet?"

"Negative," the computer replied. "I'm showing you as the closest so far. The next-in unit should be DPHS unit Delta-7. They are currently at 53rd Street and 7th Avenue."

"Copy, thanks," Brian said. He turned to Lisa. "We'd better get our masks and goggles on. This shit is gonna get thick in a minute."

"Right," she agreed, reaching down and picking up her own mask.

They covered their faces with the gas masks, which were capable of filtering out all but oxygen and nitrogen from the environment. They then pulled their combat goggles down over their eyes, setting them for infrared enhancement, which would allow them to see through the smoke. It was fortunate that they did this because within seconds the smoke became so thick that visibility would have been impossible. The streets however, were now mostly empty of citizens. Martians knew their fire drills well, having been taught since birth that it was imperative to get into a nearby building in the even of a blaze on the street. Buildings in the vicinity were automatically sealed off and imparted with air pressure greater than the street level to keep the smoke out.

A block away from the incident the actual flames became visible as a roaring red pyre in the infrared spectrum. Brian and Lisa could vaguely make out the source as a vehicle of some sort, possibly a panel truck. Their computer informed them that the heat was building up and that it was safe to go no further without protection. Lisa stopped the cart and they got out, going around to the back of it to remove their suppression suits, which were essentially coveralls made of bright yellow, synthetic, fire-proof material that did not conduct heat very well. As they put them on, Brian contacted the dispatch computer again. "Who's in command of this incident?" he asked.

"Battalion Chief 9 of DPHS," the computer told him. "She is still several kilometers away."

"Copy," Brian said, sliding his arms into the sleeves. "Battalion 9, this is EPD four-delta-five-nine."

"Go ahead, delta-five-nine," said the husky voice of the chief.

"We're on scene about a block out," he updated her. "It looks like a fully involved vehicle of some sort. Heavy smoke for four blocks in every direction and high heat in the vicinity. All of the citizens are off the streets as far as I can see. I recommend that when you get enough units close enough to fight it, we shut down the blast doors for a five block radius and start ventilating."

"Copy that, delta-five-nine," she said. "Will do."

"We're suiting up now," he told her next. "We'll move in and try to get some water on it."

They finished donning their suits, zipping them completely over their helmets and faces, leaving only enough room for their masks and goggles to peak out. "You ready?" Lisa asked Brian.

"I'm ready," he replied. "Let's do it."

They began to trot in the direction of the blaze, their combat goggles allowing them to see through the choking smoke, their suits protecting them from the heat. The blaze grew brighter and brighter as they approached and the shape of the object burning grew increasingly distinct.

"That looks like a fuckin FLEB van," Lisa observed.

"Sure does," Brian agreed, noting that it actually seemed to be melting from the intense heat. "And somehow I don't think that fire is accidental."

They split up when they reached the intersection, each of them heading for one of the four "fire stations" that were located at every intersection of streets. The fire stations were locked cabinets in which one hundred meters of six centimeter fire hose was stored, hooked up to a high capacity hydrant. Dip-hoe carts all carried extra hose in case the one hundred meters was not enough to reach a particular incident. In this case however, the burning van was less than thirty meters away from two of the stations.

Brian reached his station first. He looked at the number printed on it and then talked to the dispatch computer. "Computer," he told it. "Unlock fire station 34-7-2."

The computer quickly analyzed his voice pattern and concluded that he had authorization to order such a thing. A second later there was a click and the mechanism slid open. Inside of the compartment the hemp hose was wrapped around a large reel, a large nozzle resting on top of it. Brian grabbed the nozzle and put it over his shoulder. He began to walk towards the fire, the hose unreeling behind him as he pulled. Across the street, Lisa had reached her station and was doing the same.

When he got within ten meters of the blaze, his patrol computer warned him that the heat was becoming too intense for safety. He stopped. "Computer," he said. "Charge up my hose."

The computer complied, opening the main valve on his station and allowing water to rush forth into the hemp. The flat hose on the street suddenly ballooned up as it was filled, the various twists and turns jumping up and down and then resettling. When the water reached the nozzle, the weight of the hose against his shoulder suddenly quadrupled. Brian brought the nozzle down against his chest and then opened it, allowing a powerful stream of water to blast out towards the burning van. The sheer force of it tried to knock him off his feet but he braced himself tightly, just as he always had in the training classes, and kept the stream on the flames. Slowly, he began to move in.

His stream of water was joined by Lisa's less than a minute later. Although there was no negligible effect at first, their streams were soon joined by others as the first dip-hoe team arrived and activated the other two stations at the intersection. The smoke billowed even thicker for a few moments as the battalion chief ordered the blast doors shut around them to contain it. But a few moments later it began to dramatically thin as exhaust ports in the roof were opened up, allowing it to escape into the Martian atmosphere. Ventilation engines in the enclosed areas then kicked into overdrive, blasting fresh air into the area as fast as it was being sucked out by the pressure difference.

Once four water streams were concentrated upon it, the blaze was knocked down in less than five minutes, revealing that the vehicle was indeed a FLEB van, although now a partially melted and grotesquely distorted one. It was when Brian, Lisa, and the other cops and dip-hoes moved in to inspect the interior of the van that they made the shocking discovery that it was still occupied. Ten bodies were inside, all of them little more than grinning, blackened skeletons with melted helmets on their heads and charred body armor over their ribs. Their weapons, which were mostly plastic with steel barrels, were melted lumps in their laps or on the floor.

"Christ," Brian said, glad that he still had his mask on. He could imagine what the smell would be like in there. "What do you think did this?"

"A Molotov cocktail," replied one of the dip-hoes, an old, crusty one that looked like he had at least twenty years on the job. "I've seen them used before during the riots of '28. A little pressurized hydrogen in a Fruity bottle, a simple igniter designed to fire on impact, and you have yourself a hell of a fire."

"Where the hell do they get pressurized hydrogen?" Lisa asked, unable to take her eyes off of the charred bodies.

"Contacts in the agricultural industry," the dip-hoe replied. "The same place they get the chemicals for making dust."

This theory was strengthened by the finding of a large chunk of concrete, blackened but still intact, resting between the front seats of the van.

"Look at that," the old dip-hoe said, pointing it out. "I bet they threw that concrete through first, shattering the window, and then followed it up a second or two later with the Molotov." He smiled a little, seemingly impressed by this. "Pretty smart," he said. "Two simple ballistic throws and you've got ten feds charbroiled. Guess they won't be taking down any pamphlet makers anymore, will they?"

"Or gunning down any protesters in front of their office," one of the other dip-hoes put in.

Brian and Lisa both stared at the blackened corpses for a moment, both knowing that they should feel outraged at the murder of fellow law enforcement officers, both feeling guilt that they didn't. After all, these feds had undoubtedly been on their way to yet another illegal raid upon Martian civilians when the attack occurred. When you came right down to it, shouldn't they expect this sort of thing considering the way they had been operating lately?

"Ten less Earthlings we have to worry about now," Brian said, stepping back away from the van.

"You got that right," Lisa agreed.

Once the smoke was evacuated from the area, the blast doors on the perimeter were opened back up and an all-clear signal was given to the surrounding buildings. From every lobby curious Martians and a few scattered Earthlings came pouring out to resume their business. Human nature being what it always had been, most of them maneuvered themselves so they could pass as closely as possible to the burned out van. A few were even able to catch bare glimpses of the charred corpses inside. The Martians that witnessed this all went away grinning.

Lieutenant Duran and the DPH Battalion Chief showed up at the same time. While the BC went about the task of arranging a fire investigation, Duran rounded up all of the cops on scene. "All right people," she told them with a sigh. "It looks like we got ourselves a multiple homicide investigation to handle here."

"Question, lieutenant?" said Sam Stanislaus, a five-year police officer.

"What is it Sam?" she asked.

"Is it really considered a homicide if the victims are a bunch of fed fucks?" he asked with a smile. "I mean, shouldn't we think of it as more of a public assistance?"

"Or defense of life," another cop put in. "They were probably on their way to jack some poor slobs printing pamphlets."

Everyone had a laugh over this, Duran included. When it died down she said: "While I'm inclined to agree with you, we still have to go through the motions here. So, Haggarty, Wong, Stanislaus, and Ventner, start picking through this crowd and see if you can find any witnesses."

"Oh right, lieutenant," Brian said. "I'm sure that our fellow Martians here will be glad to provide statements about who killed these poor feds. How many statements should we get? Is twenty enough or should we go for thirty?"

This produced another round of laughter. "Just go through the motions, will you?" Duran asked them. "Even shithead feds deserve the same sort of jerk-off treatment that we give to welfare class homicides, don't they?"

Everyone was forced to agree that this might be true. Brian, Lisa, and the other two fanned out through the crowd, asking if anyone had seen anything and each recording "I didn't see nothing" more than a hundred times for the report.

Just as the forensics unit showed up to begin combing the van and its contents for evidence, three more FLEB vans arrived on the scene. They parked less than ten meters away from the crime scene and fully armed and armored agents poured out of their doors, all of them rushing over to the burned van and looking inside, their expressions horror at what they saw. The cops, dip-hoes, and civilians all watched this spectacle as it occurred, more than a few of them making snide remarks. The man in charge of the team, a high-ranking agent by the name of Don Mitchell, found Lieutenant Duran soon after having his worst fears confirmed.

"Any arrests made?" he asked her, glaring at the jeering crowd of Martians.

"Nope," she said. "Nobody saw anything. At least that's their story."

"Somebody saw it happen," he said, taking an angry step towards her. "Some piece of shit greenie can't throw a goddamn chunk of concrete and an incendiary device through the window of one of my vans in broad daylight without someone seeing it. I want some witnesses and I want them now!"

Duran stared at him levelly. "I'll thank you to take a step back from me and lower your tone," she told him sternly. "I don't give a shit who you are, I will not be addressed in that manner."

"Ten of my men are dead!" he yelled, not stepping back. "How dare you..."

Four of the Eden police officers stepped forward, their hands resting on their tanners. "The lieutenant said to step back," one of them told Mitchell menacingly.

"I'd advise you to do as they say," Duran said lightly. "As you've noted, tempers are a little short among us greenies lately, especially when feds are involved."

"Are you threatening me?" he asked her, his face turning red beneath his helmet.

"Take it for what you will," she told him. "But step back and lower your voice when you address me and we'll get along a lot better."

He took a step backwards, to the delight of the crowd watching. He did not, however, lower his voice much. "My men are taking over this investigation," he said. "We're assuming federal authority under the WestHem code."

Duran smiled. "Static," she said. "It's all yours." She keyed her radio up. "All units on the 34th street incident, turn your reports over to me and resume patrol. Our federal friends are going to handle this investigation by themselves."

Mitchell was somewhat taken aback by how easily she gave it up. "What is this?" he asked her.

"You think we want to stand around here smelling dead fed if we don't have to?" Duran asked him. "Have fun with the investigation. I know you folks have lots of experience with this sort of thing, don't you?"

The sarcasm in her voice was quite evident. Mitchell knew, as well as Duran and all of the other cops, that the federal officers were real good at tracking down copyright violators and computer hackers but despite the Internet shows lauding them, were a little short on actual crime experience. "Well," he said slowly, backpedaling a bit, "we will need to use your forensics unit of course."

"Put your request in through Chief Daniel's office," Duran told him. "But until he tells me otherwise, the forensic unit pulls out as well. And I have a pretty good idea what the chief is going to say."

"Now wait a minute," Mitchell said. "Maybe we're getting off on the wrong foot here..."

"We'll turn over everything we've gathered to this point to you," she said. "Have fun. Hope you find your man."

Five minutes later all of the information was downloaded to the FLEB investigation computers and the Eden police officers, every last one of them, cleared the scene and went about their routine duties. When Chief Daniels was asked to dispatch a forensics team to assist in the investigation thirty minutes later, the request was denied without explanation.

Three hours later, in Denver, FLEB director Stanley Clinton was briefing executive council member Loretta Williams on the firebomb attack on Mars. Word had reached Earth via the big three Internet news stations long before it arrived through official channels. TRAGEDY ON MARS, it was being called, a name which was certainly not the catchiest the media had ever come up with, but which did convey the emotion that the Earthlings were feeling about the loss of ten FLEB agents quite well. The briefing was not a face-to-face one, as it were. Instead, they were accomplishing their meeting via secure Internet transmission from his office to hers.

"We have nothing," he told her, shaking his head angrily. "The Eden police chief has refused to allow our agents the use of their forensics unit or their manpower and the greenies... well, I don't think I have to tell you how much cooperation we're getting out of them. Hayes told me that three of the agents trying to question the crowd outside of that building were physically attacked."

"Why didn't they haul some of those greenies in for questioning anyway?" Williams demanded. "If nothing else, it would've at least shown those savages a thing or two about cooperation."

Clinton carefully kept his expression neutral, despite the disgust he felt at having to explain the basics to this high-browed politician. "Things are already quite volatile on that planet," he said slowly. "I believe that the commander on scene was afraid of forcing another confrontation."

"Forcing another confrontation?" she asked. "What is he, a coward? Did you not just tell me that there were thirty armed agents on the scene? Surely thirty agents could handle any trouble that a crowd of greenies could throw at them."

"Yes," he agreed, letting his composure slip just a bit. "They could have handled it the way they did in New Pittsburgh during the riot."

Williams did not seem to catch his drift however. "Exactly," she said. "That's what we need more of on that planet. It's brutal, that's true, but by God, those agents firing into the crowd dispersed them, did it not?"

"It did," he said quietly. "And I've also had more than ten requests for psychological counseling as a result of it too. That's not to mention that the shooting in New Pittsburgh is probably what precipitated the firebombing of our agents this morning."

"Common terrorists," Williams almost spat. "If you can't catch the ones directly responsible, you simply need to crack down harder on everyone else. You, as a career law enforcement officer, should know that, Clinton. Why do I have to call you up and tell you your job?"

He tried once again. "With all due respect, ma'am," he said. "I will continue to follow your orders of course, but it is my belief that this process of cracking down on the common Martians is causing much more trouble than it's preventing. Every arrest that we make adds fuel to Laura Whiting's fire. Every confrontation between our agents and the greenies infuriates them more and makes them bolder. We've lost the support of the local police departments and the local criminal justice system. My people are not able to walk the streets there anymore."

"They're not paid to walk the streets," she said firmly. "They're paid to keep that planet under control and to protect our business interests. The crackdowns will continue."

"Yes ma'am," he said dejectedly.

"Now let's discuss Laura Whiting herself, shall we? Have you made any progress in her removal?"

"Not exactly," he said, casting his eyes downward.

"Not exactly?" she said. "Clinton, that is not an acceptable answer."

"Ma'am," he explained, "you have to understand that we've looked into every aspect of her life over the past two months. There is simply nothing that we can legally use to file criminal charges against her. We've leaked everything that we've been doing to the big three of course, and they've done a marvelous job of spreading innuendo and half-truths about her all over the screens, but when it comes down to legalities, Whiting has covered herself very well."

"Then make something up," Williams said.

"Ma'am?" he said, genuinely shocked at the suggestion.

"You heard me," she said. "Make up some charges. Get a grand jury here on Earth to indict her on them and issue an arrest warrant. Extradite her back here to Denver for trial. I assure you that the attorney general will cooperate with you."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am," he said. "But I don't think that's a very good idea."

"Why not?" she responded. "Isn't that what you're doing with all of those greenies that you've hauled off the street down there?"

"Well, not exactly," he said. "They were in possession of certain written materials and so forth that could technically be referred to as terrorist writings or incitements. It is a weak justification I will admit, but it is a justification. As far as Whiting goes however, there is nothing like those writings on her computer and her speeches, while they could be said to be inciting the terrorism that's going on, well... I don't think that would stand up in the grand jury room."

"Then you need to come up with something that will stand up in the grand jury room."

"Ma'am," he tried one more time, "if we haul Laura Whiting off of Mars with a flimsy excuse, the greenies are going to go insane. There's no telling what they might do. I think a general strike would be the least damaging course of action that we could expect. Open revolt might be the worst."

Williams shook her head in disgust as she listened to these words. "A general strike?" she asked. "You must be joking. Unemployment is twenty-five percent on Mars. You can't have a general strike with that kind of rate. And as for open revolt? Surely you can't be serious about that. We have a fast action division of WestHem marines stationed on that planet. You don't really think that those greenies would try anything with them there, do you?"

"As unlikely or hopeless as it seems," Clinton said, "I still think that it's a possibility. There could be much bloodshed and disruption of production."

"It won't happen," Williams assured him. "Now do as I say. Get your man on Mars working on something you can feed to a federal grand jury here and then have the attorney general's office pick that grand jury very carefully. I want her indicted by the end of the month, Clinton. I want her on a ship bound for Earth within twenty-four hours of the indictment being issued. And I want her rotting in a federal prison within six months. Do you understand me?"

"Yes ma'am," he said, suppressing a sigh. "I understand."

She signed off a moment later. A minute after that he was composing a secure email to Corban Hayes on Mars.

One fortunate aspect of the recent troubles between the corporations and the Martians had to do with the recent Agricorp/Interplanetary Food merger. With public opinion being so volatile and unpredictable lately, Agricorp upper management, showing rare wisdom, had decided to put off the scheduled "mass reduction in force" that it had planned as a result of the merger. Though they still had every intention of laying of more than sixteen thousand people once things settled back down (as they had every confidence things eventually would), fears of more riots or possible boycotts of Agricorp products compelled them to keep everyone onboard for now.

Because of this decision Lon Fargo, greenhouse maintenance technician of eight years service, was able to remain duly employed for the time being, although with a rather large hammer hanging over his head. As such, he was entitled to remain an active member of the Martian Planetary Guard, where he retained his sergeant rank in the special forces division. Saturday afternoon found him at his training rotation out at the MPG base with the rest of his platoon.

Over the last three months they had trained out in the wastelands almost every rotation, honing and refining their techniques on interdicting and destroying advancing APCs. Their mission this week however, was something different, something strange. And, contrary to normal operating procedure, their reasons for practicing such an unorthodox maneuver had not been explained to them, they had in fact been told not to discuss it with anyone outside of the company.

The entire platoon was inside the back corridors of the base, the long halls and hallways where the weapons and ammunition were stored. This was a tightly secured area of course and everyone except the special forces platoons practicing their new maneuvers had been cleared out for the day. In addition, the steel doors that separated sections of the hallway and the actual storage rooms themselves had been locked in the open position and large sheets of four-centimeter steel that had been shipped all the way from New Pittsburgh had been bolted into the doorways in their place. The task of the special forces teams on this day was to breach these simulated doorways and clear the rooms beyond them of "enemy" troops, which were being played by other special forces platoons and squads.

"What the hell are we doing this for, John?" Lon asked the platoon commander, Lieutenant Yee. "I mean, it's kind of fun and all, ripping down doors with primacord charges, but what's the point? Our whole mission is to prevent EastHem troops from getting out of the wastelands in the first place. If we ever get to the point where we have to clear them out of the buildings, the war is lost anyway."

"It's orders from Colonel Bright himself," Yee said, not for the first time that day. "Now quit asking about it and just do it."

Lon shrugged and went about the task of readying his squad for the next breach, which was to be their responsibility. The target in this case was the door to one of the processed food storage rooms just off the main hallway. The steel that was serving as the door stood between them and the room and the resistance inside could be heavy, light, or non-existent. They would not know until they made entry. "Gavin," he ordered, "get the charge up there on that door."

"Right, sarge," Gavin said, approaching carefully. Primacord was a shaped high explosive charge designed to cut through rock or steel. It was actually a length of black cord that directed an intense, though compact explosion when activated. He unrolled three meters of it from the five hundred meter supply that Horishito was carrying on his back and stuck it to the door, starting at the floor level and moving up to near the top and then back down to the floor again on the other side. When exploded this would cut a one and a half by one meter hole in the steel, allowing both a firing port and an entry point to the room. He set a detonator into the end of the cord and then backed away.

"Matza," Lon told the young man on the SAW. "Get in position. Hose down the interior once we blow it. Make sure there's nobody with a line of fire on us."

"Right, sarge," Matza said, putting the weapon down on its bi-pod on the floor and lying down with it. He trained it directly towards the primacord loop.

"Everybody else," he said, hefting his weapon and flicking off the safety, "get to the sides. We go in fast and low once Matza clears the corridor for us. You know the drill."

They knew the drill. They formed up against the wall on either side of the doorway, their weapons ready, their combat goggles active and in targeting mode. Since they were inside, all of them were dressed in Kevlar armor instead of biosuits. They had additional Kevlar protecting their legs and necks to keep from being injured by the helium filled training rounds.

"Fargo to Yee," Lon said over the command circuit, "we're ready for action."

"Copy," said Yee, who was holding back in the rear with the rest of the platoon. "Breach and enter whenever you're ready. I'll have 2nd squad guard the corridor. The rest of us will follow you in."

"Right," Lon said. He looked over at Gavin, who held the detonator. "Do it," he told him.

Gavin pushed the button, firing the primacord. There was a bright flash of light and a sharp crack that echoed up and down the corridor. The cord sliced through the steel of the door as easily as a knife through butter, sending the section that had been outlined flying into the room.

Matza, on the SAW, was the first to see that there were troops in the room. They looked surprised at the explosion but they were reacting quickly, the ones in his view turning to put weapons on him. He squeezed the trigger on the SAW and sent bursts of training rounds at them, raking his fire from one group to the other. They stopped in place as they were hit and sat down, their weapons on their laps, their arms rubbing the areas where they had been struck. "Clear!" he yelled, once everyone in his view was either down or under cover.

"Go!" Lon yelled, and one by one his men dove through the doorway, flinging their bodies to the ground and training their weapons about the room. Almost immediately they found targets and began to shoot. The crackle of gunfire was shockingly loud in the enclosed room and quickly grew to an intensity that made conversation almost impossible. Lon himself was the fourth person through the doorway, his sector of responsibility the west wall of the room. Even as he was diving for the ground, he identified a target — Steve Jefferson, the sergeant from 3rd platoon — bringing a weapon to bear on him. Jefferson fired at him just as he rolled away, his rounds exploding into water next to him. Lon managed to put his targeting recticle on Jefferson's chest a half second later. He squeezed off a three round burst, feeling the weapon kick in his hand. The rounds splashed into Jefferson's chest armor, knocking him out of action. He immediately began to scan for other targets but saw nothing but "dead" ones. He was somewhat dismayed to see that the status report in the upper right hand corner of his goggle view was showing that four members of his squad had been killed by enemy gunfire.

"Entry made," Lon barked into the radio to Yee. "Doorway is secure."

"Coming up," Yee returned.

A moment later the rest of the platoon came rushing through the hole in the door. They began to fan out through the rest of the large storage room, probing behind shelves of food stocks. Every few seconds there were bursts of fire as more enemy were encountered.

Within three minutes the entire room, including the back doorway, was secure. The cost however, was a little high. Had it been a real engagement, Yee's 2nd platoon would have lost eight men to the enemy's guns.

"We need to do better than that," Yee said once it was over. "Eight casualties is unacceptable."

"We just need more practice," Lon said, clearing his weapon now that session was over.

"I'll tell you what the problem was," said Jefferson, who had been resurrected from the dead and who had come over to shake the hand of the man who had killed him.

"What?" asked Yee.

"Your doorway was too small," he said. "Only one of you could come through at a time. That made it way too easy for us to pick you off as you entered. It also gave us too much time to go get into firing positions in the shelves while you were clearing the entrance. You lost some of the speed and surprise element because of the doorway bottleneck."

"So maybe a little more primacord on the doors then?" Lon asked.

"That might do it," Jefferson told him. "I think the key to this maneuver is getting two people through the door at a time. Think about it. That would double the take-down speed."

"Interesting," Yee said. "But what about...

As the members of the opposing teams got together to talk about what had happened, none of them paid much attention to the security cameras that kept vigil over the room. They were all under the impression that the cameras had been deactivated for the duration of the mission. They were wrong.

In the base control room Colonel Bright was sitting at a chair with General Jackson and Laura Whiting herself. They had just watched the entire mock engagement on the video screens. Jackson did not seem particularly pleased by what he had witnessed.

"Casualties were a little high on the attacking team's part," he told Bright. "Granted, the OPFOR in this case knew they were coming and were probably psychologically prepared for them at least, but still... I'd like to see them pull their entries off a little smoother than that. If they don't, we're gonna have some serious losses up on Triad when the time comes."

Bright was in his late forties and had been with the MPG for ten years. Before joining his planet's service he had served with distinction in the WestHem marines as part of their special forces division, although, being a greenie, his rank had never risen to higher than corporal. He was a skilled tactician and had honed the guerilla warfare arm of the MPG into a highly disciplined, highly trained point during his tenure, turning it from little more than a harassing force to one of the most potent weapons in the MPG arsenal. "This is the first day that they've worked on door breaches," he said in defense of his men. "It's only natural that they're a little rusty on the technique. They're improving. And look at what they're doing now. They're discussing ways that they can improve their entries. The OPFOR is giving them tips on it."

"That is somewhat reassuring," Jackson agreed. "And you'll excuse me if I sound overly critical. It's just that things are reaching a head here pretty soon. Now that someone fried a bunch of feds, we're gonna start seeing more action from them and their efforts against Laura are going to double, if not triple."

Laura, who had been watching the exercise in awe, nodded. "I fear we have less than six weeks left," she told Bright. "Once the Earthlings make the critical step for us, I'm going to have to ask those men to go into battle for me. Now General Jackson assures me that they'll follow my orders now..."

"Oh, you bet your ass they will," Jackson said. "After all of those speeches, after all the shit those Earthlings have put us through, they'll go to hell and back for you now, Laura."

"And that's exactly why I'm concerned," she said. "I don't want them dying unnecessarily. I realize casualties are going to a part of what's coming, but I want them as minimal for our people as possible."

"They'll be drilled incessantly in these breaching techniques for as long as we have the time to drill them," Bright said. "The same thing is going on in New Pittsburgh and the other cities where I have my people stationed. They'll be ready."

"Let's hope so, Colonel," Laura said worriedly. "Let's hope so. Because if these special forces troops of yours cannot accomplish their mission in the first hours, everything will be lost."

Chapter 4

The WSS Mermaid, an Owl-Class, stealth attack ship, cruised silently and unseen in an elongated polar orbit around Ganymede. Her twin fusion engines were both at idle, allowing the ship to drift along without emitting any heat. Her extensive array of passive sensors kept watch on the space around them for any sign of intruders, particularly EastHem stealth attack ships trying to gather intelligence. Mermaid was ninety meters in length with a beam of ten meters. She crewed sixty. Though she was not particularly impressive to look at and though she was downright uncomfortable to serve in, she and her sister ships were among the most sophisticated and expensive machines ever built by mankind. They and their EastHem counterparts, the Henry's, possessed an ability that no other spacecraft could; the ability to move and work in space undetected by the sensors of other spacecraft.

Large spacecraft such as the California Class super dreadnoughts, or the tankers that moved hydrogen from the Jupiter system about the solar system, or even the smaller naval support vessels that carried extra supplies and fuel, were impossible to conceal from an enemy. The problem was not the radar signatures of such monsters. Radar absorbent alloys were commonplace and easily manufactured and were in fact used to build most of the planetary military craft of WestHem, EastHem, and the MPG. But in large interplanetary spacecraft there was little point in using radar absorbent alloys since the ships in question could be detected at much greater range without the use of radar at all. Passive infrared sensors could pick up and identify a California class in its acceleration cycle from more than half a million kilometers away simply by reading the heat signature from the fusion engines. And when the California was not in its acceleration cycle, when it was simply barreling through empty space between planets awaiting turn-around and orbital deceleration, there were radio signals and forward looking radar beams (used to probe ahead for potentially lethal meteors or other space debris in their path) being constantly emitted, things that were quite easy to home in on with passive electromagnetic sensors. And even if a California were to shut all of its radar, navigation, and radio equipment off — something that never happened, but which theoretically could — they would still emit enough heat and radiation to be detected from one hundred thousand kilometers distance. A California crewed more than four thousand people, employed full inertial damping and artificial gravity, and required tremendous amounts of electrical power just to maintain basic functions. All of this added up to heat and electromagnetic radiation being produced. Large ships simply could not move stealthily through space, no matter what measures they took.

A stealth attack ship, on the other hand, was not a very large vessel and could move about without being noticed. This class of ships was constructed of radar absorbent material that was angled in various places to insure that even the miniscule amount of radar energy that did get reflected back was reflected in the wrong direction. On top of the layer of radar absorbent alloy was another specially made alloy, several inches thick, which inhibited the absorption of heat, both from inside of the ship itself and from external sources, such as solar radiation. The engine and waste heat generated by the people and the electronics inside of the vessel was radiated into a pressurized space between the inner and outer hulls and was then carefully dumped off in controlled bursts through a series of exhaust ports. When underway, a stealth ship used the minimum power possible for acceleration and deceleration and did not vent their plasma directly out of the exhaust ports as regular ships did, instead, sending it through a cooling cycle first. Since artificial gravity generators and the inertial dampers that were a byproduct of them created significant heat, they were not used or in fact even installed, forcing the crews to endure long voyages in minimal gravity (when under acceleration or deceleration) or no gravity at all. Active sensors, including meteor detecting radar sweeps, were not utilized on typical missions, making the possibility of running into an errant piece of space junk while at suicidal velocity a very real possibility. All of these measures, while making for cramped, uncomfortable, and often dangerous duty, made Owls and Henry's nearly invisible out in space. An Owl class, which was touted as being the best of the two superpowers' (of course the EastHem navy said that the Henry was really the best), could drift to within a few dozen kilometers of a London class super dreadnought or one of its fighters without being detected by either passive or active systems.

Mermaid had been on her patrol station for a month and was only awaiting the arrival of relief before setting course for her home base: Triad Naval Base in orbit around Mars. It had been an uneventful cruise, with only routine contacts of EastHem military and civilian vessels logged. The crew was getting quite antsy after two months away from their families (and in fact, any women at all) and the comforting standard gravity of Triad. Their hair was long and unkempt since there was no one onboard who knew how to cut it. Their faces were pale and slightly sunken from the lack of sunlight and gravity. Their clothing — shorts and T-shirts with their rank and last name printed upon them, were horribly faded and in most cases much looser in fit than they had been at the start of the voyage. Tempers had been rather heated lately with fights breaking out between enlisted men over such things as whose turn it was to use the bathing room or who had arrived at the relief tube first.

Because of the lack of gravity generators aboard, the Mermaid, like all Owls and Henry's, was oriented inside to up and down instead of to fore and aft like gravitated spacecraft. It was as if the entire ship was a small building, standing upright, with the torpedo storage and launching rooms making up the top deck and the engine rooms making up the bottom. Access between the decks was accomplished through small hatches. During periods of drifting, personnel simply floated from one level to the other, as if swimming underwater. During acceleration and deceleration however, up to a quarter of a G of gravity was imported to the ship, allowing people to stand solidly on the floor and forcing them to use small ladders to move between decks. The bridge was located just below the torpedo access rooms. It was a small, cramped area, only four meters by six, with five main stations in addition to the captain's and executive officer's chairs. Computer terminals were mounted into a semi-circular console with ergonomically designed seats before each. The captain and the executive officer sat just behind this console, just in front of the security hatch that led down to the next level. There were no windows on the bridge, or anywhere else on the ship for that matter. Cameras and sensors gave all of the input that was needed to run and navigate the ship.

Spacer first class Brett Ingram sat at the tracking and acquisition station on the bridge. Since the vessel was currently at drift and in zero G, he was strapped securely into his chair with a Velcro lap restraint. His coffee cup, which was sealed shut and imparted with a small amount of air pressure, had a magnet on the bottom to keep it in place. The display station before him was holographic, allowing a three dimensional map of the surrounding space to be generated, with the Mermaid's position as the exact center. The map showed dozens of small dots of varying color and size, most of them moving slowly in one direction or another. These dots represented the contacts that he was tracking with the passive sensors and the ship's computer system. All of the known contacts had a small designator superimposed next to them, identifying their status. One labeled S-7 for instance, was a Standard Fuel hydrogen tanker making its way from Standard City to Triad. It was coded dark green, as were all WestHem civilian contacts. About six thousand kilometers above and two thousand kilometers to the right of S-7 — about two centimeters on the map — was S-9, a California Class warship in a high equatorial orbit of Ganymede. It was coded blue, as were all WestHem military contacts. Light green meant EastHem civilian ships and there were four of those — all hydrogen tankers making their way to Earth from Callisto — near the far edge of the map. Red was the color that symbolized EastHem military contacts. There were two of those in Mermaid's field of detection, one, a London Class warship escorting the tankers and the other an anti-stealth ship escorting the London. Yellow represented contacts that had not been identified as of yet. There were none of those on his display at the moment but Ingram thought that maybe that would change in a moment. A flickering on his computer screen next to the display was starting to alert his senses.

"Con, detection," he said to Lieutenant Commander Braxton, the executive officer of the Mermaid. Braxton was sitting in the captain's chair at the moment since Commander Hoffman, the captain, was currently asleep in his quarters. "I'm picking up some errant readings on a bearing of 148 mark 70."

Braxton looked at the detection tech with an unmasked measure of annoyance. "Errant readings?" he asked. "What the hell is that supposed to mean? Do you have a contact or don't you?"

"Unsure, sir," Ingram replied, his voice neutral. As a ten-year enlisted man with Martian ancestry, he knew not to allow emotion into his tone when addressing Earthling officers, especially pricks like Braxton, who thought Martians were good for cooking meals and scrubbing dishes but not much else. "I'm getting some flickers in the high infrared spectrum. They've been coming and going for about two minutes now. I can't seem to get a lock on it."

"Flickers?" Braxton said, using his hand to call up a duplicate of Ingram's screen on his own terminal. He stared at it for a moment. "I don't see anything."

"Wait for a minute, sir," Ingram said, staring intently at the spot. Finally the slight flare of white, less than a pinpoint, flashed for half of a second or so and then disappeared. "There," he said to Braxton. "Did you see it?"

"That?" Braxton scoffed. "That's what you're calling an errant reading? That was probably nothing but a vapor formation from a urine dump that some ship performed twenty years ago." The other members of the bridge crew, every last one of them Earthlings, snickered at his comment.

"Maybe, sir," Ingram agreed dutifully, ignoring the snickers, "but it is in the same spectrum as a Henry's maneuvering thruster. I recommend that we swing around and try to get a fix on it, just to be sure."

"And risk being detected from our own thrusters?" Braxton asked sarcastically. "I don't think so."

Ingram looked at the XO, a man who was three years younger than him and had two years less time in Owl's, but who, because of institutional prejudice against those of extraterrestrial birth, had been able to attend the WestHem Naval Academy at Triad and would one day soon command one while Brett was stuck forever at spacer first. "Sir," he said, "I really think that this might be a legitimate contact."

"Do you now?" he asked, smiling the smile of condescension. "And what makes you think that?"

"I don't know exactly, sir," he said. "Mostly instinct I guess. And..."

"Instinct?" Braxton said, barking out a laugh, as if the thought that a Martian developing instinct was the most ridiculous thing he'd ever heard of. "You look at a floating pile of old piss vapor from the Jupiter War and you see a Henry in it? That's what you call instinct? Tell me something, Ingram. Do you see Henry's when you use the relief tube too? What do you see when you take a shit? London classes?"

"Sir," he tried again, "this flickering is right in the orbital plain that a Henry captain would use to observe our operations on Ganymede. It's basically the same inclination that we use when we spy on Callisto. When you couple that with the spectrum being the same as that of a Henry's maneuvering thrusters, the index of suspicion raises up. If I could get my array more focused in that direction I might be able to..."

"Your opinion has been noted, Ingram," he interrupted coldly. "And it's been filed for what its worth. Carry on."

"Yes sir," Ingram said, his voice still neutral. He went back to watching his screen.

"And why don't you pay more attention to the 0 mark 180 area?" Braxton suggested. "That's where the Dolphin is going to be coming from. If they detect us before we get them the captain's gonna have your ass." It was an age-old competition between Owl crews relieving each other on station to see who could detect whom first. The losing crew owed beers and bong hits to the winners the first time they found themselves in port together.

"I'm watching it, sir," Ingram told him. "No sign yet."

"If I have to buy that asshole Stinson on Dolphin a bong hit, I'm gonna take it out of your ass, greenie, you hear me?"

"I hear you, sir," he said, suppressing a sigh.

Dolphin did not show up over the next two hours, but several more times Ingram saw the flickering in the low infrared spectrum, each time from a slightly different bearing. He continued to watch that area closely, looking for anything else that might give a hint towards what was out there. Eventually, just as the captain came floating in from his quarters to take the con, he got it. The tiniest flash of blue, indicating a lower level in the spectrum, appeared just beside the white for a moment. It quickly faded away and did not reappear, but it had been there, he was sure of it. "Con, detection," he said again. "I'm getting more flickers in the lower spectrums from 151 mark 70."

"Another puddle of piss, Ingram?" Braxton said with a sigh. "I thought I told you to give that a rest. You're supposed to be looking for Dolphin."

"What's this?" said the captain, who was still hovering in the air next to the command chair. "Flickers in the lower spectrum?"

"Ingram is getting heat shine off of a damn urine dump or something and trying to convince us that he sees a Henry out there," Braxton explained.

"That bearing places it in the high orbital plain," the captain said. "Are you sure..."

"Stan, I looked at it when he first reported it," Braxton said. "It's nothing."

"Sir," Ingram said, looking directly at the captain, who, though he was as prejudiced against those of Martian birth as any other Earthling, could at least admit that they were occasionally useful for something, "I just got a reading in the lower spectrum. That's the same spectrum as a Henry venting waste heat. I really think we should maneuver to bring the sensors to bear."

The captain looked from his XO to his greenie detection tech for a moment. Finally he pushed off of the chair and floated gracefully across the bridge to hover just over Ingram's shoulder. "Show me what you got," he told him.

"Stan," Braxton said, rolling his eyes upward, "there aren't any Henry's out there. I told you, I looked at his contact when he first reported it. It's nothing. Dolphin is going to be here any minute now and I for one don't want to pay for any buds back at Triad."

"Let me just take a look," the captain told him soothingly. "You're probably right but I'd like to just see what we're dealing with here. Ingram's not too bad at this technician shit." He considered for a moment. "For a greenie anyway."

Ingram let the insult slide off his back. It was something that he had a lot of experience with. He pointed to the screen where the tiny flicks of white were still occasionally showing themselves. He then had the computer replay the brief episode of blue. The captain watched all of this carefully, scowling as he absorbed it.

"Hmm," the captain said. "My green friend, it's probably nothing more than a few scraps of metal from an ancient booster or something, but it's definitely worth a closer look." He looked up at the other stations on the bridge. "Helm, roll us to 331 mark 70. Keep those thrusters at absolute minimum. Assume there's a Henry out there until we prove otherwise."

"Aye sir," the young helmsman responded, his fingers going to the controls.

While Braxton shook his head in disgust at the lack of attention being paid to the approach lane of the Dolphin, the maneuvering thrusters on the outside of the ship fired with minute blasts of burned hydrogen gas, slowly rolling the ship around on its axis so that the sensor arrays could point towards the contact.

"331mark 70, sir," the helmsman reported a minute later. "Holding steady."

"Thank you, helm," the captain said, still looking over Ingram's shoulder at the display. "Well, Ingram?" he asked. "Where's your contact now?"

"Focusing, sir," he replied, adjusting the gain on his terminal. After a moment, his efforts paid off. A few light blue lines appeared.

"Well look at that," the captain said wonderingly.

"What is it?" Braxton asked.

"Solid contact in the low infrared spectrum," Ingram reported. "Just a hint, but there."

Braxton switched his display over to get a duplicate view. He frowned at what he was seeing. "That's not very much of a hit," he said. "It could just be a sensor anomaly."

"It's the same spectrum as a Henry's hot spot near the plasma outlets," Ingram said.

"And it's definitely enough of a hit to investigate. Helm, get ready to move us a little. Let's see if we can get a range on this thing."

"Yes sir," the helmsman said.

"Ingram, designate a contact for that thing and put it on the big screen."

"Yes sir," he said, his fingers moving over his terminal. "We'll call it Sierra 21. It's now on the screen as an unknown, bearing only contact."

The captain pushed off of Ingram's chair and drifted back over to his own. "I've got the con," he told Braxton, hovering above him as the XO unstrapped himself and floated over to his own chair. Once he seated himself and strapped in he turned on the ship's intercom system. "All personnel," he said, his voice being amplified throughout the ship. "General quarters, prepare for acceleration and contact prosecution."

The general quarters alarm blared and on all decks men dropped what they were doing and stowed any loose items that were in their vicinity. Kitchen crews put away their knives and forks and pressure cookers. Cleaning crews (all of whom were Martians) stowed their rags and spray bottles. Everyone on board reached into small fanny packs that they wore around their waists and pulled out emergency decompression suits, which they unfolded and slipped on. In the event of a hull breach, these suits would automatically inflate and allow the person to survive for a short time in the vacuum that would result. Once in their suits, everyone propelled themselves as quickly as possible to their GQ station. The engine crewmen all assumed their stations in the reactor room. The torpedo room crews passed through a security access hatch and into the room where Mermaid's twelve thermonuclear torpedoes were stored. Two additional crewmen floated up to the bridge and assumed secondary terminals where they could control the four eighty millimeter anti-ship lasers and the two ten millimeter anti-torpedo/fighter lasers.

"All stations report manned and ready, captain," Braxton said three minutes after general quarters had been called.

"Very good," he replied, obviously a little perturbed about the slow response but keeping it to himself. "Helm," he said, "sound acceleration alarm and initiate a point one zero G burn. Heading 100 mark 50.

"Aye aye sir," the helmsman said, activated his maneuvering thrusters and sounding the acceleration alarm. Once the ship was pointed in the proper direction — a task that the computer oversaw rather than the human instructing it — the main engines began their burn. It was of course, not actually a burn since the method of propulsion was a fusion reaction acting against a propellant of liquid hydrogen, but the term, which was as old as space flight itself, remained in use.

Fusion engines did not produce significant acceleration. Their advantage over chemical rockets was not how fast they could burn but how long they could burn. Fusion power allowed a ship to build up velocity over a period of days, gently pushing it faster and faster. Even a California class warship, which sported the most powerful engines of anything spaceborne, could accelerate at no more than one half of standard gravity. For an Owl, which had to cloak and cool the plasma exhaust to keep from being counter detected, the maximum acceleration was one quarter of a G. At one tenth of a G, there was just enough gravity produced for the personnel on board to feel the slightest downward push against their chairs. Slowly, ever so slowly, the stealth ship moved higher in its orbit and began to ease closer to the contact they were prosecuting; hopefully without giving away their own location.

For more than an hour they built up velocity. Ingram continued to track the elusive flickers of blue and occasional white in the infrared spectrum, comparing different bearings from different locations, the contact gradually firming up into a solid reading. "I'm starting to get enough for a range estimate, sir," he announced.

"Give it to me," the captain replied.

"This is tentative, but we're looking at six to eight thousand kilometers in a standard Ganymede semi-polar orbit. Also I've got enough readings from the various spectrums to confirm that it's a spacecraft and not a random piece of metal."

"Sounds good, Ingram," he said. "Weapons control, start working on a solution."

Of course they would not really fire at the ship even if it were identified as being an EastHem Henry. Though there was a cold war going on it had not been hot since the Jupiter War armistice was signed. And though the Henry — if that's what it was — was violating WestHem space by being within one hundred thousand kilometers of Ganymede, this was actually a fairly common violation, something that both sides did with frequency. If they were able to catch them there the report would be forwarded to Rear Admiral Cirby, the commander in chief of far space command, or CINCFARSPCOM, back on Earth. A formal protest would be lodged at the EastHem embassy and the EastHem government would be embarrassed and forced to apologize. It was something that had happened on both side many times before.

It took another hour before Mermaid had moved close enough to get a firm lock on their target. By then the fusion drives had been shut down, allowing the ship to drift once again and therefore reduce the possibility of counter detection. Once Ingram had multiple spectrum analysis of the target, he was able to positively identify it. The blue of the spectrum near the plasma outlets, the white of the thrusters when they fired, the darker blue of the occasional waste heat dump, and the very low end readings everywhere else all added up to one thing.

"I'm gonna call a positive ID on this, captain," Ingram announced. "It's definitely a Henry class stealth attack ship. Range is solid at eight hundred kilometers, velocity is standard orbital for Ganymede."

"Are you sure it's not the Dolphin playing games with us?" Braxton asked snootily. "An Owl and a Henry can be remarkably similar on the displays you know. And we are expecting Dolphin to show up at any time."

"It's not Dolphin," Ingram said tonelessly. "It's not one of ours. I've detected more than a few Owls during exercises. Our heat vents and our exhaust ports are both in a different spectrum."

"Mark it on the display," the captain said. "Fire control, do you have a solution?"

"On the mark, sir," the fire control technician said. "We're too close for torpedoes but we could really pound the shit out of them with the lasers if we wanted to."

"Good enough," he said. "Keep them locked up. I'm gonna make a little call to SCNB and report our discovery." He turned to Ingram. "God help you if you're wrong about this, greenie."

"Yes sir," Ingram said.

He wasn't wrong. The captain sent an encrypted message to Standard City Naval Base by means of a pulsed laser burst aimed directly at their receiver. Ten minutes later a flight of six A-12 attack ships, each armed with high intensity, rapid charging lasers and two thermonuclear torpedoes, roared out of the base and up into the high orbit. Ingram and the rest of the bridge crew were able to see them as bright white plumes on the display. The tracking crew of the Henry was undoubtedly able to see them as well and had to know that they meant the jig was up. Within minutes the A-12s went active with their sensors, probing the area with radar beams and infrared energy, searching for the hidden intruder. It didn't take them long to find it once they knew where to look. Ingram, who was scanning all of the emissions in the area, was able to pick up the guard frequency transmission from the control room of SCNB. With the captain's permission, he put it on the screen.

"Attention EastHem vessel in orbit around Ganymede," said Admiral John Cates, commander of the base, his weathered face stern and unforgiving. "You are illegally in WestHem space. Identify yourself immediately and state your intentions or you will be fired upon."

The captain of the Henry, knowing he was caught, did as he was told. A moment later a young, German featured face appeared on the screen. When he spoke his words were thick with an EastHem accent. "This is Commander Mark Beil of the ESS Granite," he said. "It would seem that we've made a minor navigational error and strayed into your space. We offer our sincere apologies. We will of course vacate the area at best speed immediately."

"And we will of course escort you back to international space," Cates said. "You have five minutes to start heading that direction."

"My apologies again, Admiral," Beil said, offering a small salute. With that he signed off.

Of course everyone knew that Beil and the Granite had not simply strayed into WestHem space. They had been spying, something that stealth attack ships were uniquely suited for. But diplomacy was delicate between the two superpowers and the game was played this way. Granite lit up its engines four minutes later and began to accelerate to escape velocity. The A-12s, their active sensors still pounding the invader with energy, turned and matched velocities to follow. Ingram and the rest of the Mermaid bridge crew watched the departure on the tactical display, Ingram recording every second of energy being radiated from Granite's engines for later intelligence reports.

"Secure from general quarters," the captain told Braxton, unzipping his pressure suit.

"Right," Braxton responded. He repeated the order over the ship's intercom system.

"Sir," said the communications technician from his console. "I have a hail from SCNB."

"Put it on the screen," the captain told him.

"Aye sir."

A moment later the face of Admiral Cates was back on the screen, his features much friendlier now. "Commander Hoffman," he greeted the captain warmly. "I just wanted to tell you that you did an excellent job locating that Henry. Thanks to you our EastHem friends will have a lot of explaining to do at the next summit conference."

"It was nothing, sir," the captain replied modestly. "I was just doing my job."

"Well, let me assure you that you did you job very well," he said. "I'm going to recommend you for an official accommodation. How does that sound?"

"That sounds just fine," the captain shot back at him. "Thank you very much, sir."

They signed off a minute later. The captain never once mentioned his bridge crew or his greenie detection technician as being deserving of praise. After all, a captain was responsible for everything that happened on the ship, wasn't he?

Two hours later Ingram was lying on his rack in one of the berthing rooms. It was a small room, one of four crammed onto that particular deck, and there were five other racks, stacked three high on each wall, in the room with his. Since they were just above the starboard engine room the noise and vibration from the fusion drive hummed loudly and imparted an unpleasant thrumming to the walls. There were only six Martians on Mermaid's crew and strangely enough, all six of them were housed in this room, although four were currently at duty stations and absent at the moment. Steve Sugiyoto, a cooks assistant (which meant that he washed the dishes and cut the food into portions) was lying in his underwear on his own rack directly underneath Ingram. Since Dolphin had arrived and relieved them, Mermaid was currently under maximum acceleration, just starting the long trip back to Triad Naval Base. As such neither man needed the Velcro straps to hold them onto their racks. The acceleration of the ship imparted them with one tenth of their natural weight. In Ingram's case this was a whopping eight kilograms, just enough to keep him firmly on the floor or whatever ever surface he put himself upon.

"That's total bullshit, Brett," said Sugiyoto from beneath him, his voice low, almost a whisper. "I heard what went down up on that bridge. You were the one that found that fuckin Henry and you were the one that had to beg the old man to prosecute it. Where the hell does he get off takin all the credit for it?"

"It's the way of the solar system, Sugi," Ingram sighed, stretching out a little. As the senior Martian on the crew there was an unwritten rule that he was responsible for keeping the other Martians in line

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "Fuck the greenies over every chance you get. That's the way of the solar system all right. That's why I'm trained in fusion engineering and they got me working in the kitchen."

"Shit, Sugi," Ingram told him with a laugh, "this is what, your second cruise on the great Mermaid?"

"That's right," he said.

"You ain't seen shit as far as fuckin over greenies goes then," he told him. "Wait'll you get ten years on these things like I have and then you can bitch to me about greenie fucking. I was a trained computer systems operator and analyst when I went on my first cruise. And do you know what they had me doing?"

"What's that?"

"The fucking laundry," he told him. "I spent my first year of space duty down in the goddamn laundry room washing the shit stains out of those Earthling's shorts. My second year I was graduated to the kitchen detail. My third year they finally trusted me to start working in the torpedo room as a lifter. It took me six years and twelve cruises before they finally put me on the bridge where I belong. If I were an Earthling, I'd be at least a lieutenant commander by now. I'd be at least an XO on one of these tubs and probably in line for a command. Instead, I'm a damn spacer first, just two grades higher then you are, and if I somehow make it another ten years in this place, I'll retire as a spacer first."

Sugiyoto shook his head angrily. "That's depressing," he said. "Why do we put up with this shit? Why have you stayed here so long?"

"It beats being vermin doesn't it?" Ingram said. "What else can I do? There ain't much call for a detection tech in the civilian market now, is there? Even if there were, the Earthlings wouldn't hire no greenie to do it."

They laid in silence for a few minutes, each of them contemplating their second class citizen status. It was Sugiyoto that brought up the subject of Laura Whiting, asking if there had been any more news heard.

"All I hear is what the bridge crew has to say about it," Ingram told him. "And all they watch to get their information is big three stations. They all seem to think that she should be thrown in prison for inciting terrorism."

"No way to get MarsGroup stations out here?"

"Not these days," Ingram said. "Before all of this shit hit the fan we used to be able to catch MarsGroup in the enlisted lounge. The Earthlings would make fun of us for watching it of course, but they'd at least let us keep it on for a while sometimes. Now though, I wouldn't let anyone catch you trying to watch it. I wouldn't even talk about it. Things are bad enough as is without making them more suspicious of us."

They talked a little more about the sad state of Martian affairs in an Earthling ruled solar system. Finally, tiring of that subject, they drifted off to sleep, both trying to catch as much as possible before their next watch. As they snored in the miniscule gravity, the ship kept pushing them faster and faster towards home.

"More trouble?" Laura Whiting asked General Jackson as he entered her office early Tuesday morning. It was not really a question of course. On Mars these days there was always more trouble. The question was how bad the trouble was this time.

Jackson was dressed in his standard day uniform of red shorts and a white T-shirt. He nodded solemnly as he helped himself to a cup of coffee from the dispenser next to her desk. "I just got word," he told her. "There was another mass shooting of civilians by FLEB agents. This time up on Triad. They're still sorting through the mess up there as we speak, but preliminary reports are sixteen dead, twice that many wounded."

"Jesus," she said, shaking her head and feeling mixed emotions. On the one hand she knew that she had set the stage for these confrontation and had put the wheels in motion. She had done that deliberately, with the hope of inciting the rebellion that was now about to boil over. But she had not counted on the price that was being paid in blood. "What happened?"

"There was an attempt to block the transfer of the Martians that were rounded up in yesterday's sweeps," he said. The day before, in response to the firebombing of their van and their agents, the FLEB had performed a planet wide sweep of all of the cities, rounding up and arresting more than two hundred Martian separatists.

"An organized protest?" Laura asked.

"Pretty much," he said. "It was the Triad chapter of the Martian Retirement Club that staged it. They tried to block the prisoners from being placed on the trains to TNB. About four to five hundred people put themselves in front of the access tunnels on the main loading platform. The agents fired on them almost immediately, which made everyone scatter of course, and then they rushed the prisoners onto the trains. They left the scene before any of the Triad authorities showed up. When the cops and the dip-hoes arrived there wasn't a single FLEB agent there."

"Bastards," Laura said, shocked.

"There was a news team there covering the protest when it happened. The whole thing was caught on MarsGroup cameras. It should be on the news now if you want to watch it."

She nodded and instructed her computer to turn on MarsGroup primary. The screen flickered to life and a live shot of the main access platform to Triad Naval Base was shown. The loading platform was a wide, open area enclosed by the thick plexiglass and steel walls that made up the edge of the orbiting city. It was here where personnel were cleared through security and loaded onto one of the trains that transported them through one of four one kilometer tram tunnels that connected the city to the huge base. Except for flying in in a spacecraft of some sort, these tunnels were the only way to get to TNB. The platform was usually an orderly place, swept clean and scrubbed daily by enlisted spacers from the base and guarded by armed military police. Now it was the scene of chaos as the camera panned from place to place, showing dozens of Triad police officers and dip-hoes sorting through masses of bloody bodies lying on the ground.

"Most of the more seriously wounded have already been taken away by health and safety personnel," a shocked MarsGroup reporter was voicing over. "What you see here are the more lightly wounded and the dead, who are being sorted out for transport or relocation to the temporary morgue on the Triad end of the platform. As you can see from these shots, many of the protesters that were gunned down by the FLEB agents were elderly since those over age sixty make up the majority of the civilian population of Triad. Reports from the Triad police state that none of the protesters were found to be armed. Most of them, as you can see, were carrying protests signs only." The signs in question could be seen lying next to many of the screaming or deathly silent protestors. The motto: FREE OUR PEOPLE! was the most prevalent, although there were a few others. Bullet holes could plainly be seen in a few of the signs.

"Kevin," she said, feeling tears forming in her eyes. "My God! What are we doing here?"

"I know how you feel," he said, sitting down next to her and putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. "These were old people. Grandmothers and grandfathers trying to pick up our fight for us. They were gunned down like dogs."

"And we caused this, Kevin," she said. "We knew that the FLEB would crack down on people! We counted on it to further our cause!"

"We did not cause this, Laura," he told her firmly. "Nor could we have predicted that things would come to this."

"People are dying because I've challenged the Earthlings and riled up the Martians! They're dying! They're being gunned down in the streets, hauled away to Earth prisons! Don't tell me we didn't cause this! My whole intent was to make things intolerable for the people so that they would support a revolt!"

"And that is what's happening," Jackson said. "This incident will come close to breaking the camel's back I would think. But you did not make those FLEB agents fire on citizens. You did not order the FLEB agents to crack down and haul anyone off. All that you did was force the Earthlings to behave in a way that you knew they were capable of when threatened. You provided the threat, Laura, they provided the violence, and unfortunately, this is the only way we have to get our people to follow us."

"It's manipulative," she said. "I'm pushing them around like chess pieces in order to further my goals."

"Not your goals Laura, our goals. The goals of the Martians. What we've set in motion is a necessary evil in order to achieve freedom. You had to make the Earthlings step over the line. You had to break the chain of tolerance that has kept us subservient for generations. It was the only way."

"That doesn't make me feel any better," she said. "And it doesn't help me sleep at night."

"And you wouldn't be the person you are if it didn't bother you," he said. "I'm sure you feel like you're as manipulative and soulless as a corporate manager, but you're not. You have a conscience, Laura and its no surprise that yours is being dinged by what is going on here. But try to keep the big picture in mind. We're doing the right thing."

She sighed, her eyes still watching the horrifying scenes from Triad on the monitor. The camera was showing a man of about eighty. He had two bullet holes in his forehead and a puddle of brains and blood beneath him. His eyes were wide open and staring, an expression of shock and horror forever frozen upon his face. "I'm trying," she said. "It gets harder every day, but I'm trying."

"MarsGroup will be calling soon, trying to get a statement from you," he told her gently.

"I'll be ready," she said.

"Good." He gave her one more brief hug of comfort and then released her. "Keep the faith, Laura," he said. "My contacts on Earth tell me that a grand jury is being assembled in Denver. They seem to think it may be for you."

"How much longer will it take if it is?" she asked.

"A week or so to assemble and investigate the jury members," he said. "Another two weeks or so to present whatever evidence they whipped up. I'd say that within a month they'll come looking to take you out of here. Can you hold out that long?"

"I can hold out forever," she said. "The question is will the people hold out that long?"

Laura gave a scathing statement to the MarsGroup channels less than an hour later. She called for an immediate independent investigation into the events on Triad and the arrest and trial of the FLEB agents that had fired on the protestors. "Those people are common murderers," she said, her words being transmitted all over the planet. "They fired without provocation on an unarmed, peaceful protest against their fascist tactics. They belong in prison for what they did and if there is any justice in this solar system — something that seems more and more doubtful every day — they will be put there."

The big three media channels downplayed the incident as much as they could. Though they were competing corporations, all three reported the story virtually the same way. Their take on the matter was that a violent group of protestors attempted to free a band of hardened terrorists that were being extradited to Earth for trial. In the ensuing scuffle the "besieged" FLEB agents were "forced" to fire their weapons to protect themselves and prevent the escape of violent criminals. It was reported that "a few" people were killed or injured in the fracas. No video clips or interviews were shown and the entire segment carried less than a thousand lines of text on the print sites, less than thirty seconds of coverage on the video sites.

That evening, at 6:00 PM New Pittsburgh time, Laura Whiting gave one of her speeches. The primary topic was the Second Martian Massacre (that phrase had already achieved proper noun status among the Martians) and what she felt the reaction to it should be.

"It's easy," she told the Martian people, ninety-six percent of whom we're recorded as watching, "to blame the FLEB and their agents for what has happened on this planet over the past few weeks. After all, it is they who we see snatching our people out of their homes at gunpoint. It is they who are seen marching them onto Triad Naval Base for extradition to Earth. It is they who are gunning us down like rabid dogs when we protest their actions. But try, fellow Martians, to remember that FLEB tactics and responses are only the enforcement arm of the opposition against us. Somebody is commanding the FLEB to act in the way that they are and I think we all know who those somebodies are. They are not the executive council back in Denver, although I'm sure that's where the official orders originated. No, these orders came from the corporate boardrooms back on Earth, by the very people who are threatened the most by our drive for independence and autonomy.

"We've been over this before in previous speeches that I have given. I have explained to you all how these corporations and their CEOs are really the ones who rule WestHem. They rule with their money and the absolute power of corruption that it wields. They are motivated by greed and self-interest and the quest for ever increasing power. Sure, the FLEB agents are cracking down on us and cracking down hard, but they are doing it on the indirect orders of Steve Carlson of Agricorp, Brent Holland of IPC computers, Roger Fairling of MarsTrans, and a hundred other CEOs — the men and women who control ninety-eight percent of WestHem's wealth. These people have blocked our attempts at negotiation for independence with the WestHem government and they remain our true enemy in this fight."

She looked into the camera, her expression anger. "I believe that it is time we stop throwing ourselves at the FLEB agents. That is doing nothing but getting people killed and wounded. I believe that we should attack the real enemy and attack them in a way that hurts them badly: their pocketbook. I'm asking all Martian citizens that work for an Earth based corporation to band together in a general strike starting next Monday, four days from now, and lasting until the following Friday. That means everybody that works in any way for any business that is owned at any level by Earthlings, with the exception of hospital personnel and commuter transportation personnel.

"I know that I'm asking a lot of you, particularly those in the blue collar class. You will not be paid for the days that you miss and you will be risking your very jobs by taking this drastic action. However, if everyone sticks together, if everyone does what I ask, unity will provide the protection you need, just as it did for the legislature when they were pressured to impeach me. A general strike of this scale will hurt these corporate Earthlings very badly even if it were just one day. If it is carried out for an entire week, it will be devastating to their productivity and their profit margin. My staff reports that they will lose more than sixty billion dollars of raw profit from being shut down for a week. This, my fellow Martians, is a language that they will understand. I propose that you undertake this general strike for one five-day period and then, if these corporations do not allow negotiations for our independence to commence, that we extend it to a two week period, and then a three week period, as long as it takes before they agree to listen to our demands and bargain in good faith for our freedom. And believe me, they will be forced to listen to us. A halt of productivity is something that they will not be able to tolerate or absorb.

"Fellow Martians, let this be our most potent weapon against the greed that is ruling us. Undertake this general strike on Monday and deliver a staggering blow to the very heart of that which controls us. You have stood beside me before when the corporations tried to expel me from my position. I ask you now to take the unity that you showed then a step further. Pass the word to everyone. General strike against the corporations! General strike for freedom and self-destiny! Show those Earthlings what we are capable of! United we stand, fellow Martians! Remain united and we will not fall!"

Lieutenant Eric Callahan was a ten-year member of the WestHem Marine Corps. He was thirty-three years old and a native of Dallas in the Texas subsection of the state of North-Southern on the North American landmass. A dark-haired Caucasian of American descent, he was handsome and superbly fit in a physical sense. He commanded the 3rd platoon of the 2nd Battalion of the 314th armored cavalry regiment stationed in Salta, Argentina sector, a mountainous, hellish part of the Earth snugged right up against the towering peaks of the Andes.

Salta, a small city of only two million, was at the center of the thickest concentration of Argentine nationalists in the northern portion of the troubled province. In the mountains to the west of the city were thousands of pockets of poorly armed and trained rebels that were willing to die in their cause to usurp WestHem rule, which, since the end of World War III, they had never accepted as being legal. The mission of the marines from Foxx Barracks, just outside the city, was not keeping Salta itself secure and under control — that was the job of the army — but to patrol and keep secure the perimeter and the outskirts. Platoon strength units regularly forged into the high mountains to seek out the pockets of rebels and eliminate or capture them. It was this mission that Callahan and the forty men under his command were undertaking now as they marched up through the foothills to the higher peaks above.

It was mid-autumn in Earth's southern hemisphere and, as such, it was the beginning of the rainy season. A constant drizzle fell from the leaden sky above, the drops little more than a mist but steady enough and thick enough to require the camouflage rain gear. Callahan was marching near the center of the formation, his M-24 held at ready, his heavy combat boots squelching wetly through the mud and pine needles of the terrain. He, like all of the men, wore a Kevlar helmet upon his head and a pair of combat goggles upon his face. Thick Kevlar armor, heavier even than that which police officers wore, adorned his chest and upper abdomen. The armor was covered by web gear that contained a combat computer, several fragmentation grenades, and extra sixty round magazines for his rifle. He had no rank markings of any kind upon him and had instructed his men not to salute him or give any other indication that he was the man in charge lest the rebels single him out for a sniper's bullet. The targeting recticle of his combat goggles bobbed up and down with each step that he took, the range display changing constantly as different features were crossed by it. Less than two hundred meters to the right of the platoon was a paved road leading higher up into the mountains, but Callahan was far too experienced to do anything as stupid as lead his men along a predictable route. Though the rebels, as a fighting force, were almost hopelessly outmatched by the marines, there was no sense in sending out open invitations for an ambush.

"Hammy," he said into his command radio link, his words being transmitted via a throat microphone to his four squad leaders, "spread your guys out a little more, will you? That right flank looks like shit."

"You bet, skipper," Sergeant Hamilton, one of his newer and greener squad sergeants replied back. Hamilton and his squad had been forced upon him a month ago after a long stint in the boredom of Alaska region, which contained the heaviest concentration of military forces in all of WestHem but which never saw any action of any kind. They seemed like they might make the grade some day but every last one of them had yet to have his cherry popped, as the term for combat went in the corps.

Callahan watched in semi-satisfaction as Hamilton adjusted the inverse wedge that his squad had been in into something approaching a proper formation. He turned his attention forward again, his eyes sweeping over the towering peaks rising into the mist before them. There were literally thousands of places up there that could potentially contain teams of rebels ready to attack them with ancient weaponry for the sheer harassment value of it. Most of the fighters were the direct descendents of those that had fought the WestHem army and marines during the initial occupation after World War III. They knew these mountains better than anyone else ever could or would and usually the first sign that they were there was when the bullets started coming in. From interrogating prisoners of the past, it was well known that an Argentine nationalist considered it a great victory if they could kill one marine for every ten of their own that was lost. They were willing to lose a hundred in order to kill that one though. And often that was just how many it took.

"You ever wonder why we're doing this?" asked Sergeant Mallory, his first sergeant and the second in command of the platoon. His squad was taking rear guard on this particular march and he had maneuvered himself to be next to his commander. He had turned off his radio link so that he could talk freely, without everyone else in his squad listening in.

Callahan flipped off his own link and looked at his closest friend in the corps. "Doing what?" he asked, although he was pretty sure he knew what he was referring to.

"Laying our asses on the line up here in these mountains, chasing these gomers around every damn day." He grunted a little. "I mean, really, what's the damn point of it? We can protect the base and most of the area around it and the gomers aren't really that much of a threat anyway. So why do it? Why not just let them be up there in their mountains?"

"Because the powers that be think it's a good idea to go kill them," Callahan answered. "They want us to suppress this rebellion and to suppress it firmly, so it doesn't spread to other places, so that those who are fighting it are kept at the lowest level of morale possible. If we didn't go out and slaughter them on a regular basis, pretty soon we'd be elbow deep in gomers. And then where would we be?"

"I suppose," Mallory replied doubtfully, spitting a stream of tobacco juice onto the ground. "When you come right down to it though, I'm forced to wonder what the hell WestHem even wants with this shithole province in the first place. What's here that's valuable? This entire province is nothing but mountains and desert populated by vermin and thieves. Hell, most of them have refused to learn English even. What would we lose if we let these gomers be independent? It's not like they're Mars, which is actually worth something. I say give them their fuckin independence and see how they do with it. Once we stop given them welfare and food shipments they'll come crawling back to us."

"They're part of the empire," Callahan told him. "And once you let one part of the empire go, the rest will start fighting for it too. Right now we have Cuba and Argentina wanting to rebel."

"And Mars," Mallory put in. "Don't forget about them."

"And Mars," he allowed, although he obviously had little regard for the way that they were going about it. "Anyway, if WestHem were to grant Argentina or Cuba their freedom, within a year you'd have all of those other provinces that used to be their own countries trying to do the same. Can you imagine what it would be like if Brazil or Mexico or Canada tried to break out of the union. Shit, this whole nation would fall apart. We'd have to quadruple the corps and the army just to keep our own people under control."

"I suppose," Mallory said again, wondering why anyone would want out of WestHem. After all, they were the greatest democracy that ever existed. The Internet and the schools always said so.

They marched on, gradually tightening up as they entered the steeper terrain. Point men stared into crevices and around the bases of trees, searching for trip wires or loosely covered pits. Fingers tightened imperceptivity on the stocks of weapons. This was the extreme danger zone, the area where the mountains met the foothills, the area where the Argentines loved to initiate their ambushes since it allowed them to strike at their quarry in relatively open terrain while keeping themselves concealed on the peaks and in the thick vegetation. The platoon was ready for trouble and they were expecting trouble. It wasn't long before they encountered it.

As was almost always the case, the first sign that the rebels were attacking was the flashing of their weapons from the hillsides above. They came from a thick stand of pine trees, bright strobes of orange, at least four distinct rifles firing. A second or two later the bullets came whizzing in. The old M-16s and AK-47s that the rebels used had a very slow rate of fire and a pathetic muzzle velocity compared to the modern M-24s that the marines carried. This meant that the rounds would not actually penetrate the Kevlar armor that the marines wore. As such, the only way that the rebels could score a kill was to hit their targets directly in the face or neck, a task that was quite difficult from a range of nearly three hundred meters without combat computer assistance. The only real hope that rebels had of scoring a good kill was in the first few seconds of the battle, before the marines had a chance to react to the incoming gunfire.

In this case the experience of the marines prevented any lethal casualties. Once the flashes were spotted thirty of the forty men dove instantly to the ground, even before the sound of the shots reached them. As bullets came whizzing in, slapping into the mud and zinging into the trees, the only two men left standing were Sergeant Hamilton and a green private, fresh from boot camp, in second squad. Fortunately for them the rebels had not been aiming at them and they were not struck. And once they realized exactly what was happening, they too managed to get into the mud before the second wave of gunfire came rolling in.

"On the hillside! Ten o'clock!" Callahan barked calmly into his throat microphone. "First and third squad, get some fire on them! Second and fourth, get under cover!"

The marines acted as they had been trained. The front two squads began firing up into the hillside, their M-24s chattering rapidly and spewing expended shells onto the ground, the rounds showing up in goggles as almost solid streams of white. The men carrying the squad automatic weapons quickly set up their guns and added their heavier penetration power to the fight, hosing down the entire tree line for suppression. While they were doing this the rear squads scrambled along on their bellies to find rocks or trees or mounds of mud to hide behind, therefore improving their positioning. Within a few seconds they had all found such things and they too began to fire.

Callahan, positioned behind a large pine tree, did not fire his weapon. He kept it by his side and instead concentrated on the big picture around them. He ordered first and third squad to displace and get under better cover. They did so, all of them sliding through the mud, one of them getting hit in the leg by a lucky shot. One of the men crawling in front of him backtracked and dragged him clear. Callahan nodded in satisfaction as he saw this and then frowned as he saw how Hamilton was responding to the situation. He and his entire squad were bunched behind a single fallen log in neat line, all of them shoulder to shoulder. "Hammy!" he yelled at him. "Get your people spread out more! This isn't Alaska, motherfucker! For Christ's sake, if they have an RPG or a mortar they're gonna take you all out at once."

"Right, skipper," Hamilton said, his voice bordering on the verge of terror.

"Fuckin newbies," Callahan muttered, not bothering to damp his link first. A few bullets came plunking into the mud within a meter of him. He didn't even flinch. He called up the geographic display from his combat computer and a moment later a map of the terrain was superimposed on his view through the combat goggles. The map was extremely detailed and very accurate, composed from years of satellite digitals and radar imagery of this most active hot zone. The location of every one of his men — information that was provided by GPS links on their computers and radio linked to his own — was represented as green dots. The location of the enemy position — which the goggles and the computer had automatically pinpointed based on the infrared signature of their weapons flashes — was represented as a series of red dots. "Computer, secure link with fire support!" he said. "Priority one."

"Priority one link established," his computer told him in his earpiece.

"Who's this?" Callahan asked over the encrypted frequency, not bothering with niceties and knowing that whomever he was talking to would understand.

"Lieutenant Burgess here," said a calm voice. "Is that you, Callahan?"

"It's me, Burger," he answered, using Burgess' nickname. "I'm in contact with a squad sized group of gomers. I need some thirty meter fused HE rounds dropped at coordinates 34.17, 41.12."

"On the way," Burgess said.

"Thanks, Burger," he said, edging a little closer to the tree that was providing him with cover. "We'll adjust if need be." He switched back to the command frequency. "We have arty on the way, guys," he told his sergeants. "As soon as they hit I'll get an air strike rolling."

None of them acknowledged him. They had been trained not to. About twenty seconds later four 150 millimeter artillery shells came screaming in from the east, their approach marked by distinct, fast-moving white blurs in the infrared spectrum and the low-pitched whistling produced by their passage through the air. They exploded thirty meters above the tree line where the rebels were firing from, showering them with deadly shrapnel. There was no need to adjust fire; the coordinates and the gunnery had been perfect.

"On target!" Callahan told Burgess. "Fire for effect! Pound those motherfuckers!"

"Copy, on target," Burgess responded. "Firing for effect."

A few seconds later more shells came arcing in over the hills, exploding with fury over the target area. The concussions of the high explosive rounds thundered through the mountains, echoing and re-echoing, hammering into the chests of the marines. The enemy fire came to an abrupt halt.

But Callahan wasn't done yet. He switched his radio to the command frequency and asked for an air strike. The marine aviation unit, which always kept planes in the air and on stand-by during the day, quickly directed a flight of two A-50 light attack planes to the coordinates. Just as the artillery barrage let up, the small, stubby jet aircraft came banking in from the south, their engines screaming horsepower, lethal ordinance hanging from their wing pods. The A-50s had been designed as close support aircraft for anti-tank missions but they worked just fine against the non-armored rebels as well.

"Fast movers coming in," Callahan announced over the command net. "Everyone get ready for the big bang!"

The aircraft shot less than 400 meters over the top of them and dropped two cluster bombs apiece. For a second it looked as if a mistake had been made, that the bombs had been dropped directly atop of the marines themselves, but, moving at 700 kilometers per hour, they quickly passed over and zeroed in on the hillside. At about 100 meters above the target area the bomb casings split open, raining submunitions down over the tree line. The explosions were a series of sharp cracks and the trees that had been concealing the enemy were suddenly engulfed in flame and smoke, branches and bark flying in all directions.

The aircraft banked sharply to the left and spun around to make another run. Less than a minute later they were back, dropping another two cluster bombs apiece on the area immediately uphill from the first. More explosions ripped the area and more trees disintegrated under the onslaught. With that the A-50s banked back around and headed lazily off the way they had come in.

"All right now," Callahan said in satisfaction, looking at the smoking ruins that had been left behind. "That's overkill if I've ever seen it. First and third squad, advance up that hill and check it out. Second and fourth, keep hunkered up and cover them. Move!"

First squad, which was the most experienced of the platoon, quickly jumped to their feet and spread out, forming up into two distinct wedges for the advance. Third squad, which was the newbies, was a little slower on the uptake, most of them plainly reluctant to stick their heads up despite the horrific firestorm that they'd just witnessed in the target area. Still their training as marines directed they do so and eventually all of them did. Hamilton did a half decent job of forming them up for an uphill advance.

Under the direction of Sergeant Mallory the two groups moved in, weapons ready for action. They closed in from two different directions on the obliterated tree line while the rest of the platoon kept an eye out to their flanks. Hamilton, after checking on the wounded corporal from second squad and ordering a helicopter for him, directed his combat goggles to patch into the combat computer of Private Wesley, who was on the point for the advance. Once the patch was made Callahan was able to see what Wesley was seeing through his goggles. Though it kept him from seeing what was going on around his own body he trusted the other marines would keep him safe and warn him of any danger.

"You patched in, skipper?" Mallory asked him a few minutes later, as they entered the kill zone.

"Yeah," he replied, watching without emotion as Wesley looked back and forth. "It looks like we got 'em all right."

And indeed it did. Scattered everywhere throughout the hillside where the torn shreds of what had once been four Argentine rebels. Smoking arms, legs, pieces of skull and bone fragments were spread among the smoldering tree branches, bark, and mud. It was impossible to tell exactly how many men had been up there by the body parts but the broken pieces of their rifles were more easily identifiable. Three M-16s and one AK-47 — the latter with a burned hand still clutching the stock — were pieced together.

"I'd put that down as four confirmed kills, skipper," Mallory told him on the command net. "You know the gomers would rather die before they leave their weapons behind."

"I agree," he said. "Why don't you check out the area above the target real quick just to make sure they don't have any friends up there. I'm gonna release second squad from cover duty and have them set up an LZ for the dust-off bird."

The area beyond checked clear. By the time the two squads worked their way back down the hill the wounded man had been loaded onto the medivac helicopter and was on his way to the military hospital in Salta. Callahan noticed that the men of Hamilton's squad, including Hamilton himself, looked a little green. He walked over to them, hefting his unfired weapon onto his shoulder as he went.

"Not very pretty up there, is it?" he asked the squad at large.

The men all kept quiet, their eyes turned downward. Hamilton however, was able to find his voice. "It was quite, uh... impressive what those explosive rounds did to those rebels," he offered weakly.

"That's how we deal with rebels in the corps," Mallory told them. "We respond to any acts of aggression against us with brute force — as much brute force as we can possibly bring down upon them. To do any less would encourage further attacks. Do any of you men have a problem with that?"

"No sir," they all mumbled, although with a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

"Get used to the Argentina way, newbies," he said. "This is combat. It's not quite what we trained to do against the EastHem fascists, but it's combat nonetheless. We're part of an armored cavalry division, true, but we don't ride around in our APCs and we don't surge in force against enemy armor. Our mission is a little different in this part of the solar system. We fight rebels here. Whining, crawling, sneaking, piece of shit rebels who think they want to be free of WestHem — as if they'd be able to take care of themselves if we allowed it. They're hopelessly misguided fanatics who think nothing of killing themselves just to take you out. This was a small attack and fortunately only one of us got hurt. If you learn to be careful out here and learn to get your asses in the mud when the shooting starts, you'll live through your stint in the 314th and some day you'll be able to transfer back to Alaska or Iceland or Texas and look down upon all of the cherries at the bases there. Learn to love these skirmishes out here. Learn to love seeing those Argentine fucks all shredded up by artillery and cluster bombs. Learn to love it because you're gonna get a lot of it out here."

As the weekend fell upon the planet Mars the general strike call by Laura Whiting once more forced the so-called movers and shakers to abandon their leisure time and spend the days of rest in their towering high rise offices. What had first been taken as a joke by the top executives of the corporations — the thought that the greenies would actually respond to her ridiculous request — gradually changed into ever-increasing alarm that maybe they really would. Though the big three, acting on the theory that to fail to acknowledge something was to mitigate its existence, remained mostly mute on the subject of the general strike, MarsGroup naturally did not. On every channel, on every web site, in every news publication, the story of Laura Whiting's latest speech and the ramifications of it were the top subject. Interviews with blue-collar workers, all of them vowing to honor her request and asking that others do the same, were printed and aired in every news update. Calculations, all of them made by Martian born auditors and accountants, speculating on just how much revenue a five day shutdown of Martian productivity would cost the corporations were printed in exacting detail and downloaded millions of times over. Hard copies of these figures were printed out and posted on union bulletin boards throughout the planet; they were emailed back and forth from person to person so often that they flooded the system and forced it to a near crawl.

To make matters worse, Laura Whiting expanded her normal speech schedule of twice a week and began to make appearances every night. She would repeat the figures compiled by the accountants and repeat her requests for all Martian workers employed by an Earthling corporation to participate. As always, Whiting's speeches were the highest rated broadcasts of all time and the powers that be realized that the Martians were not watching them because they found them amusing.

In an attempt to head off the strike the corporate heads called a press conference to address the planet on Sunday night. In doing so they took the unusual step of asking for this press conference to be aired on MarsGroup in addition to the normal big three broadcast stations. MarsGroup, more out of a sense of sensationalism than anything else, quickly agreed and sent reporters to the Agricorp building, where the conference was being staged.

This conference took place in the large briefing room on the 300th floor where corporate training was usually held, a locale with spectacular views of the city and the wastelands in all directions. Representing the corporations were William Smith who, as the titular head of corporate interests on Mars had been elected as the spokesperson in this matter. With him were the heads of more than thirty other corporations that relied on Martian productivity for profits, everything from transportation to manufacturing to mining to food producers that competed with Agricorp itself. This group of CEOs stood as a unified force against the rebellion that was sweeping their breadbasket. Dressed in their finest, most expensive business suits they stood shoulder to shoulder, an impressive gathering for a single purpose.

"We, the leaders of the various business interests that operate on this planet," said Smith in a carefully written speech, "are sympathetic to the problems that are occurring of late in the Martian cities. We have denounced the overzealous tactics displayed by federal officials in regards to indiscriminate gunfire and we are appalled by the deaths that have occurred so far. However, we, the corporations, are not to blame for this. We are only here to provide goods and services to the people of WestHem and to provide jobs for the people of Mars. We must take a firm stance against anyone who threatens our productivity. So, with that in mind, let me make it perfectly clear to the people of Mars who are considering partaking in this illegal and subversive action tomorrow. Anyone who fails to show up for work tomorrow will be dismissed from their duties and will go into our hiring computer as unfit prospects for future consideration. This decree will be enforced uniformly, for both skilled and unskilled workers, for both management positions and general workforce. In short, if you strike, you will be fired and barred from future employment with any corporation represented here for the rest of your life. You will lose all health and lawsuit insurance and other benefits that come with employment. This decree applies not only to Agricorp, which I myself speak for, but any corporation that is represented here today. We are firm and committed to this action so I will advise you all to think very carefully before you decide not to show up for work in the morning. Production on this planet is vital to the continuation of WestHem and it will go on. Must I be forced to remind you that there is a better than twenty-five percent unemployment rate on Mars? If the members of the current working class decide to throw their jobs away in this ridiculous work action requested by Governor Whiting, I'm sure that there are millions of unemployed that would be perfectly willing to join the ranks of the employed to replace you."

The press conference went on for another hour, though mostly it was the other corporate heads spouting variations of Smith's words. The media computers that monitored such things reported that seventy-four percent of Martian viewers had tuned in to watch the conference initially but that the number had dwindled to less than ten percent by the time it ended. Smith and his acquaintances were unsure how to interpret this data but eventually they managed to convince themselves that it was good news. They figured that they had made their point quite nicely to the ignorant greenies and congratulated each other on outthinking that bitch Whiting.

8:00 AM Monday morning dawned first in the cities of Libby and Ore City, which were located in the easternmost populated time zone. Libby was an agricultural city along the equator, the center of the third largest expanse of greenhouse complexes on the planet. Ore City was a mining and manufacturing city located 2100 kilometers due north. As the workday began in these places less than two percent of the total workforce showed up for their jobs. The public transportation trains ran through their Monday morning routes with hardly any passengers on them. The teaming high-rise office buildings of their downtowns were virtually deserted of Martian workers. The steel processing plants and the mines remained empty and non-productive. The greenhouses went unworked, their equipment going without maintenance.

Smith and his cohorts listened to reports in disbelief as the red planet turned slowly on its axis, bringing the next set of Martian cities towards the 8:00 hour. Never, in their wildest dreams, in their worst nightmares did they imagine that so many people would actually put their jobs at risk like that. Their disbelief grew as the scene was repeated every hour as more cities moved themselves into the workday and the vast majority of the Martian workers were not there to help run it. In all it was estimated that more than ninety-six percent of the total Martian workforce that were employed by Earth-based corporations elected to honor the general strike. Of the four percent that did show up, most of them were simply sent home again since their various occupations could not run without the other workers.

On this Monday no food was picked or tended or processed or packed for shipping on the planet Mars. No boxes were loaded onto trains for the trip to the spaceports and no ships already loaded took off for Triad for distribution. No iron ore was pulled from the ground or processed into steel. No bartenders showed up to work in corporate pubs and no checkers or clerks showed up to sell things in corporate owned grocery or supply stores. Even the big three media conglomerates themselves were forced to virtually shut down much of their Martian operations as their cameramen and computer technicians — men and women that they had thought loyal despite their heritage — abandoned their equipment and went home. Mars and nearly everything on it ground to a halt, strangling profits for the day and, despite the savings in salary outlay enjoyed by the lack of workers to pay, cost every Earth-based corporation, large and small, billions of dollars.

Encouraged by the response to her words, Laura Whiting congratulated the Martian people that night during her speech and continued to encourage them to follow through for the entire week. Smith and company gave another speech that night, this one directed at the welfare class. He invited them to several locations in each city to sign up for job training to replace the unskilled workers that were on strike. It was a fairly good gamble that they made but unfortunately it was a losing one. Less than two hundred people planet wide showed up for his job seminars on Tuesday morning and all of them were sent away in disgust when their numbers were realized. As for participation in the strike, nearly ninety-nine percent of the workforce stayed home on this day.

For the rest of the workweek this went on. Smith would beg and threaten the Martians at night on Internet addresses with what would happen if they continued to defy their employers and the next day his words would go unheeded and no one would show up for work. Back on Earth the stock market actually went into a free fall as food stocks and manufactured goods were virtually cut off at the knees. Pharmaceutical supplies, of which Mars manufactured greater than eighty percent for all of WestHem, dropped to an alarming level for certain brands in a shortage that would reverterbrate for weeks across the solar system.

When Saturday dawned on Mars, the first general strike officially came to an end. The first workers to return to their jobs were those who worked weekends: the maintenance techs and the service personnel, less than six percent of the grand total. They found their work backed up beyond belief but still waiting for them. No reports of dismissals were reported from any portion of the planet. The same occurred when the rest of the workforce returned the following Monday. Once again the commuter trains were full of Martians heading to their jobs and the various industries were able to staff themselves and get some work done. No one was fired or disciplined, they were simply told to get back to work.

"The first strike was a rousing success," Laura Whiting told the planet that night on MarsGroup. "I'm sure you've all noticed your various employers trying to pretend it was no big deal, that they all enjoyed their little vacations, but believe me, you folks hurt them badly. I congratulate you on your unprecedented unity. But this is only the beginning. This is only a taste of what we are really capable of. We must now follow up our actions with demands. Please allow me the liberty of making these demands for you. Since the corporations now know that their workers are capable of crippling them, we must demand that they open negotiations with us within the week for a peaceful transfer of assets and recognized autonomy for our planet. If they do not, then we must initiate another general strike fourteen days from now, this time for two weeks."

Corban Hayes was a man who looked ten years older than he had just a few months before. The stress of trying to keep a handle on the Laura Whiting situation while forcing his underlings to participate in a crackdown of citizens not seen since the beginning of World War III were taking their toll on him. He had already been treated by his private physician for a bleeding ulcer and irritable bowel syndrome, afflictions he had never been bothered with before. His face was now gaunt and drawn, streaked with age lines that had not been there at the beginning of this miserable year. And now one of the worst fears of all had just come to pass. A general strike had occurred on the planet, a strike that had shut down everything and everyone and had come on his watch. And that bitch Whiting was already trying to arrange another, even longer one. He could almost feel his head rolling across the table.

The door to his office slid open late Tuesday afternoon to reveal Don Mitchell, one of his senior field agents, the man who had led the New Pittsburgh portion of the crackdown. Mitchell was not a very bright person and certainly was not the best-qualified agent for the position that he held. But, in the world of the FLEB bureaucracy, which was WestHem politics at its finest, that factor was not often considered when promotions and assignments were handed out. Walker was well-connected and had the ear of Director Clinton himself since he was married to Clinton's daughter, thus he would more than likely be the man to replace Hayes when he (Hayes) was eventually reassigned to some shithole office management job in South America or Greenland.

"You called for me, Corban?" Mitchell asked him, using Hayes' first name when hardly anyone else would dare to.

Hayes let it slide, as he almost always did. "Yes, Don," he told him, waving him to a seat. "It's about the Laura Whiting investigation."

Mitchell smiled predatorily. The Whiting case had of course been handed to him once the Eden crackdown got up and rolling. He and a team of fourteen agents had been working twelve-hour days on it ever since the order from Clinton had come in. "We're pretty close to having an airtight case file drawn up," he said. "It's a lot easier to build a case when you don't have to worry about things like real evidence." He seemed to find this deliciously funny.

Hayes on the other hand, did not. He had at first been unable to believe his ears when the order to draw up false charges against Whiting had come across his terminal on the secure link. Though he had bent the law to his liking many, many times in his career, he had never been asked before to actually make up charges and back them up with falsified evidence. And in such an important, potentially explosive case at that! He strongly suspected that Clinton and those controlling him were forcing him to pull the pin on a hand grenade. Nevertheless he had followed orders. It was all that he knew how to do. "I've just received a communiqué from Director Clinton himself," he told Mitchell.

"Ah, my good father in law," Mitchell said affectionately. "What did he have to say?"

"Nothing very good," he said. "It seems that the various business interests of Earth and the executive council are rather upset about the little strike we just had. They are even more upset at the prospect of another, even longer one. The picking of the grand jury in Denver is being fast-tracked even faster and they are quite eager to have the complete case file against Whiting so they can get her out before she has a chance to get another strike organized. How close to finished are you?"

"We're just drawing up the final documents now," he said. "You know? Making them look all nice and official, cross-referencing a few of our sources. We could probably have it done in another three days if we rushed."

"Rush even faster," Hayes told him. "Even if it means that it's not quite as pretty looking or complete. Clinton wants the entire file transmitted to him within twenty-four hours."

"Twenty-four hours?" Mitchell said doubtfully.

"That's what your father in law tells me," he confirmed. "And as you know, what he says goes. So get your people together, get some coffee brewing, hell, go buy some dust from one of the vermin if you need to, but have that report finished by 0900 tomorrow."

"We will," he said.

Two days later, in Denver, Nora Hathaway, the WestHem attorney general, was reviewing the Whiting file from her office atop the Department of Justice building. She was a portly woman of sixty-two years, an appointee of the last administration that had managed to hang on due to her astute political savvy. She scanned through the hundreds of pages of evidentiary documents, getting a thorough read on just what the charges against Whiting were going to consist of and how good of a job the FLEB agents had done "gathering" the evidence. Once she had the basics of it down she put in a call to FLEB director Clinton on her terminal.

"What do you think?" he asked her once his face appeared. "I've been going over the file since I received it on this end and it looks pretty solid to me."

"I like it," Hathaway said. "The charges themselves are beyond reproach. Solicitation of bribery from corporate officials, incitement of terrorism, trafficking in explosives. It couldn't get much better, especially after all of the media publicity that Whiting's been getting here on Earth."

"My feelings exactly," Clinton replied. "For once this year my agents on Mars actually did something right."

"It would seem so," she said. "But I do foresee some future problems with this."

"Such as?"

"Such as the trial," she replied. "This file will be enough to get her indicted on the charges, but once we put her on trial we'll have to come up with some corroborating witnesses for these statements in here. How are you going to do that?"

"Several of the corporations involved have volunteered their services in that regard," he told her. "For instance Smith at Agricorp will have a few of his lobbyists testify on our behalf that Whiting asked for bribes from them and threatened them if they did not produce them. The names on the statements are of the actual people involved. And as for the terrorism charges, well, those statements are from... non-people I guess we could say."

"You mean they're completely fabricated by your agents," said Hathaway, who did not enjoy mincing words when she did not have to.

"Well... yes," he admitted. "But in any case, our contacts at InfoServe, the biggest of the big three, have promised to supply us with actors who will pretend to be these people we interviewed at the trial. We'll make a big production out of them, tell the solar system how they'd been caught red-handed and gave up Whiting for a plea bargain, have them testify, and then we'll pretend to sentence them to prison. The pay-off for them will be a billion dollars apiece and new identities when its over."

"A lot of money," she observed. "Who's paying for it?"

"The coalition of corporations that are fighting against Whiting will pay for half," he told her. "The federal government will pick up the other half. Of course its possible that some accidents might be arranged for these people instead. It is awfully dangerous to let them walk around after a production like that."

"That would seem the wiser course," she said.

"In any case, the important thing is the now. We need to get Whiting out of office and on a ship to Earth before the next general strike. We'll have plenty of time to worry about the trial later. I'm sure we'll be able to delay and put off the proceedings for at least four years. You know how our justice system works."

"Yes, God love it," she agreed. "I have more good news for you as well. Our grand jury selection is now complete."

"Is it?" he asked, delighted. Of course the grand jury did not know that it was being convened to investigate the Laura Whiting matter, they thought they were just another routine body being pulled together to serve for a year and investigate whatever federal matters came up in the course of that time. "How's the composition?"

"We have twelve of the biggest morons in Denver sitting on that panel," she told him. "Each one of them has been following the Whiting story on the big three and have only received input from those sources. Not one of them has any contact with anyone who lives on Mars or ever has. They'll believe anything our prosecutor tells them."

"Beautiful," Clinton said, pleased with this news.

"I've already called my two top prosecutors up here. They'll be going over the file in less than an hour. It's Thursday now so I'll have them work the entire weekend on it. The grand jury will convene for the first time this Monday morning. We'll zip them through an abbreviated orientation in the morning and then start hitting them with the Whiting matter after lunch."

"And how long will it take once it's started?" Clinton wanted to know.

"Shouldn't take too long," she said. "I'll have them present the worst of the evidence quickly. I'd say two days should do it and we'll have that indictment."

"Wednesday then," Clinton said, nodding, a happy smile upon his face. Soon this entire Laura Whiting mess would be but a memory. "I'll be eagerly awaiting it."

Hathaway's prediction of two days turned out to be an accurate one. The Denver federal grand jury, which consisted of seven women and five men, were horrified at the crimes that Laura Whiting, current governor of Mars, was accused of participating in. The evidence that they were presented, coupled with the extensive media coverage of the events that all had been following of late, prompted them to issue a six-page indictment against her on six distinct federal charges, all of which carried lengthy prison sentences if the accused was found guilty.

The two prosecuting attorneys who had presented the case thanked the grand jury for their time and then dismissed them, reminding all that they had agreed to serve for a year and could be called up again. The twelve members left the federal courthouse and went about their business, all of them proud to have served and eagerly awaiting their next assignment, blissfully unaware that the justice system had no intention of ever using them again. They had served their purpose.

The text of their indictment was on Hathaway's terminal before the first of the jury members were even able to board a commuter train for their homes. She quickly read it over and then sent it on to Clinton's office via a secure landline. Clinton read it over ten minutes later and then composed a voice mail giving instructions for Hayes.

"Take her into custody tomorrow morning," he told his subordinate. "Take enough teams with you to insure that she will not be liberated from you by her security forces or pissed off greenie civilians. The most important thing to remember is that she be taken alive and unharmed. I don't want a single hair on her head to be damaged, nor a single piece of her clothing rumpled. If she were to be hurt or killed during the arrest we would have hell to pay among those Martians. She is not to become a martyr, do you understand?"

When he finished the voice mail he attached a certified copy of the arrest indictment to it and then told the computer to send it on the secure channel to the FLEB headquarters in New Pittsburgh. The documents and his mail were digitized, encrypted, and then sent through the WestHem Internet system to a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit over the coast of Brazil. Since the main communications computer knew that direct communication with the planet Mars was now impossible thanks to the sun being directly in the path, the signal was sent across the solar system to another communications satellite in orbit around Ganymede. It took forty-eight minutes for it to arrive there at which point it was re-routed and sent to another satellite in orbit around Mars. This leg of the trip only took eighteen minutes. And so, one hour and six minutes after being sent, the message and the indictment arrived at the terminal of Corban Hayes.

Hayes watched the email message and then looked over the indictment very carefully. He had a very bad feeling about what he was being asked to do but nevertheless he began to make the arrangements to carry it out. He called Mitchell and several other of his top agents into his office and told them the news. All of them were delighted that the greenie bitch was finally going to go down. They went over the basic plan to take her into custody the next morning.

"We need to make sure that we tip the big three first thing in the morning so they'll have cameras and reporters there to watch us taking her away," Hayes told them. "However, if we tip them too early, they'll start asking questions before we want them too. Those media people are helpful but they're also very annoying at times. So, until tomorrow, nobody says a word to anyone about the indictment. This is top secret stuff, okay?"

Everyone agreed to keep it under their hats for the time being. They were dismissed so they could start drawing up their plans and of course the secret leaked within ten minutes to some of the civilian staff. An agent named Skeller, who was trying to penetrate the pants of a young secretary named Darla, was the first to spill the beans. Darla asked him in her flirtatious way just what the big meeting had been all about. Since Darla was an Earthling and very loyal to the FLEB, he didn't see any harm in telling her. "We have an indictment for Whiting," he whispered in her ear. "We're gonna take her into custody tomorrow morning and send her back to Earth for trial."

Darla quickly told another Earthling secretary the good news and that secretary quickly told another. It wasn't very long until the word reached the ears of a Martian receptionist down in the front lobby of the building.

Lisa Vaughn was a fourth generation Martian who worked in the FLEB office because it was the only job that she had ever been able to get and the only thing that kept her from vermin status. She hated Earthlings, particularly the federal variety that were her bosses, but she endured this miserable employment in order to keep her child from growing up in the ghetto. Her ex-husband, the man who had fathered her one legally allowed child, was already vermin, having lost his job in a merger of two computer software companies two years before, so he was of no help to her. If she had had any other prospect of employment over the years, she would have gladly taken it. But, since jobs were few and far between she had stayed on and, some months before, a man from the MPG intelligence division had recruited her to report to him various information about the daily operations of the agency. She was, in short, a Martian spy. She received no money or anything else in exchange for the information she passed on. She did it only out of sheer loyalty to her heritage and out of sheer hatred of the Earthlings that worked in this building; Earthlings that treated her as a piece of furniture at best and with open hostility at worst. How many times had agents or civilian staff come into the building and called her a greenie to her face? How many times had they excluded her from their gossip circles, from their after work parties or gatherings? How many times had she heard them mocking her Martian accent as they talked about her? It had not taken terribly much for the handsome MPG lieutenant to convince her to pass a few things on to him.

It was as she was in the lobby level staff restroom that she first heard about the indictment of Laura Whiting and the plan to take her into custody the next morning. Lisa had been in one of the toilet stalls, relieving her bladder of the coffee she had consumed when two female secretaries for the piracy section of the office had entered to re-apply their make-up after their lunch break. For more than five minutes she sat there silently, listening to them flippantly discuss how "that greenie bitch" Whiting was finally going to get what was coming to her.

"I told you she was involved in all of the terrorism going on in this place," one said to the other.

"I never had any doubt about it," the other responded. "So they're going to take her tomorrow morning?"

"First thing," she agreed. "At least that's what I heard from..."

Soon the two women finished their work and left the room. Lisa waited another three minutes before getting up and returning to her desk. She had been briefed to keep her ears out for just such talk and to report it as quickly as possible. Of course she could not use the main terminal on her desk to make the notification. That would be madness even though the message would seem innocent on the surface. Instead she unclipped her PC from her waist and flipped open the small screen.

"Call Gina Hawkins," she told it, referring to one of the names in her address files. To anyone overhearing her or homing in on her conversation with electronic devices, it would seem she was doing nothing more than conducting a personal call during business hours, something that was against the rules but fairly commonplace. No one would know that she had no friend named Gina Hawkins or that the number she was using to get hold of her was actually a relay station for MPG intelligence.

A pleasant faced female appeared on her screen a moment later. "Hi, this is Gina," she said in a thick Martian accent. "I'm not able to answer your call at the moment. Please leave your name and number and I'll get right back to you."

"Hi, Gina," she said into it lightly. "This is Lisa Vaughn. I just wanted to see if you were interested in going out to O'Riley's tonight after work. Give me a call back if it sounds good. If not, maybe I can stop by your apartment tomorrow morning on the way to work. I have to pick up that blouse I let you borrow. See ya."

With that, she clicked off and put her PC back on her waist. She returned to her duties. At the relay station the computer terminal that took her call identified the code phrase — "Hi Gina, this is Lisa Vaughn" - and automatically sent a copy of the message through several other relay stations. Two minutes later it arrived at the desk of Major Tim Sprinkle, head of MPG intelligence. He took one look at Lisa's message and knew, just by the words it was composed of that an indictment for Laura Whiting had been received at the FLEB office and that agents were going to attempt to pick her up the next morning. Within seconds he was on the terminal to General Jackson.

Laura knew that push had come to shove when Jackson entered her office an hour later. She could tell just by looking at his face. "The indictment?" she asked him, half-fearing it, half welcoming it.

"It was issued by the grand jury earlier today in Denver," he confirmed. "I have some sources on Earth that were able to confirm this for me. Six counts, all of them high federal felonies. Just like you predicted."

She offered a weak smile, feeling her stomach knotting up. "It's not that hard to put yourself into the corporate mindset," she said. "I left them with no other option short of actually negotiating our independence. And we know they would never do that. An indictment and a quick removal probably seems like a brilliant solution to them."

"It's brilliant all right," he said. "They'll be giving us the final catalyst that we need tomorrow morning."

"That's when they're coming to get me?" she asked, impressed as always with the quality of Jackson's information.

"We have a source inside the FLEB building," he told her, nodding. "We got a message from her not too long ago. She confirms that the indictment has been received and tells us that they're planning to take you tomorrow morning."

"Does she know how many agents? How many guns?" Laura asked.

"We don't know at this time," he said. "All we have at the moment from her is a code phrase telling us that it's going down. One of our intelligence teams will meet with her tonight to try for a better debrief. In the meantime, it's time we initiated the first stage of operation Red Grab. The first elements need to get rolling as soon as possible if they're going to be in position in time."

"The special forces soldiers," she said. It was not a question. She knew almost as much about the details of operation Red Grab as Jackson himself.

"Right, I need you to give me a governor's order activating them. I'll put the call out and get them on the transports to Triad. When the time comes, they'll be ready to move."

"Will they do it?" she asked pointedly. "We'll be asking them to commit treason and murder. Have things gone far enough so that they'll do it?"

"Time will tell," Jackson told her. "I think that they probably will but we won't know until we ask them."

"If they can't complete their portion of Red Grab," she told him, "then we might as well just surrender tomorrow."

"I know," he said. "Believe me, I know."

"But remember my conditions," she warned.

"Everyone is a volunteer for this," he recited. "All of the soldiers will be briefed on what the mission is and what the stakes are. They will all be given the opportunity to back out without recourse if they wish. No trickery or lies will be employed to get them to complete their portion of the mission."

"Right," she said. "I know it probably makes things harder for you, Kevin, but no matter how this turns out in the end, I don't want to go down in history as being the woman that tricked people into fighting for her cause. If they're not willing to fight for our freedom, then I guess it's not worth having, is it?"

"That's the truth, Laura," he said. "And I wouldn't have it any other way."

"Good."

"But from this point on, you don't leave this building until its over," he said. "The capital is now your home. I don't want to take the chance that our information is wrong. If they grab you at your apartment tonight then everything will collapse."

She did not particularly like the idea of remaining in the capital for another two days or so but she understood Jackson's reasons. "I'll stay here," she said. "I'll order in a pizza tonight."

"Good," he said. "And I'll brief your security platoon in that its time to act. When the FLEB comes to take you, they'll be ready."

Lon Fargo was behind the wheel of his maintenance truck, his partner Brent by his side. They were on their way to one of the soybean greenhouses to fix a broken fan unit on the environmental supply system. As always they were passing through other greenhouses in order to get to the one they were after, driving their lift truck along the maintenance roads along the walls. This greenhouse was one that grew rice, one of the staples of the Agricorp productivity. Stretching off to the far wall were acres and acres of neatly engineered rice paddies, all of them green and glimmering with an approaching harvest. Brent, who was smoking a cigarette on the passenger seat, was bitching about the loss of a week's pay that the general strike had imposed upon him.

"I'm telling you, man," he whined, "I don't know what I'm gonna do if we have to go through another two weeks of that shit. I mean, as it is I was barely able to make my rent payment and still pay for enough groceries to get us through until next time."

"Maybe if you cut down on the buds you smoke you'll be able to absorb it better," suggested Lon, who had also felt the sting of losing half his pay for the pay period but who was proud to endure it.

"Heretic!" Brent accused. "What kind of man are you? Cut down on my buds? That's uncivilized!"

"These are trying times," Lon said, rolling down his window to ventilate the smoke from his partner's cigarette. "Just be sure to follow through the next time Whiting asks us to strike. The only way we're gonna beat those fucks is to hit them in the wallet."

"Shit, I know that," Brent said defensively. "I wasn't saying I was gonna cross the line or anything. I'm just saying that it's a bitch going without a week's pay. It'll be a bigger bitch to go without two weeks."

"No matter how much of a bitch it is to you, it's five times as much of a bitch to them. Remember, nothing moves, nothing happens, no money gets made when we strike. That hurts 'em bad."

"Yeah yeah," Brent said, taking an especially long drag. "I just wish they'd give us a little more time to recover before the next strike comes."

Lon was about to answer him — something to the effect of how his recovery time was also their recovery time — when his PC began to buzz on his belt, indicating an incoming communication. He unclipped it and opened up the screen, which was showing the communications software and the incoming call information. He expected to see that Barb, the girl that he had been seeing over the past week, was calling to chat with him. Had that been the case he intended to send the communication to his mail system. Barb was becoming too clingy lately and he had no desire to talk with her just now. Instead of Barb's number however, he saw that it was the MPG headquarters communication system. "What the hell?" he muttered.

"Who is it?" Brent asked. "Is it that crotch you been slamming?"

"No," he said.

"Too bad," Brent offered, grinning lasciviously. "She's a pretty tasty looking piece."

"Answer," Lon told his computer, ignoring his partner.

The screen changed showing the face of Major Mike Queen, commanding officer of the Eden special forces battalion. It was not a live shot, but rather a pre-recorded message. "All special forces members," his image said. "We have a special training exercise today beginning as soon as everyone can be assembled. Report immediately to your duty station. This is an official call up. It is very important that all members attend this session. All employers are expected to honor time-off requests. I repeat..." He repeated.

"A call up?" Brent, who had been listening in, asked. "What kind of shit is that? They're calling you up for training?"

"They've done it a couple of times in the past," he said, puzzled. "Although usually its for a multi-company drill on the weekend. I don't ever remember them doing it on a weekday before."

"You can't just leave work," Brent said.

"I have to," he said. "I can't refuse a call-up. That's part of the MPG code."

"What's Pittman gonna say about that?" Brent asked, referring to their supervisor.

"I guess he can take it up with Governor Whiting if he doesn't like it," he told him, stopping the truck and starting the process of turning it around. "She's the one that put in the constitutional amendment about release from work duties."

Pittman, one of the lowest level managers in the entire Agricorp chain of command, certainly did not like it a bit that one of his people was skipping off for MPG training in the middle of the day. Though Pittman was a Martian by birth, he had been one of the one percent that had not participated in the general strike, apparently feeling that his bosses higher up the ladder would respect him for this and not eliminate his position when the cuts finally came. Whether or not that was the case still remained to be seen, since Agricorp was still waiting for things to settle down before proceeding with their eliminations. One thing that had resulted from his lack of participation however, was that he was now universally despised by all those he supervised instead of being merely disliked, which had been the case before the strike.

"You can't just leave in the middle of the goddamn day because the freakin' MPG is holding some sort of training session," he said from behind his cheap metal desk in the dispatch office. "Get your ass back out there and finish your assignment."

"Sorry, Pitt," Lon told him, shaking his head without a trace of regret. "This is an official call-up. I'm not allowed to disregard it and you're not allowed to discipline me for responding to it. It's the law."

"I don't think the law applies to training," he replied. "It's meant for an invasion of the planet by EastHem."

"The constitution doesn't say that," Lon told him. "All it says is that you are expected to honor an official call-up of forces. I've been given an official call-up and I'm leaving. I won't let the door slide shut on me on the way out."

"Fargo, I'm warning you," he said sternly. "You are not to leave early for this. If you do, don't bother coming back."

Lon was not impressed with his words. "You don't have the authority to fire me, Pitt," he told him. "Don't even pretend that you do. You're just a greenie like me, although apparently you forgot that back during the strike. All you can do is compose a disciplinary notice for me and recommend that I get fired but middle management is the one who makes that decision and I hardly think that they'll go up against a constitutional issue for something as petty as this. So find someone else to fix that fan unit and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye now."

He walked through the door, letting it slide shut behind him. Pittman was too astonished and too angry to even make a parting reply. Instead he started yelling at Brent, who had been hiding a chuckle the entire time.

Lon, knowing that he had a spare uniform in his locker at the MPG base, didn't even bother going home first. He left the Agricorp maintenance building and made his way to the nearest commuter train station. He walked up the stairway and, coming to the gates that guarded access to the platform, used a fund transfer port in the back of his PC to transfer the cost of the fare to the MarsTrans bank account. The gate then slid open, allowing him access.

A train arrived six minutes later, only four minutes behind schedule, and he climbed aboard, finding a seat near the back among a few elderly Martians and a few gang member types that were probably delivering dust chemicals back to the ghetto. The commuter trains ran atop the street level roof and the train itself, which rode on a magnetic track, cruised along at 45 kilometers per hour, jerking to a halt every few minutes and then, after passengers embarked or disembarked, powered up again for the next leg. Buildings flashed past and turns were negotiated at high speed. None of the motion being produced was felt by Lon or any of the other passengers thanks to the inertial damping system. If you closed your eyes it felt as if you were standing still. When they reached a hub station ten minutes later Lon disembarked that train and waited another ten minutes for another one. When it arrived he climbed aboard and rode it to the station nearest the MPG base.

Since it had taken him quite a while to come in from the greenhouse he'd been traveling through, Lon was the last of his squad to arrive. The rest of his team were gathered in the platoon's briefing room, all of them looking a little confused and gossiping among themselves as to what the meaning of the call-up was and what form the "special training" would take. Lieutenant Yee, whose presence on the base had been confirmed by other members, was conspicuously absent at the moment, probably in an officer's briefing.

Lon was of course inundated with questions from his men and from the other sergeants in the room, as if he were in possession of some information that they didn't have. "I don't know," he told them all. "I've never heard of them calling us up for special training on a weekday before. Nobody told me shit."

They waited. A few more stragglers from the platoon came into the room and starting the entire round of questioning and speculation over again. All forty men did show up however, many with tales of unhappy supervisors or managers.

Finally Lieutenant Yee arrived. Since the MPG was light on military formality, no one stood up or saluted him but they did all quiet down respectfully to await his orders.

"Okay, people," Yee said slowly, "here's the deal. I just received a briefing from Captain Armand and he wanted me to tell you all that we are not really here for a training mission. That was just a ruse to keep WestHem authorities from taking alarm at our call up. The real reason we have been called up is because of possible action up on Triad. I was not told much more than that. All I know is that it is not just the Eden area company, it is the entire battalion. All of us our going to be moved as quickly as possible up to Triad for a possible active service in defense of Mars."

There were some amazed stares at his words. The entire special forces battalion? That was four companies of troops, one from each of the four key surface cities thought most likely to be attacked. At 160 soldiers per company, that added up to 640 men! Never before had the entire battalion been called together for a single mission. Special forces worked in small teams employing hit and run tactics. And just what kind of active service were they talking about? Was there a threat from an EastHem invasion force? If so, why were only the special forces teams being called to arms? It didn't make any sense. It was the marines' responsibility to protect Triad and the naval base if an attack occurred. They had an entire division stationed at their barracks and enough surface to orbit craft to move more than a thousand men up at a time. The only surface to orbit transports the Eden area MPG troops possessed were two old C-8 lifters from the Jupiter War era, lifters that could carry only 150 troops at a time. Since each round trip to Triad and back would take three hours, it would be nine hours before everyone could even get up there.

Yee waited for the babble of voices to quiet down. "That's all that I know at the moment, people," he told them. "We're being called up and shipped up to Triad for an unknown purpose. Governor Whiting herself signed the order making it so. If any of you do not wish to participate in this, it is your right under our charter to back out. I was also assured that everyone will be given this opportunity again if the mission that we are being considered for gets a green light. Anyone who wishes to leave, please get up and do so right now. You will be held at the base until the completion or cancellation of the mission and then you will be allowed to return to regular duties. Any takers?"

Not a single person stood up. Lon didn't know for sure what everyone else was thinking, but his curiosity was certainly piqued. He was definitely in for the long haul.

"I didn't think that there would be," Yee said with a smile. "But I did have to ask. All right, let's talk about load outs, shall we? Our load outs will be full interior armor and combat goggles with regular ammunition, not training rounds. Each squad will equip itself with four M-24s with grenade launchers and thirty smart frags per weapon. The SAW men will each draw four thousand rounds of ammunition for their weapons, the riflemen one thousand rounds. In addition, each squad will carry no less than four hundred meters of primacord for door breaching. Biosuits will not be needed but everyone is to draw a gas mask and wear their heavy boots. Don't worry about food packs but do get some canteens. I'm told that you'll need them. Does everyone understand the load out?"

Everyone understood the requirements of it.

"Let's get moving then," Yee told them. "We're going to start loading onto the C-8s in the order we get equipped. I don't want my platoon sucking hind tit here, so lets make it fast."

It took the better part of an hour for the entire company to draw their weapons and ammunition and get suited up. They talked among themselves as they went through this process, all of them speculating on just what it was they were going to be asked to do. A large majority seemed to feel that a secret EastHem invasion force was going to try to make landings of some sort at either the naval base or the Triad commercial spaceport. After all, Mars and Earth were at opposite sides of the sun and Jupiter was situated relatively close to Mars at the moment. This was the planetary configuration that had long been feared as the ripest for such an attack since EastHem ships would legitimately be in the area. As for why the MPG special forces would be the ones to repel such an invasion, it was felt that this was because the intelligence that had uncovered the plot had come from the MPG instead of the CIA or FLEB. Perhaps WestHem authorities had disregarded the information forcing General Jackson to act alone. That would be just like those WestHem pricks. All of this sounded plausible enough that soon it was regarded as the official rumor. There were only a few dissenting opinions, a few of which actually suggested the real reason for the deployment, although they would not know it for some time. Everyone, no matter what their opinion of the coming conflict, felt a sharp edge of nervousness and anticipation however. Though the MPG trained obsessively, it had never seen actual combat before and only a few of the special forces troops had done any time in the WestHem army or marines. Of those that had, only three had seen actual shooting in Argentina or Cuba. Now, the prospect of actual fighting, the possibility of delivering or receiving death was upon them.

Once weapons were drawn the company was moved to a rarely used loading terminal that led to the outside. One of the C-8s that the MPG possessed was docked with the terminal just outside the taxiway entrance. The C-8, like all Martian based surface to orbit craft, was essentially a reinforced terrestrial aircraft fuselage without the wings or tail. On the ground, in the loading position, it rested horizontally upon landing gear that folded out from the bottom. The two pilots were clearly visible through the windscreen going through their pre-launch checks. The bottom of the fuselage was covered with a layer of heat resistant material that was able to withstand the inferno of atmospheric re-entry and the aft end was fitted with two rocket outlets capable of propelling the craft to orbital speed. Only the front third of the spacecraft was capable of carrying passengers or cargo. The rear two-thirds were taken up by the engine components and the tanks of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that fueled them. The outside of the craft was painted as were all MPG equipment: in the shades of red camouflage scheme.

The passenger seats had been removed from the spacecraft in order to create more room. Though it wouldn't be a very comfortable flight, the entire company of 160 people and their equipment were able to fit into one C-8. Lon and his squad were among the first to embark. Since the C-8 was at idle and its artificial gravity field was operating, there had been no period of lightening. Lon found himself sitting near one of the windows, his weapon resting against his shoulder, his pack pushing against the wall behind him, two of his men pushing at him from either side. His legs began to ache almost immediately from the cramped position. He, like the rest of the company, kept his thoughts mostly silent as the doors were sealed up and the spacecraft began to move away from the building.

They rolled out across the sandy taxiways, out to the very far reaches of the outside base area, where the thrust from the rocket engines would not cause any damage. The trip took nearly twenty minutes but finally they arrived at the launch platform, a hydraulically operated lift built into the ground. The spacecraft positioned itself carefully and there was a clank as the magnetic arms locked onto them, holding them firmly into place. Soon the lift moved into action, tilting the aircraft upward to the optimum launch angle of seventy degrees. Watching out the window, Lon was able to see the ground tilting away from them but he felt no pull of gravity towards the rear of the spacecraft. The artificial gravity field kept everyone oriented to the inside of the spacecraft instead of to the planetary surface outside. He could have, if he'd wished, stood up and walked around normally, just as if he was on level ground.

"Take-off in ten seconds," the pilot announced over the intercom. He then began a countdown. When he reached zero the roar of the engines could be heard reverterbrating throughout the ship. There was a slight sense of vibration but nothing else as they left the ground and streaked into the sky on a fountain of orange rocket exhaust. Though they were accelerating at more than three times the force of standard gravity, no one was pushed backwards and no one had to brace themselves. That was the inertial damping system at work.

Lon continued to watch out the window as the ground receded beneath them. Within two minutes they were more than twenty thousand meters above Eden and he could see the high rises and the agricultural greenhouses spread out beneath like a relief map. He tried to pick out the MPG base that they had launched from and might have been able to after a moment's study had they not rolled to a different attitude, obscuring his view.

Within five minutes of launch they were clear of the atmosphere and moving at orbital velocity. The main engines of the C-8 shut off for the moment and the maneuvering thrusters kicked on, angling them upward. When the proper attitude had been reached the main engines fired up again, although only at half power, so they could be forced into a higher orbit for the rendezvous with the orbiting city. Triad was in geosynchronous orbit over the opposite hemisphere. In order to reach it a spacecraft had to climb to an altitude of 17,000 kilometers, which, when at orbital speed, would perpetually keep it over the same point on the surface. The flight computers in the cockpit of course did all of this orbital maneuvering and positioning. A mere man could conceivably figure all of this out with paper and a pencil but it might take him several weeks to do so.

The majority of the trip was spent coasting along in the high orbit, slowly catching up with their target. From Lon's perspective near the window, he never saw Triad approaching at all. There was only the blackness of space, the brilliance of the stars, and the nothingness that was the night side of Mars far below. Finally, ninety minutes after launch, the maneuvering thrusters fired again, slowing their approach. Lon saw the lights of a few other spacecraft in the distance, none close enough or clear enough for him to identify, and then, suddenly, there was the outline of Triad before him.

Orbiting space cities were engineering marvels, truly the culmination of all that man had learned about construction and space flight. More than just a space station where cargo was loaded and unloaded, Triad was home to more than 600,000 people and contained all of the amenities that any modern city had to offer. There was a level that could be referred to as a main street level. It contained parks, duck ponds, even a golf course and a football stadium. It was crisscrossed with a grid pattern of streets where pedestrians could walk or ride the trams from one place to another. It was on the main level where the spaceport was attached that huge tanker ships and cargo ships bound for Jupiter or Earth could dock, that passengers could load and unload for trips to Earth or down to the Martian planetary surface. Large food and steel carriers launched from Mars — much bigger versions of the C-8 that Lon was now flying in —would transfer their cargo to the larger, interplanetary ships. Huge hydrogen carriers from Ganymede would disgorge liquid hydrogen and methane into storage tanks. This busy spaceport, which employed over thirty thousand, was Triad's main reason for existence.

Like other Martian cities, Triad construction took advantage of vertical space instead of horizontal. But in orbit, vertical space went two ways instead of one. From the main street level huge building rose both up and down. There were office buildings of course, and apartment buildings (virtually no one on Mars or above it owned a domicile) where people lived. The more expensive and exclusive buildings tended to be near the edges of the station while the low-rent and public housing buildings where the lower class and the hundred thousand some-odd unemployed lived, were in the center. The farther away from street level you got, the more the apartment would cost you. The most exclusive buildings, both offices and apartments, were on the outside, below street level, since these tended to have beautiful views of Mars hovering far below.

From his perspective in the spacecraft window, Lon was able to see the most exclusive of these buildings stretching both above and below him, their lighted windows glittering majestically against the blackness. At the street level he could see the tiny figures of people moving to and fro through the glass roof. They went busily about their business, for despite the fact that it was midnight below on the Martian surface, that distinction meant nothing on Triad, which followed New Pittsburgh time as its standard.

They traveled along the edge of the city for some minutes as the maneuvering thrusters fired from various parts of the ship, slowing them and easing them into an invisible travel corridor. Lon had only been to Triad once before, when he was a child, and he stared wide-eyed out the window as they passed different sections of it. Soon they came drifting up to a docking port that protruded out from the MPG space guard base. There was more thruster activity as they eased into position and then there was a solid clank as the mating took place.

"Welcome to Triad," the pilot told them over the intercom. "Docking is complete and we'll be opening the doors in about one minute."

The cramped and weary men of the Eden company pulled themselves to their feet and prepared to disembark. Lon had to stretch and flex his legs for a moment to restore circulation to them. He was not the only one performing this maneuver.

"Okay, guys," said Captain Armand, commanding officer of the Eden company, "I know it wasn't exactly a first class flight, but we're here now. Let's get ourselves off of this thing in an orderly fashion so they can go to New Pittsburgh and pick up another company. Form up by platoon on the other side and we'll take you to the staging area."

The doors opened up and one by one they marched through the docking port and into the main cargo receiving point for the base. Shipping containers were stacked against three of the walls and electric forklifts cruised back and forth, moving them from one place to another or stacking them on electric carts for transport to other parts of the base. The men and women driving the forklifts or unpacking the containers paid no attention to the arrival of the special forces team.

The front wall of the room was fitted with large windows that looked out on space and the docked C-8. The men formed up in front of this window, making four lines of forty soldiers apiece. They had to scrunch a little closer than one arms length apart in order to accomplish this without hitting the walls on either side. As soon as everyone was settled, Armand waved at them to follow and began walking towards the far end of the room. They trailed behind him, keeping somewhat in formation but not actually marching. The MPG did not march since their philosophy dictated that their precious training time be spent learning something useful instead of how to walk from one place to another in a way that looked aesthetically pleasing.

Armand led them through a series of dank hallways and into a hanger complex full of parked F-20 fighters. These circular space fighters were sitting atop their ground wheels in neat lines, lethal laser cannons protruding from turrets on the front, their canopies open in the alert position. Several of them were undergoing maintenance by spacecraft mechanics in coveralls. A few of the mechanics looked up at the formation as it marched through their hanger and then went back to what they were doing, seemingly uninterested. On the spaceward wall of the hanger were a series of airlocks that the fighters could pass through to be launched. All of the doors were securely closed and locked and marked with yellow danger lines on the floor.

A set of doorways at the far end of the hanger led them to another hanger, this one empty and abandoned looking. Though the floor looked as if it had recently been cleaned and mopped, all of the parking areas were devoid of spacecraft and the airlocks had a layer of dust on the doors. When the last man was in the hanger Armand brought them to a halt and then walked over to the door and issued a command to the computer terminal that guarded it. The doors all slid shut with a clank that echoed back and forth several times.

"All right, guys," he said to his company. "This is it. We'll be staging in this room for the immediate future. Everyone find yourself a place to call your own and get settled in. Blankets and pillows will be brought in later and we'll be having our meals brought to us here. There are bathrooms at the far end through those doors, but other than that, no one is to leave this room. There is to be no communication out of here and to enforce this rule, the cellular antennas have all been shut down so your PCs won't work."

The men broke ranks and began looking for a favorable piece of the floor to camp out in. They settled in for a long wait. Through the remainder of that day, the rest of the special forces battalion was transported up and marched to the hanger to join them. By 8:00 PM, Eden time, all 640 men were present and accounted for. They waited, unsure what their purpose in being there was but anxious to get on with it anyway.

The WestHem marine intelligence unit, which was quartered at the barracks in Eden and attached to the fast reaction division, had noted that a number of Martian Planetary Guard soldiers were transported up to Triad. They could hardly have failed to note it since the unusual event of a C-8 surface to orbit craft taking off from the various bases around the planet had clearly been seen by tens of thousands of people. The Major in charge of the unit simply filed the information away in his computer, not really giving it a second thought. After all, who cared what the pretend soldiers were doing? He never bothered to try finding out just how many soldiers had been taken up there or what they were equipped with or what their purpose might have been. By the time he went to bed that night he'd forgotten all about the information. He would remember it the next day however, once it was too late.

The FLEB agents, who tried to monitor everything the greenies did these days, noted the same thing. The information was passed all the way up to Corban Hayes himself, who simply shrugged and disregarded it. He was anxious about the Laura Whiting takedown scheduled for the next morning and wondered why his underlings had even bothered to bring the movement of MPG troops to his attention. So they shipped some people up to Triad? Who cared? It never occurred to him that there might be a connection between this information and the Laura Whiting matter. It would be a matter that he would later deeply regret ignoring.

There was a group of people that did take notice of the troop movement and that did find it very interesting in light of recent events on Mars. That group was the EastHem Office of Military Intelligence, or OMI, which operated out of a guarded building in the EastHem capital city of London. The OMI was receiving the take from a Henry that was currently in high orbit over Mars, its sensors peering down at all that orbited the red planet. They too had seen the liftoff of a C-8 lifter from all four of the key Martian cities and had tracked it each time to the space guard base at Triad. In addition to this, they had intercepted the call up message earlier that day asking for all special forces teams to report to their duty stations. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure out that the MPG had just moved 640 of its most highly trained soldiers to a staging location at its spaceborne base. When analysts evaluated the data back in London, the correct conclusion was almost immediately drawn.

It is interesting to note that the OMI and the EastHem government they served had much greater knowledge of and respect for the MPG than the WestHem government that it was a part of. After all, it was the OMI's job to evaluate the opposition in the event that they ever decided to invade Mars. Ever since the MPGs first fledgling days as a group, Henry's had been spying on their maneuvers and listening in on their transmissions when they could. Operatives on the planet itself, some under diplomatic cover, some illegal spies posing as Earthlings or Martians, had gathered everything they could on the composition of forces and the tactics they employed. There was a file on General Jackson and all of the other commanding officers complete with detailed biographies and up to date photographs. The OMI admired Jackson tremendously and knew that if they ever tried to take Mars from WestHem, that he and his troops would give them quite a rough time of it.

The OMI had been following closely the recent events on Mars, both by monitoring the media transmissions and by observing from stealth ships in orbit. With the cool analysis that came with not being involved, they had long since figured out where Laura Whiting and General Jackson were heading.

"What do you think?" the head of the covert intelligence division asked his boss when the information was confirmed.

"Let me get this straight," asked the deputy director as he looked the data over. "You're saying that the MPG moved their entire special forces division up to Triad today?"

"That's correct," he said. "We have about as absolute of a confirmation as we're going to get on that one. Three different sources. We intercepted the call up order as it was put out, three of our operatives were able to observe known members of these teams entering their bases this afternoon, and the asset we have in orbit was able to observe a lifter moving from the four key bases and docking at the Triad MPG base."

"And in Denver?"

"The information is not as solid but its still high on the scale," he said. "It seems that a federal indictment and arrest warrant were issued by a grand jury accusing Laura Whiting of various crimes. One of our operatives there was able to actually talk to one of those members. It seemed that this young women, who was not very smart I understand, did not take her oath of secrecy very seriously."

"And do we have any idea if the MPG knows about this arrest warrant?"

"We have no way of knowing for sure," he said, "but I can't believe that they wouldn't. Jackson, as you know, has a pretty impressive array of agents, both on Earth and Mars, including civilian workers in the FLEB building itself. He keeps his ear to the ground and his job is made a lot easier by the contempt that the WestHem people have for him and his organization."

"So you're saying that if a warrant was issued and transmitted to Earth, Jackson and Whiting would most likely know about it?"

"Correct."

The deputy director smiled. "My friend," he said. "I think that food is going to become a bit cheaper in EastHem in the near future."

"Shall we wake the executive council with this data?"

"I think we should. And I think that we're in for a jolly good show on Mars tomorrow morning."

Chapter 5

Don Mitchell, son-in-law of Director Clinton, had of course been given the honor of leading the takedown team that would take Laura Whiting into custody. He and his team gathered at the main FLEB office at 0700 that Thursday morning. There were forty of them, including himself, and he divided them up into teams of ten, each of which was assigned a leader. He then briefed them on their mission, an act that did not carry the dramatic punch he had hoped for since every last one of the men had already heard through the grapevine what they were going to be doing that day. Still, those that weren't in the official loop pretended to be surprised when they heard the news so some of it was saved.

He distributed diagrams of the Martian capital building to each of the team leaders, assigning them positions to take up when the time came. "Team B," he said. "You will be guarding the rear of the building in case she tries to flee. Team C, you'll be covering the front. Team D, you will split into two elements and cover the side entrances of the building in case she tries to come out that way. Team A, which I will be personally leading, will enter the building itself for the takedown. You outside teams, in addition to sealing the building from her premature exit, you will also be keeping the streets clear of greenies. I don't expect any resistance from the MPG troops that guard Whiting since we have a federal warrant, but I would expect resistance from any greenies that happen to see us leading her away. So keep a sharp eye out for that."

"How sure are you that the MPG troops won't resist?" one of the men asked at that point.

"The MPG are technically part of the WestHem armed services," Mitchell responded. "They won't be happy that we've come for her, but I seriously doubt that they would disregard a federal warrant for her arrest. If any of them does resist in any way, he or she is to be immediately placed under arrest for obstructing a federal officer."

Everyone seemed satisfied with this and the subject was dropped. The briefing went on for another twenty minutes and then the men were dismissed to go suit up. They retired to the locker room and donned their raid gear. Heavy Kevlar armor vests were put over their torsos and black helmets with FLEB stenciled in white were put upon their heads. They strapped on their weapons belts, which contained their 4mm pistols as well as extra rifle ammunition and handcuffs. Steel-toed combat boots were put on their feet. The picture was completed by the addition of M-24 assault rifles loaded with sixty round magazines. Because it had never been thought necessary in the environment within which they operated, they had no combat goggles. Aiming would have to be by the old-fashioned method if a battle occurred and tactical displays and mapping software would have to be looked at on their PCs.

Once suited up they walked out to the building's parking area and boarded four of the black panel vans. The vans all had multiple dents and scratches from rocks and bottles thrown by angry Martians over the past several months. There were places where the paint had been scraped off and reapplied to cover anti-fed and anti-Earthling graffiti. And of course, since the incident of the Molotov cocktail a few weeks before, all of them now had metal bars across the windshields to keep a repeat of that incident from happening.

With Mitchell and his team in the lead van, they pulled out of the parking area and onto the busy street that was teeming with Martians on their way to work. They turned right and started heading for the capital building thirty blocks away. The Martians, as always, were deliberately slow getting out of their way and many of them raised their middle fingers or grabbed their crotches in contempt. Spit flew whenever the van passed close enough for someone to hit it and several times there were thumps as cans or bottles slammed into the sides.

Most of the people on the street had no idea where the federal vans were going or what they were doing. But a few people did and they were on their PCs to other people before the vans were even out of sight of the office.

General Jackson was waiting in Laura's office with her when his PC buzzed, indicating a high priority message. He unclipped it from his belt and flipped the screen up, seeing the face of Major Sprinkle, head of intelligence. "Talk to me, Tim," he said.

"Four vans just left the FLEB office five minutes ago," he said. "They're heading your way. We didn't get a good look but it's probably safe to assume that they're coming in platoon strength."

"Any chance that they're just heading out for their normal raids?" Jackson asked.

"There's always that chance," Sprinkle replied. "But they don't typically head out to normal raids with that many troops. Even the biggest takedowns they do usually only require half that much. Also, this deployment fits with the information we received yesterday. My guess is that this is it."

"That's my guess as well," Jackson said, feeling his heartbeat pick up a few notches. "Keep your assets in place until we know for sure. If it is them, things are gonna get real busy in a hurry on this planet. If it's not, we'll just have to wait some more."

"Right," he said. "Continuing to observe. Keep me updated."

"You'll be one of the first to know," Jackson promised. He signed off and put his PC on the desk.

"They're on their way?" asked Laura, who was looking a little haggard this morning due to the fact that she was living on less than an hour's worth of sleep.

"It looks like it," he told her, picking up a combat computer and fitting the microphone and earpiece into place. "And we're ready for them. They won't get anywhere near you."

She nodded, chewing her lip a little nervously. She had always known that Martian resentment towards their corporate masters was something that would not need much fuel to whip into a frenzy. That frenzy had been achieved. But now, in order for them to support an open revolt against those masters, they needed a single, outrageous act to rally behind. The various massacres and mass arrests that had been taking place all over the planet were outrageous of course but, strangely enough, they could not provide quite enough impetus to compel them to act. Something else was needed, something that would unite everyone behind the cause and the corporate Earthlings, in their glorious predictability, were now providing that something. They were attempting to forcibly remove her from office with trumped-up charges, charges that most of the Martian people, with their cultural intelligence and common sense, would recognize for what they were. The moment was now at hand. Everything, her entire career, her entire life, had all come down to this day. It was time for the most dangerous game to begin.

Jackson realized what the stakes were as well. The plan for the next twenty-four hours was something he had come up with years before in its base form and had been modified and re-modified dozens of times since. It was now time to see if it was going to work. He instructed the combat computer to patch him in with Lieutenant Warren Whiting's security detail. The computer complied, taking less than a second to do so.

"Warren here, General," he said, his voice calm and professional.

"It looks like they're on their way, Mike," Jackson told him. "Intelligence reports four vans moving in, probable platoon strength. More than likely they will not all come inside."

"Both the inside and the outside teams are in place and ready," Warren said. "We should be able to handle them easily."

"Remember," Jackson warned, "get a look at the warrant and the indictment before you do anything. If they don't have it with them, don't let them in."

"Understood," he said.

Laura listened to all this with interest, part of her knowing the her security platoon was one of the best in the business, but part of her worrying that the FLEB agents might get in anyway. "How many men do we have around the building?" She asked Jackson once he signed off the transmission.

"One hundred and twenty," he told her. "Warren and his regular platoon are covering the lobby and they'll take the agents that come inside. We also have two platoons of the regular infantry that we quietly called up last night along with the special forces guys. They were briefed in on what was happening early this morning and they've been placed under Warren's command for the duration of this operation. They're hidden in the adjacent planetary office buildings. They'll take the FLEB guys that deploy to guard the exits."

"Did any of them have a problem with their orders?" she wanted to know.

"Not a single one," he said. "In fact, they all seemed rather enthusiastic about them. You're in good hands. This is what I've been training these guys for all these years." He turned Laura's computer terminal towards him. "May I?" he asked her.

"By all means," she said.

"Computer," he said to it, "get me building operations."

"Building operations coming on line," it said.

The screen cleared and a moment later a scruffy, unshaven face appeared. A look of annoyance at being interrupted was upon this face until he got a good look at the person calling. "General Jackson," he said, surprised. "What can I do for you?"

"You can shut down the blast doors on all floors except the lobby level," Jackson told him. "Do it immediately and shut down the elevators as well. Let anyone who is on them get off at the next floor — as long as that floor is not the lobby — and then don't let them go anywhere else."

The maintenance supervisor looked a little taken aback with this request. That was understandable since it was a very unusual one. "Sir?" he asked. "Are you sure that you..."

"I'm positive," Jackson cut in. "Do it now. I want all the workers in this building to stay right where they are. No one is to leave their floors or their immediate area until further notice."

He swallowed a little, trying to process this information. "May I ask why, sir?" he finally blurted. A legitimate question.

"A security threat against the governor," Jackson told him. "There may be some action down in the lobby and I don't want any bystanders blundering into it. I don't have time to explain any further. Now get it done, man before its too late."

"Right away, General," he said, signing off.

Less than a minute later the blast door warning alarm sounded from out in the hallway and the solid steel doors, which were spaced every twenty meters on every floor and were designed to hold in air pressure and everything else, came clanging down. The 6400 planetary government employees, including the legislature and the lieutenant governor, were now trapped in their offices.

The four black FLEB vans pulled up in front of the main entrance to the capital building three minutes later, parking in a neat line. Their doors slid open and the armed agents jumped out, their weapons in their hands. Quickly they spread out. One of the teams took up position directly across the street, pushing their way through the throng of curious Martians that had stopped along their way to see what was going on. Three of the pedestrians were shoved with gun butts before the rest decided that this was not a particularly healthy place to be at the moment. They moved off down the street, most shouting angry and profane words at the FLEB agents as they went. Two of the other teams moved off in different directions. One began trotting around the block to take up position in the rear, the other split up and headed for the side entrances. All forty of them were in contact with tactical radio sets.

"Remember," said Mitchell to everyone on the radio frequency, "she gets taken alive and unharmed at all costs."

No one answered him but all heard him.

Once everyone was deployed that left only Mitchell and his nine team members standing before the entrance to the building. They pulled together into a tight bunch and, following behind their leader, headed for the doorway.

The main entrance to the capital building featured two heavy duty sliding doors that were capable of withstanding a direct hit from a heavy machinegun bullet or a close explosion of significant magnitude. An MPG guard dressed in full armor and with an M-24 slung over his shoulder was manning the security booth right between the two doors. He was protected by a layer of the same glass from both the lobby side and the street side and was able to talk to people only through a series of tiny holes in this glass at face level.

Mitchell walked towards him. He noted that the guard was a lieutenant — a rather higher rank than you would expect to see manning the booth — but he dismissed this as an irrelevancy, figuring that the MPG guard detail was probably short staffed. After all, what kind of moron would want to guard that greenie bitch in the first place? He also noted that he was dressed in full battle gear, something that he never recalled seeing in his past visits to this place. Usually they were dressed in shorts and a T-shirt with nothing more than a sidearm strapped to their sides. Was there any meaning to this? He thought about it for about a tenth of a second and finally concluded that there wasn't. The greenie — whose name stencil on his armor identified him as WARREN — probably didn't get to wear his armor very often and was taking his stint on booth duty as an excuse to do so.

Warren looked at him expressionlessly as Mitchell stopped in front of the voice holes. "Can I help you?" he asked politely, as if he were a normal citizen asking about tours of the building or an appointment with a legislature representative and not a fully armed FLEB agent holding an assault rifle and leading a team of nine others.

This, at the very least, should have put Mitchell on edge. It didn't. "FLEB," he said simply, with a certain amount of arrogance in his voice. He flipped open a leather case that displayed his federal credentials. "We need immediate access to Governor Whiting's office."

"Oh?" said Warren, raising his eyebrows a tad, only glancing at the shiny badge being shown to him. "I'm afraid that's not possible at the moment."

"Make it possible," Mitchell told him, removing the indictment and the arrest warrant. They were printed in large script on the finest hemp paper available. "I have a federal indictment and an arrest warrant ordering me to take her into custody."

"An indictment and an arrest warrant huh?" Warren asked, still with no hint of surprise or alarm in his voice. "This sounds rather serious. May I take a look at them?"

Mitchell considered threatening him with obstruction for a moment but finally decided it would be easier to just do as he was asked. Besides, that way the greenie would get to see the official proof of the downfall of his governor. Maybe that would put the expression of fear that he craved upon his face. He slid them through the small slot at the bottom of the glass.

Lieutenant Warren picked them up and looked at them, reading through each document carefully, word for word. Neither Mitchell nor any of his men saw him keying the transmission button on his radio pack three times, sending out a pre-arranged, encrypted signal to the other members of the platoon and General Jackson upstairs. It took him more than two minutes to get through everything. Once he was finished he looked up, his expression still carefully polite and neutral. "Well Agent uh..."

"Mitchell," he provided, more than a little testily.

"Agent Mitchell. Things do seem to be in order here. This is an official indictment and an official arrest warrant for Governor Whiting."

"I'm glad you agree," he said. "Now are you going to buzz us into the building or are we going to have to force our way in?"

"No need for threats," Warren told him. He placed his hands upon a panel on his computer screen and the glass doors slid open. "Come on in. I'll call for the elevator for you."

Mitchell had the vague thought that things were going just a little too easily. It was a thought that he should have listened to. Instead, excited at the thought of getting this over quickly, he dismissed it. He took a quick glance behind him, seeing that the media vans from the big three, responding to the tip that had been given to them less than an hour ago, were pulling up and positioning themselves across the street. That was good. Soon they would film him leading that troublemaking bitch out in handcuffs. He waved his men forward and into the lobby of the capital building, moving past Warren's security booth and onto the simple Martian red carpet that covered the lobby floor.

The lobby was a huge area, stretching from one end of the building to the other. It was decorated as one might expect a seat of government's lobby to be. Ornate sculptures were located in many places along the walls. Decorative planters and even a working wishing well with benches around it were in the center. It was actually quite a nice place and one that workers in the building and tourists enjoyed lounging about in to eat their lunch or rest their feet. At the moment however, the entire area was completely deserted except for Lieutenant Warren. Or at least that was how it seemed to the FLEB agents as they trooped inside.

Mitchell had never been a soldier before and he wasn't even really a cop with a cop's instincts. He noted the lack of people in the lobby and it did strike him as a bit odd for the beginning of a workday but this failed to trigger any danger signals within him. He never considered for a moment that all of the planters and sculptures, all of the benches and information booths, were ideal places to hide security troops that did not wish to be seen.

The glass doors slid shut behind them, latching with a clank of steel mechanisms coming together.

Mitchell turned to Warren. "Keep those doors open," he told him. He wanted his men outside to be able to enter the building in a hurry if it became necessary. He didn't know that it was already necessary.

"I'm afraid not, Agent Mitchell," Warren said, smiling now. "You are now sealed into the lobby. Your men outside will be shortly taken into custody. You and all of your men will put your rifles down on the floor and then throw your sidearms down there with them."

"What?" Mitchell said, his face scrunching into an expression of annoyance. "Listen to me, greenie. I don't know what you think you're trying to pull here, but I'll advise you that attempting to interfere with a federal arrest is a crime punishable..."

"I'm not attempting to interfere," Warren told him. "I have interfered. You will not be taking Governor Whiting anywhere. You are surrounded on all sides by my security forces, all of whom are veterans of the special forces division. You will put your weapons on the ground and prepare to be taken into custody or you will be fired upon."

Mitchell took a moment to digest these words and then keyed up his radio. "All teams," he said into his microphone. "We need some assistance in here! We're getting resistance from..."

"Your radios are being jammed," Warren said matter-of-factly. "We have dampers set up all around the edges of the lobby and set to your frequency."

Mitchell wanted to disbelieve his words but the lack of response on the channel kept him from doing so. He looked around, seeing the stunned, nervous faces of his men. He didn't know what to do. He had never been faced with a situation such as this before. He was a federal agent! People feared him. They didn't attempt to take him hostage. The very idea was absurd!

"There is no need for this to come to violence," Warren told him. "Drop your weapons and surrender. You will be held here in the capital for the duration of this little crisis and you will be treated well. If you don't, however, my men will be forced to take you down by force. Go the easy way, Mitchell. Let's keep this thing civilized."

It might have ended peacefully. Mitchell was just about to order his men to do as they were told, knowing that the guard would probably not be bluffing about what he was saying. After all, he had looked into Whiting's security force himself when he'd been examining the possibilities of arranging an assassination. But special agent Brackford, the youngest member of the team, had other thoughts on the matter. At only twenty-eight years of age and an appointee to the FLEB by virtue of family connections instead of ability, Brackford was known for his short temper and impulsive actions. These were traits which had earned him reprimands in the past and that would now cost him much more than a black mark on his file. Outraged that the greenies would actually threaten federal agents carrying out their duties, he took matters into his own hands.

"Fuck you, greenie!" he yelled arrogantly. Before Mitchell could stop him he raised his M-24 and pointed it at the guard booth. It is doubtful that the shots would have penetrated the glass, but they never got a chance to find out.

Flashes appeared from four different directions followed by the harsh popping of M-24s. Brackford's head rocked back and forth as two of the rounds slammed into his helmet, drilling through into his skull. The other two slammed into his chest, penetrating with ease through the Kevlar of his armor vest. He dropped to the carpeted lobby without even firing a shot.

The reaction from the rest of the agents was ill advised but instinctive. They raised their weapons and turned towards the flashes they'd seen, opening fire. From all around the lobby, from behind plants, behind staircases, behind counters, gunfire and bright flashes erupted. Bullets streaked across the lobby in both directions, the ones fired from FLEB guns striking the walls and the windows and the solid objects that the MPG troops were using as cover, the ones fired by the security force finding chests and heads and legs. Agents screamed and thumped to the ground as the supersonic rounds ripped into them. Warren had planned his takedown well. There was nowhere for the agents to find cover, nowhere for them to run. Mitchell himself managed to trigger off a single burst towards the staircase before he felt his chest peppered with hammer blows and his feet were suddenly refusing to hold him up. He dropped to the ground, blood now running from his mouth, his eyes looking at the carpet against his face, his mind wondering just what the hell had happened.

"Goddamn it!" Warren yelled, opening his booth door and stepping out into the lobby. His orders had been to take the FLEB agents without gunfire if possible. The young hotheaded agent had made this impossible. Now all ten of them were laid out on the carpet, only two of them showing any signs of life whatsoever. The Martian red carpet beneath them was soaking up the blood and turning a darker shade.

"Second and third platoon," he said into his radio link as he walked carefully towards the pile of FLEB agents, "we've made contact. Move in and secure the outside forces." Both of the platoon commanders acknowledged his orders. He then asked for a status report on his own men. "Anyone hurt?" he asked the group at large.

None of them answered up, which meant that either all of them were dead or none of them had been hit. Logic favored the latter. "Get down here and secure these idiots," he ordered. "Medics, start sorting through them."

From all around the room his platoon emerged, all of them dressed in battle gear, all of them pointing their weapons at the FLEB agents.

"Get those weapons secured," he ordered. "Move the dead off towards the back of the room, move the living towards the doors so we can get some dip-hoes in here to pick them up."

"Warren," came Jackson's voice over the link. "What the hell's going on down there? Give me a status report!"

"The lobby is secure, General," Warren told him, watching as his men went to work disarming and securing. "They went the hard way. All ten are down and we're sorting through them right now. All of my people are uninjured. The outside forces should be moving in as we speak."

"Copy that, Warren," Jackson responded, a hint of regret in his voice. "I'm sure it was unavoidable."

"It was," he confirmed.

"Mark this moment, son," he said. "Your platoon has just fired the first shots of the revolution. Let's make sure that they weren't in vain, shall we?"

"Yes sir."

The FLEB agents standing by outside heard the gunfire from the lobby of course. More than forty M-24 assault rifles firing on full automatic made a considerable amount of noise. They also heard the silence on the airwaves when they tried to contact their companions. Instinctively the four groups of them rushed to whatever entrance they were guarding to try and lend assistance. In each case the entrance in question was closed and locked, inaccessible to anyone without a cutting torch or some primacord.

The Internet camera crews, who had set up shop across the street, had heard the gunfire as well and had actually transmitted the entire gun battle live on the air as it unfolded with the assistance of digital zoom and infrared enhancement. Perversely enough, the camera crews and the few people on Mars that were actually watching the big three at the moment (less than three percent of the Martian viewers, the computers would later reveal) knew the fate of the FLEB agents inside the building long before their companions.

It was while the FLEB agents were peering through the thick glass, trying to get a look inside to see what the situation was that the two MPG platoons swarmed out of their hiding places, weapons ready for action. Each platoon had split into two elements, which gave twenty soldiers to cover each side of the building. The FLEB agents never even heard them coming until it was far too late.

"MPG! Everyone freeze!" yelled the leaders of each element as they positioned themselves behind what cover they could find.

Most of the agents took one look at what they were facing and complied with the order, knowing that to do otherwise would be futile. A few hotheads of the Brackford variety however, did make the mistake of trying to resist capture. On the south side of the building, against the side entrance, a five-year member of the FLEB made what he thought was a quick spin towards the enemy behind him. He made it less than halfway around before five rifles cracked out three-round bursts of high velocity bullets at him. All fifteen shots hit within a half a second of each other, ripping through every major organ in his chest. He collapsed to the ground, a bloody, twisted mess. On the west side, next to the main entrance, another agent, this one a twelve-year veteran, tried diving down to the ground to make himself a smaller target. This he was able to accomplish but before he could bring his weapon to bear nine bullets smashed into his face, exploding his skull into three separate pieces. On the east side of the building an agent that had once been a corporal in the WestHem army actually managed to turn and get a single shot off. His bullet passed neatly between two MPG members and buried itself in the steel of the building across the street. The unfortunate agent was then plastered by more than sixty rounds as the entire line of infantry troops fired at him.

Any cute ideas that the rest of the agents might have had about resistance or escape disappeared at this point. They threw their weapons to the ground and allowed themselves to be restrained with their own handcuffs. Before their radios were removed however, most of them managed to squeak out pleas for assistance from the main office.

Once disarmed and secured they were marched inside the nearest entrance where they got a good look at what had become of their fellow agents that had gone in to make the arrest. Seething with hatred, rage, and fear, they were led down a stairway and into the building's basement where they would be placed under guard.

With the outside threat taken care of, the two platoons of infantry pulled inside the building, leaving the street to the astonished crowd of reporters and bystanders.

"The capital is secure," Jackson told Whiting once the status reports had all come in. "Most of the FLEB guys out front surrendered without a fight."

"Most of them?" she asked, sipping from a cup of coffee.

"Most of them," he said. "Three were killed trying to resist. We have no reports of civilian casualties. Of the agents that came inside, seven of them are dead, three quite badly wounded. We've asked for some dip-hoes to pick them up out front of the main doors but the police aren't letting them through."

"I see," she said wearily. "Are there police out front right now?"

"You know it," he said. "A lot of the FLEB agents outside were able to call for assistance on their radios. Plus the entire thing was captured on Internet cameras. It would seem that the FLEB tipped the big three to what was going on here. The camera crews arrived at about the same time as the agents themselves."

"Imagine that," she said cynically.

"Yes, big surprise huh? In any case, the FLEB office called the New Pittsburgh Police Department for assistance with a hostage situation. They've deployed most of the downtown patrol units around the building and they have the SWAT teams on the way. I also have reports from intelligence that forty more FLEB agents in full gear have left their main office and are heading this way."

"I see," she said. "So what is our next step?"

"Now the rest of the infantry that we called up last night will secure the entire area. They were staging at the MPG base and I just gave the order to have them move in. They should be here in less than an hour. We need to get those cops out of there before they arrive."

"I'll talk to Chief Sandoza," she said. "Hopefully it won't be a problem. He's a bureaucrat in every sense of the word but he's also a Martian. He's supported the reforms that we've initiated so far."

"Do it quick," Jackson said. "The worst thing that could happen to us right now is for there to be gunfire between the MPG and the police. And it's also time to put out the general call up of forces. We'll need everyone suited up and ready to go as quickly as possible. Those marines at the Eden barracks need to be secured before someone has the bright idea of using them."

"I'll do that right now," she said, putting her coffee down and turning her computer terminal towards her. "Computer," she told it. "Initiate order 74-1." 74-1 was the section of the Martian constitution that allowed the governor to call up all Martian Planetary Guard units to active duty to repel an imminent invasion of the planet. It authorized the planetary government to take over the MarsTrans public transportation system to facilitate the movement of soldiers to the MPG base and ordered all employers, under penalty of treason, to release the MPG members from their regular jobs. It was an order that had never been initiated before, not even as a training exercise.

"Order 74-1 is pending," the computer told her, flashing a text of the call up notice upon her screen. "Voice recognition of Whiting, Laura E, Governor of Planet Mars, is confirmed. Please give the authorization code."

Laura rattled off a nine-digit number that she had long since memorized.

"Authorization code is correct," the computer replied. "Please sign the order."

She placed her right index finger on the screen, signing it.

"The order will be initiated," the computer told her.

Within ten seconds the main MPG database was contacted and the names and PC addresses of every single member were called with a pre-recorded message. At the same time the MarsTrans office was contacted and given some very unpleasant news. They would have to surrender use of their trains for the next twenty-four hours.

"Okay," Jackson said after watching all of this. "Now get those cops out of here. While you're doing that, I'll get the guys up on Triad moving." With that he left the room for the office next door, where he had his own terminal set up now.

"Computer," Laura said, "get me Chief Sandoza of the New Pittsburgh Police Department. Highest priority."

"You have forty-three callers attempting to reach you at the moment," the computer told her. "Would you like me to list them?"

"No," she said, knowing that most of them were people like Corban Hayes or William Smith. "For the time being accept no incoming calls."

"Accepting no incoming calls. Contacting Chief Sandoza."

"Thank you," she said, leaning back in her chair and closing her eyes for a moment. Things were moving fast now. Soon they would move even faster.

It took about three minutes before Sandoza came on the line. Laura understood. He probably had a lot on his mind at the moment. His handsome, aristocratic face appeared before her, his eyes stern but confused. "Governor Whiting?" he said. "What the hell is going on over there?"

"Nice to hear from you too, Nick," she said lightly. "I suppose you've caught a small glint of the proceedings here?"

"Governor, to tell you the truth, I simply can't believe what I'm hearing. The FLEB director himself called me up to ask me to mobilize my force and move in on the capital building because your security troops are holding his men and all of the workers inside of the building hostage, including the lieutenant governor and the legislature." He shook his head. "Hostages? Surely there is a mistake going on here. He also said that an indictment has been handed down on you and that you are to be taken into custody. Is this true?"

"It's true, Nick. A federal grand jury in Denver..." — she emphasized the name of that city, knowing that most Martians hated the very sound of it — "... has indicted me on corruption charges. FLEB agents came to the capital to arrest me for extradition to Earth. My security team prevented them from doing that."

"Jesus Christ!" he said, shocked.

"Unfortunately, some of the FLEB agents did not surrender peacefully. Ten of them are dead, three badly wounded. The rest of them are in the basement being held under guard. As for the lieutenant governor and the rest of the workers, they are not hostages but they are being kept in their offices to keep them out of harm's way. They'll be allowed to leave as soon as this situation is under control."

"Laura, what in the hell do you think you're doing over there? You've killed federal agents! You've resisted arrest! You'll be given the death penalty!"

"Nick," she said quietly. "I know exactly what I'm doing. I know that right now your cops are surrounding the capital building at the request of the FLEB, initiating a hostage response. I've known you for a long time and I know that you're a Martian, not an Earthling. I need to ask you something and I want you to answer me honestly. Do you believe that the indictment against me represents real corruption charges or is it simply a result of WestHem trying to remove a troublesome governor from office?"

He stared back at her, though he was actually staring at a screen in his own office twelve blocks away. "Of course they're not real charges, Laura," he said. "Everyone knows that. But it's a federal indictment. The place to fight it is in court, not in the lobby of the capital. The corruption charges are going to be secondary to..."

"Nick," she interrupted. "I don't think you understand where I'm going with this."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not going to be removed from this building. Events are bigger than a simple hostage situation. This is the opening move in a revolution. I need you to pull your cops out of here."

"I can't do that!" he exclaimed. "We're not talking about refusing to cooperate with a questionable raid on Martian citizens here. We're talking about the illegal seizure of a government building in which deaths have occurred. The deaths of federal law enforcement officers! The law..."

"It's WestHem law you're talking about," she interrupted again. "I'm telling you, Nick, I will not be removed from this building. MPG troops are already on the way to secure it and they will follow my orders, at least for the time being. Your cops are all Martians and I don't want them to get hurt. Pull them back. This is not between them and me, it's between the feds and me. Don't let the feds involve your people in this. Your cops are not equipped to deal with army troops and they are not the enemy my people need to be fighting. Pull them back and withdraw your cooperation with the FLEB. You are under planetary control, not federal. I'll take the heat and I'll tell everyone I ordered it."

He stared some more, his brain obviously on overload. Laura knew she had struck several chords with her words, something she had a knack for, something that had brought her as far as she'd come. "What exactly are you planning?" he finally said.

"I can't discuss it right now," she told him. "Like I said, things will be clear in another day and you'll have the opportunity to evaluate my actions along with all of the other Martian citizens. But for now you're just going to have to trust me. Pull back your people. Keep them on the right side of this thing and let them decide for themselves in the next two days. If you keep them in place here, some of them are going to be killed and that's the last thing in the world I want. Pull them back. I know you're recording this conversation and I take full responsibility for this action. If you have red blood flowing in your veins, you'll do as I ask and give no more assistance to the FLEB."

He bit his lip nervously as he stared at her, a simple Martian politician who had just had the most important decision of his life dumped into his lap. But he was not a dumb man by any means. He was a former street cop who had risen through the ranks to achieve the position he now held. He knew Laura Whiting and he knew what she stood for. "They'll be pulled back," he finally said. "And God help you, Laura."

"God help us all." Laura replied with a grateful smile.

Officers John Williams and Zifford Resinman of the New Pittsburgh PD had been on scene less than ten minutes. They were sixty meters from the main entrance of the capital building, covering behind their police cart. Their M-24 rifles were in their hands, pointing at the doors, the selector switches set on full automatic fire. Their helmets were firmly in place and their combat goggles showed only a glare of the dim Martian sunlight reflecting off of the glass and a strained view of an empty lobby beyond it. Their radios crackled out a hundred different orders and inquiries, adding to the general feeling of confusion that was pervading the scene. All around them were other NPPD police officers deployed in a similar matter. The elite SWAT team had just arrived and was taking up position against the walls of the capital building itself. They had primacord and anti-tank lasers with them for breaching the doors if that became necessary. About a hundred yards down the street, well out of the line of sight of the capital, the FLEB troops had arrived and were milling about behind their vans, talking to Lieutenant Bongwater, who was in charge of the police aspects of the operation.

"Zif?" asked John over their private tactical link. "What the hell is going on here? Do you really believe that the governor's security troops fired on FLEB agents?"

"Do you really think that they were trying to arrest the governor?" Zifford asked. "If they were, I'm glad they did. Fuck those federal assholes. You know that whatever the charges are, they're bullshit."

"Yep," John agreed. "It'd be just like those pricks to try and indict her on some bogus charge to get rid of her."

Zifford nodded. "Yeah. And if we're hearing right, those are MPG guys inside there. For God's sake, we're part of the MPG. I don't want to shoot any of my own people." This was true. Both men were members of the MPG New Pittsburgh division. Zifford was a tanker. John was a Hummingbird pilot.

"I know the feeling," John said. "Hell, I probably know some of the guys in there. I transport the special forces out to their staging areas every weekend. That's where all the fucking VIP security guys come from." He shook his head. "It can't end this way. I hope they don't force us to stand here and help them take her away."

"I don't think I could be a part of that," Zifford said. "I really don't."

At that moment their PCs both began to vibrate, indicating incoming calls. They both reached for them, taking care to keep their rifles aimed at the building with one hand as they did so. Around them, a few of the other cops that were deployed were doing the same thing, thus clueing them in to what they were going to see when they answered. Both flipped open their screens and saw that the MPG main headquarters was the calling party.

"They're calling us up," Zifford said slowly, a hint of fear in his voice.

John looked at him and looked around at the others. "Answer," he told his PC.

The face of General Jackson himself appeared before him. "This is General Jackson and this message is for all active members of the Martian Planetary Guard," his image said. "This is a general call up of forces for an imminent threat to the planet. MarsTrans trains are being cleared as we speak. Make your way as quickly as possible to your duty stations and you will be given a briefing and deployment orders at that time. This is not, I repeat, this is not a drill."

"Holy shit," John said.

"Is this because of the feds?" Zifford asked softly. "Is it the feds, or is it an EastHem attack?"

John looked over at the gathering of FLEB officers. They were standing in a large group, their apparent leader apart from them and talking to Bongwater. He seemed upset about something. "I think it's the feds," he said softly. "Coming right now, while they're trying to take Governor Whiting away? What else could it be?"

"Whiting is going to ask us to fight for her," Zifford said. "She's going to ask us to fight against WestHem."

John nodded. "I think you're right."

They contemplated that thought for a moment, both of them letting their attention lapse from the section of the building they were supposed to be watching.

"Will you do it?" Zifford finally asked.

He nodded. "If it means making us free... I'll do it."

"So will I," Zifford said.

All around them similar conversations were going on. The consensus seemed to be the same in every instance.

Lieutenant Glory Bongwater was as confused as the rest of them, though her information was a little bit better. She stood before an Internet screen at the command post, a block away from the main entrance to the capital. Beside her was Special Agent Waxford, the highest-ranking FLEB agent left from the field office besides Corban Hayes himself. Waxford knew exactly what he wanted done but otherwise didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. Bongwater detested him immensely and longed to slam the butt of her pistol across his mouth.

"When can your people rush the building?" he demanded of Bongwater. "I have agents in there, some of them wounded."

"I know that," she said for the fifth time. "We're following our standard hostage situation procedures. We've made contact with General Jackson inside and we'll work to try to end this thing peacefully. We only rush the building when we're given no other option."

"My wounded might die in there while we're waiting!" Waxford yelled. "Don't you understand that?"

"Jackson offered to let the dip-hoes take the wounded away," she reminded him. "It's you who ordered that that not be done, remember?"

"I don't want to give them more hostages!" he said. "You can't let a bunch of dip-hoes go running up to the door to take people away. They'll be shot down!"

"It would be our SWAT team that approached the doorway," Bongwater said. "And I believe they would be safe. Those are MPG troops in there holding that building, not criminals. They wouldn't fire on them."

"They fired on our agents didn't they?" he countered.

Bongwater took a deep breath, fighting to control herself. "Perhaps that is because they figured that your men represented a danger to Governor Whiting," she said. "Perhaps they felt that your warrant and your indictment were fabricated."

"Ridiculous," he spat. "You don't actually believe that, do you?"

She held his gaze. "What I believe doesn't really matter now, does it? My point is that we can safely remove your wounded and get them assistance if you'll allow it. I was once a member of the MPG myself. They won't fire on us for doing that."

"Request denied," he said icily. "You just start formulating a plan to charge that building. I want this situation brought under control within the hour."

"And I want there to be peace in the solar system," Bongwater said. "But we don't usually get what we want now, do we? If your agents want to rush the building, that's fine. Go rushing in. We'll even lend you the primacord and the AT lasers. But as long as my people are involved in this thing, we do it my way. And my way is to negotiate with the people in the building to try to end this peacefully."

"Maybe I should talk to your superior about this," he said in a threatening tone.

Bongwater knew an empty threat when she heard one. "Maybe you should," she returned.

Waxford muttered something under his breath and then stormed away, back to the crowd of agents that were standing around in their armor, waiting for someone to tell them what to do.

"Goddamn FLEB fucks," Bongwater said to herself.

She looked down at her command computer, which had been set up on the hood of her cart. It showed a schematic of the building and the location of all the friendly forces. There were more than eighty police officers, not including the SWAT team, now deployed around the building. That was still somewhat less than the 120 to 150 MPG troops that were rumored to be inside the capital. And the MPG were better trained and better equipped as well. No, even if she did feel that a crime of some type had been committed, something that she had serious doubts about, she never would have ordered her forces to go head to head with those kind of numbers.

"Priority communication from Deputy Chief Winston," her terminal suddenly spoke up. "Would you like to answer?"

"On screen," she told it.

The screen flashed briefly over to the communications software main screen and then was just as quickly replaced by the middle-aged face of Winston, a twenty-two year veteran and, until the Laura Whiting reforms had taken place, one of the brownest nosed people that the department employed. "Bongwater," he said. "Are you with any FLEB people right now?"

"No," she told her. "My friend Waxford has gone off to stew somewhere. What's up? Any news?"

"Big news," Winston told her. "Direct from Chief Sandoza himself."

He began to speak, giving a series of orders. Bongwater smiled in satisfaction as she heard them. "I'm happy to comply," she said. "Thanks, chief."

"My pleasure," Winston said and signed off.

Duran looked over to the crowd of FLEB agents and got Waxford's attention. He came trotting over.

"What is it?" he asked, seeing the smile on her face and assuming it was good news for his team. "Did Jackson decide to give up?"

"No, even better news than that," she said. "We're pulling out. You're now on your own."

He looked at her, confused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I've just received orders to cease cooperation with the FLEB. I'm pulling my cops out of here and breaking down the perimeter."

"You can't do that!" he yelled loud enough for everyone within thirty meters to hear.

"I can and I will," she said. "Direct orders from Chief Sandoza. Pull back and resume routine duties. Do not interfere with operations at the capital and do not respond to any calls for assistance from FLEB personnel. You're gonna have to take this building by yourself."

Veins began to poke out on Waxford's head as he heard this. "What kind of shit is..."

"It's the kind of shit that's a direct order from the Chief," Bongwater told him calmly. "And it's an order I'm happy to obey. Have fun fighting your way in, Waxford."

"I have federal authority," he told her. "I demand you follow my orders! If you don't, you'll stand trial in federal court for..."

"You have no authority over me or my people," she said. "This is a federal matter and we're local law enforcement. Cooperation with the feds is simply a courtesy and it's just been revoked." She turned to her Internet terminal. "Command channel."

"Command channel activated." The computer replied.

"This is Lieutenant Bongwater," she said. "All New Pittsburgh Police Department personnel on the capital building perimeter will immediately demobilize on orders from Chief Sandoza. Return to previous patrol assignments. SWAT personnel return to training stations. No further assistance will be given to federal personnel including calls for assistance in the future. All members of the force that are MPG members are hereby released from duty to respond to their military assignments. I repeat, all New Pittsburgh Police Department personnel...

In the governor's office Jackson turned to Laura. "All NPPD personnel have pulled back and returned to their routine duties. All we have out front now in terms of opposition are about forty FLEB people, damn near the entire compliment for New Pittsburgh"

Laura sighed in relief. "Thank you Chief Sandoza," she proclaimed. "That certainly makes this next step a little easier, doesn't it?"

"Indeed," he replied, raising his pocket computer to his face. "Get me Major Dealerman."

The 2nd Battalion of the 8th armored infantry regiment had been called up as part of the initial preliminary forces the day before. Major Dealerman had been initially very confused by the "special training" order that had brought him and the 836 troops under his command to the base in the middle of a weekday, both because he knew that special training of that sort was unheard of and because only his battalion had been requested. Upon arrival at the base however, he had been briefed in by General Jackson himself over a secure Internet line and told the real reason for the call-up.

"The feds have a warrant for Governor Whiting's arrest," he'd been told. "They're going to try to take her into custody tomorrow morning."

Dealerman had of course been shocked by this news and more than a little outraged as well, but he'd still had no idea what that had to do with he and his battalion. He'd said as much and Jackson had then laid the biggest shock of his life upon him.

"We're going to fight them," Jackson said. "The security force at the capital building is going to capture the agents that arrive to arrest her. They're capable of securing the building itself and preventing her arrest, but we're going to need additional troops to secure the outside and the surrounding blocks."

"You're ordering me to do this?" he'd asked, just for clarity. "To engage WestHem federal officers?"

"I'm asking you to do this," Jackson had corrected. "The MPG is a volunteer outfit. If you don't want to do it, we'll find someone else. The same applies to your men. If you accept this assignment, I expect you to brief your command in advance and give all of them the opportunity to decline."

"I understand," he'd said.

"Then you'll do it?"

"I'll do it," he'd said without hesitation. "Tell me the plan."

The plan had started the night before with the briefing by Dealerman. He had been honest with his men about the ramifications of their actions and, unsurprisingly, not a single member of the 1st of the 6th had elected to forgo participation. They were ready to do or die for Mars.

Charlie company had been separated out the night before for a couple of different tasks that had to do with the capital itself. Two of the platoons had been moved to the capital in the early morning hours and placed under Warren's command. It was they that had hidden in adjoining buildings and taken the outside FLEB agents. The other half of this company was performing its mission now. Since 0700 the eighty men that consisted of third and fourth platoon had been mounted in their APCs awaiting their movement orders. These orders had come and the movement was now under way.

The column of eight APCs clunked noisily through the streets of Eden, working their way towards downtown, their treads riding over a surface that they were never meant to be upon. Pedestrians, many of whom had no idea what was going on, scrambled to make way for the monstrous machines as they passed, staring in confused awe at the heavy weapons and the helmeted, goggled heads of the commanders. The ground rumbled beneath and long after the armor had passed the vibration and noise could still be heard and felt.

Lieutenant Presley, a ten-year member of the MPG infantry, was sitting in the commander's seat in the third APC from the front, far enough forward that he could see what was going on, but far enough back so he wouldn't be easily identified and taken out by the opposition. Not that the opposition in this case had much of a chance at that. He kept his hand resting upon the butt of the 4mm machine gun mounted just outside of his port and his eyes upon the tactical display that showing through his combat goggles.

"Presley," a voice said in his earpiece, which was tuned to the command channel. "Dealerman here. Do you copy?"

"Go ahead, Major," Presley replied.

"I just got word from Jackson," Dealerman told him. "The New Pittsburgh Police Department have pulled back. Opposition is now only about forty feds equipped with light weapons. Move in and secure a perimeter for two blocks around the capital building, including the two tram stations. Hold until relieved or ordered to withdraw. Weapons free but a little tight. Don't smoke them unless they ask for it."

"Yes sir," Presley told him without hesitation. He was a building maintenance technician in his civilian life and had spent his entire working career being looked down upon by rich corporate Earthlings in the Kendall-Brackely building. He was ready and willing to take the planet away from such people and proud to be involved in the first conflict. He switched to the tactical channel he used to command his men. "All right, guys," he told them. "NPPD has pulled back. All we have opposing us at the objective are about forty feds with light weapons. We're going to secure a radius of two blocks centered on the capital. Fourth platoon, break off at 23rd street and maneuver around to the south side. Come back down to 5th at 18th street. We'll hold back over here and then box them in when you're in position. ROE is weapons free but a little tight."

"Copy that," said Lieutenant Carmichael, commander of that platoon. "Let's go kick some fed ass."

The FLEB agents had redeployed their vans to the corners of the building and were using it as cover to watch the building from. Others were crouched behind the decorative planters that lined the middle of the street, their faces scared, their weapons trembling in their hands. Waxford, hiding behind the furthest van from the front of the building, was on the communications channel talking to a shocked and horrified Corban Hayes back at the main FLEB building. He had just given a report on the unbelievable events and they were still trying to figure out what there next move should be.

"We only have twenty more sworn agents in New Pittsburgh," Hayes told him. "That's not even enough to provide security for our own building, let alone take the capital building and free our captured men."

"How about the other cities?" Waxford asked. "We almost a hundred agents up on Triad. How soon can you get them on a surface to orbit and get them down here?"

"Not for at least three hours," Hayes replied. "I'll get them started though and I'll have fifty from Eden and Proctor get on one of the inter-city trains."

"Jesus, what a fuck-up," Waxford almost cried. "I knew we should have sent more agents for this arrest."

"They'll regret this sorely," Hayes assured him. "Have your men hold the perimeter until reinforcements arrive. Shoot anyone who tries to come out of that building. I'll try to call that prick Sandoza back and threaten him with some more federal statutes. Maybe I can get him to send those greenie cops back to help end this thing. If we shut off power and utilities to that building we can flush them out in a matter of hours."

"What about the MPG call up?" he asked. "What's the deal with that?"

"We've been hearing that over here as well," Hayes said. "I don't know what that's all about or if it's related. I've got Benson over at the Eden office looking into that one. It's probably just some sort of false alarm or a training mission."

At that moment the clanking of treads reached Waxford's ears for the first time. It swelled up from the north and the south simultaneously and grew louder by the second. The agents in their position all began to look around, searching out the source.

"Waxford," Hayes said, noticing that his underling seemed suddenly preoccupied. "What's going on? Are they trying to break out?"

"We have armored vehicles moving our way," he said softly, feeling fear gripping him.

"What?"

"A lot of them," he said. "Coming from both directions."

"Armored vehicles?" Hayes demanded. "What kind of armored vehicles? Tanks, APCs, what? Those things can't move inside of the city!""

"You might want to tell them that," Waxford said as the first of them came into view from around the corner three blocks away. Three others followed it. From the other direction, behind him, four more appeared. He recognized them as WestHem ET-40 armored personnel carriers. They were painted in the shades of red camouflage scheme and the Martian flag flew proudly from the communications antennas of each one. They spread out of their formation almost as soon as they became visible and took up positions on adjacent corners, hiding the bulk of their bodies behind the corner of buildings, their sixty-millimeter guns as well as their twenty millimeters pointing directly at the FLEB positions.

"Waxford!" Hayes yelled. "What the hell is going on?"

"I don't think that the MPG call-up was a coincidence," Waxford said softly.

As the terrified FLEB agents watched in horror, the ramps of the APCs swung open and out climbed heavily armed troops who immediately fanned out and took up firing positions, each squad of ten equipped with a light machine gun, three grenade launchers, and ten rifles. Weapons were trained upon them and they felt themselves start to sweat, could almost feel the targeting recticles from the MPG combat computers resting upon their foreheads.

Waxford, as leader of the FLEB agents, was perhaps the most horrified. He did not know what to do. In all of his training and experience he'd never been faced with a problem like this before. He'd never even conceived of such a thing. He was a federal officer! People were supposed to fear and respect him! There weren't supposed to surround him with armored vehicles and automatic weapons!

His Internet screen lit up before him, showing him the face of a greenie in combat goggles and a helmet. "Agent Waxford," the greenie addressed him politely. "I am Lieutenant Presley of the Martian Planetary Guard. Can you hear me?"

Waxford stared at the screen, wondering how the greenies had gotten access to his terminal. The communications frequency that they were using was supposed to be secure. It occurred to him for the first time that maybe they had been underestimating the greenies a little bit. "Yes," he finally replied.

"You are surrounded by two platoons of MPG troops with light and heavy weapons. You do not have a chance of defeating them. You will order your men to disable all of their weapons and then walk to the center of the street and drop them in a pile. They will then lie down and await being taken into custody. This is your first and final offer. If you do not do as I say in the next sixty seconds, our troops will open fire upon you and move in. I will reiterate the fact that you do not have a chance of defeating them. Do you understand me, Agent Waxford?"

He licked his lips nervously, his body trembling with adrenaline as he surveyed the massive firepower that was arrayed against him and his men.

"Agent Waxford," Presley said firmly. "Do you understand my conditions?"

"I do," Waxford said, near tears. "We will do as you ask."

"You have fifty seconds."

Waxford issued the order. "All FLEB agents. We have been betrayed and we are in the face of overwhelming opposition. Disable your weapons immediately and take them to the middle of the street. Drop them there and then lie down. Do this now or we will be fired upon. We will be taken into custody by the greenies. God help us all but there will be a reckoning for them and there will be justice."

One by one the agents did as they were told. Waxford waited until all of them were prone on the street and then he too disabled his weapons and joined them. He was crying with humiliation and rage as he lay on his stomach.

Since very few Martians were actually watching the big three channels, most of them missed the live shots of the capture of the first elements. But word and rumor traveled fast and within twenty minutes of the first shots being fired nearly everyone on the planet had tuned in and was watching the subsequent events unfold live and in surround sound. MarsGroup quickly sent its own reporters to the scene and by the time that the New Pittsburgh Police Department members pulled out of the perimeter the Martians were able to switch to those channels and therefore not have to listen to the syrupy commentary about the poor FLEB agents and the evil acts that had been committed by the rogue governor.

For the most part the emotion the Martians displayed was one of shock and anger at what was going on. They were shocked that the feds and the WestHem corporations would attempt such a blatantly obvious scheme to rid themselves of Whiting and angry that they thought they would be allowed to get away with it quietly. Most Martians cheered when the final confrontation took place between the newly activated MPG units and the handful of feds that had been left to guard the building on their own. Once the feds were led away in handcuffs, hustled inside the buildings to join their companions, the big three reporters began focusing on how the "hostage crisis" (as they called it) was going to be resolved. Some suggested that the marines from the Eden barracks would be activated and used to liberate the building, others suggested a mass gathering of the remaining federal agents on the planet. None of them entertained the thought that Laura Whiting would not be eventually taken into custody for her crimes. The very idea was inconceivable to them. The big three completely ignored the activation of the MPG and only mentioned the take-over of the public transportation system as an aside. On the MarsGroup channels however, speculation immediately turned to the obvious connection of the general call up of MPG forces.

"There has never been a general call up in the entire history of the MPG," one MarsGroup commentator pointed out soberly. "This is only supposed to happen when there is an imminent threat to the security of the planet, such as an EastHem invasion. Now since we see no signs of an EastHem invasion and there have been no reports of such a thing occurring, I'm forced to conclude that the deployment is in response to the attempted forcible removal of Governor Whiting from the capital building. As to just what Governor Whiting and General Jackson are going to utilize these troops for, well, only time will tell."

Neither she nor any other MarsGroup reporter bothered speculating as to what the future mission of the MPG might be. As a general rule the MarsGroup stations did not present unconfirmed speculations as news even though the big three had no moral problems doing so.

One thing that nobody needed to speculate about was the fact that the call-up was quickly in high gear. In every city on the planet the part-time soldiers of the MPG left their jobs and made their way to the nearest public transportation station where they found MarsTrans trains waiting for them, each one full of other MPG members on their way to their bases. Most of those summoned were following the news closely on their PCs and strongly suspected that the reason for their activation had nothing to do with EastHem and everything to do with WestHem. They went anyway, many of them excited at the thought of defending their governor from being kidnapped and whisked away, anxious to fight for Mars and all it stood for.

Corban Hayes was frantic as he watched the live feed on his Internet terminal and listened to reports coming over his communications terminal. He still could not believe that the MPG had actually interfered in the arrest of Whiting and that they had captured the majority of his agents. And now the entire compliment of MPG members was being called to active duty. They were even now making their way to their bases all across the planet for God knew what purpose. What in the hell was Jackson going to do with them? He wasn't actually going to try something so mad as to take control of the planet, was he? To do so would be beyond asinine.

Whatever they were going to be doing, it was his job to get things back under control. He was the ranking federal officer on the planet and since communications with superiors back on Earth took more than three hours to accomplish, he was the man on the spot. His first step was to call Greg Jones, CEO of MarsTrans, to see if could slow down the deployment of troops.

"I can't," Jones told him, his face pale and scared.

"What the hell do you mean you can't?" Hayes nearly yelled at him. "Those commuter trains are yours aren't they? Shut them down! Stop them in place! Do whatever you have to but don't let them carry those men to the MPG bases where they'll pick up arms against us!"

"You don't understand," he replied, sounding somewhat indignant at the thought of a mere civil servant talking to him like this. "Once Whiting gave order 74-1, our command and control computers for the system were rendered useless and control was passed to the capital building. It's part of the plan for war deployment."

"What?" Hayes said. "What freakin' moron came up with that?"

"It's been in place ever since the inception of the MPG," he explained. "Part of the War Powers Act. There's nothing that I or my people can do, short of actually sabotaging the hardware of the train system, that will stop them from running."

"Christ," Hayes said, shaking his head in disgust. "You'd better get your programmers working on this thing. Do whatever you can without actually damaging the system, but get those trains shut down."

"I'll try," he said doubtfully, "but there is one little problem with that."

"What's that?"

"Almost all of my engineers and programmers are greenies," he said. "And the greenies all support what's going on. How helpful do you think they're likely to be stopping this deployment?"

Hayes hadn't thought about that. "Just do what you can," he said and then broke the communications leak. He buried his head in his hands for a moment, reluctantly concluding that he would probably not be able to stop the MPG deployments the easy way. "Get me General Jackson of the MPG online," he told the computer next. "Highest priority."

"Attempting," the computer told him.

He smoked a cigarette and continued to watch the Internet coverage while he waited. Everything was still quiet at the capital building. Armored MPG troops could be seen setting up barricades and clearing out all of the pedestrians within the perimeter that they had set up. Dip-hoe carts were being allowed through to bring out his wounded agents but as of yet none had emerged. He spared a moment to wonder if any of those shot would live and then put it out of his mind as an irrelevancy.

"General Jackson is not taking calls right now," his computer told him. "Priority push attempts were ignored. Would you like to access his vid mail system to leave a message?"

"No I would not like to access his vid mail system and leave a message," he returned sarcastically. He then remembered that he was talking to a computer and took a deep breath. "Just keep trying to access him," he said. "In the meantime get me the general in charge of the marine barracks. What the hell is his name?"

"General Norman Sega is currently the commander of the WestHem marine expeditionary unit on Planet Mars," the computer replied. "Is that who you wish to speak to?"

"Yes," he said. "Get him online. Highest priority."

General Sega, unlike many of his peers in the higher ranks of the corps, was actually assigned to his position because of his military knowledge and experience and not because of family or political connections. That was how it had always been with the commander of the fast reaction division since the powers that be recognized that this division, more so than any other in the corps, needed to be ably led since it would more than likely be the first to make contact with the enemy in the event of war. That and the fact that no one who had any political or family connections wanted to be assigned for an extended stint on Mars guaranteed the efficiency of command.

Fifty-six years old and as fit as he had been at twenty, Sega had served numerous tours in Argentina, Cuba, and other trouble spots around Earth before being placed in charge of a battalion during the Jupiter War. Though his battalion, like all others in that troubled conflict, had been thrown forcibly off Callisto by the dug-in EastHem marines, it had suffered the least amount of casualties of any comparable unit in the conflict and had inflicted the most damage on the defending EastHem forces. Sega's career had been a slow climb uphill ever since. Not politically savvy, he had always been kept out of high profile assignments for fear of offending sponsors or the public and placed in commands where actual work and training needed to be done. As a colonel he had commanded the unpopular Northern Argentina brigade, the unit that had, for the past fifteen years, seen more combat than any other unit in the corps. From there he had received his first star and done a tour in charge of the troops on Cuba, which saw the second highest level of action. His second star had led to his current assignment and the promise of virtual banishment on Mars. He had gone as far as his connection-less status would allow him.

He, like most of the other inhabitants of the red planet, had been watching the events on the Internet channels as they unfolded. At first he had been pleasantly amused by the resistance the MPG troops had offered at the capital, chuckling as they took the feds into custody. As a professional soldier of the highest caliber, he had little respect for the part-time soldiers of the MPG or the man who led them. It had been his opinion that the hostage crisis would be over by dinnertime with Whiting either on a ship to Earth or dead, all of her supporters in the MPG under arrest and awaiting trial on federal charges. But when the news that a general call-up of MPG forces had been issued reached him through his intelligence chief, his opinion quickly changed to one of excitement. This excitement grew when he saw the camera shots of the MPG soldiers deploying around the capital building in their APCs. The excitement came not because he had any ill-will towards the federal officers that had been killed or captured — on the contrary, he had the greatest sympathy for them (at least that's what he would say in public) — but because the problem on Mars was no longer something that the federal officers would be able to take care of by themselves. In short, it would take real soldiers with real guns to take back the capital and enforce the federal warrant against that traitor Whiting. And that meant his marines would finally get to see some action. Granted it would probably be brief action, over in a matter of hours, a day at the most, but action was action and something that any soldier longed for. Here would be a chance to get some much-needed publicity for his forgotten division.

While the MPG platoons around the capital building were still securing the area, Sega had already been on his office terminal, telling his colonels to tell their majors to tell their captains to start arming up and getting ready for deployment. It had of course already occurred to him that the quickest, easiest way to diffuse the situation would be to have his marines march on the MPG base itself and capture it, cutting the incoming Eden reservists off from their weapon and ammunition supply. That would not prevent them from deploying in the other three principal cities of Mars but it would deny them of their most powerful division and sap the morale from those that were left.

"How much longer until your men are ready to move?" he asked Colonel Westley, the commander of his best brigade.

"Fifteen more minutes, General," Westley told him over the Internet terminal. "The boys are suited up in their indoor armor and their loading their weapons up right now."

"Good enough," Sega said. "I want that base captured as soon as possible. The more greenies that are allowed to reach it, the more problems we're going to have if they decide to fight us."

"Will they fight, sir?" Westley asked hesitantly. "They have an awful lot of armor over at that base. And until our boys can get some of our equipment down from TNB we won't have anything to battle armor with."

"We won't be bringing anything down from TNB," Sega said, as if speaking to a six year old. "And don't worry about those greenies hitting us with their armor. Chances are they'll surrender as soon as they see us heading their way. And even if they don't, they haven't had enough time to deploy any of their APCs or tanks yet. It takes time to gear those things up."

"Yes, General," Westley said.

"Incoming communication from Director Corban Hayes of the Federal Law Enforcement Bureau," his computer terminal suddenly spoke up. "Would you like to accept?"

Sega smiled. Here was the communication he had been waiting for, the one that would give him the authority to unleash his men upon the greenies. "On screen," he said.

Hayes appeared on the terminal, his hair somewhat in disarray, his eyes showing a great deal of strain. "General Sega," he said, nodding respectfully. "Thank you for receiving my call."

"Of course, Director," Sega said graciously. He had never actually met Hayes before either in person or online. Federal agents and military commanders did not usually run in the same circles. "What can I do for you? I assume this has something to do with the events at the capital building?"

"That's correct," Hayes said. "As I'm sure you're aware, elements of the MPG have fired upon my men as they attempted to served an arrest warrant on Laura Whiting."

"I've been watching on Internet," Sega said. "My sympathies for your men."

Hayes waved his hand dismissively at the mention of his men. "The perpetrators will be brought to justice, I can assure you of that," he said. "But at the moment I'm reading some alarming intelligence about the remainder of the MPG."

"You mean the call-up?" Sega said. "Yes, we've been monitoring that from here as well."

"Then you know that greenies are streaming onto those bases from all over the planet," he said. "They're hopping onto MarsTrans trains and being taken there and they'll be loading their guns and firing up their tanks pretty soon. I fear that they may have reacted a little strongly to the arrest warrant for their governor and that they might be... well... contemplating serious action."

"A revolt," Sega said, not mincing words. "You're afraid they're planning to attempt a capture of the planet or something equally foolish."

"That's correct," he said. "And while the FLEB has the investigative authority in this instance, this unfortunate turn of events has left us woefully short of firepower to prevent such a thing. We need to stop these greenies before they hurt someone or before they cut into productivity of the various businesses that operate on this planet. Hell, I wouldn't put it past them to attempt some act of terrorism against the agricultural fields or something like that. They need to be stopped from deploying."

"I've already anticipated your request," Sega told him. "I have my entire division gearing up for duty as we speak. I'll deploy an entire brigade to the Eden MPG base within thirty minutes."

"I see," Hayes said, a little confused. "And a brigade is?"

Sega gave him a look of contempt. "I take it you've never served in the armed forces before?"

"Well... no," he said with a shrug.

"A brigade is four battalions of combat troops," he explained. "About 2500 men."

"That's a lot," Hayes said uneasily.

"Better too much than too little," Sega responded. "My guess is that the greenies will give it up as soon as they see us marching on them. In any case, once the MPG base and Eden itself is secured I'll get the rest of my men to the other three cities where the MPG is deploying. I'll send a brigade to New Pittsburgh, one to Libby, and one to Proctor."

"How will you do that?"

"We'll load them on our C-12 transports and put them into orbit," Sega said. "We have enough lifter craft to move the entire division up to our ships in less than twenty-four hours. Instead of putting them on the ships though, I'll just have them de-orbit and land at the other three cities. We can capture the spaceports and use them as operations bases from there. My guess is we'll have this entire planet, including the Capital Building, secure and under control in forty-eight hours."

Hayes nodded wisely, obviously pleased with the efficient self-confidence of the general. "It sounds good, General," he said. "You do whatever needs to be done. There is one concern I have about your men however. You have a number of greenies in your division, do you not?"

"About one thousand total," he confirmed. "Most of them are in support positions. I've already ordered my MPs to remove them from their units and place them under house arrest."

"Very good," Hayes said, smiling for the first time. "Once that base is secured I'd like them all turned over to the FLEB so they can be held until this crisis is over."

"It will be done," Sega assured him. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a base to capture. I'll get back to you once it's in our hands." He looked at his watch. "Should be less than an hour I'd imagine."

"Thank you general," he said. "And good luck."

"We don't need any luck," he scoffed. "We're WestHem marines."

General Jackson was still at his command post in the capital building, monitoring the various operations that were taking place around the planet. The entire operation was at its most vulnerable right now since the bulk of the MPG members were still in transit to the bases. His greatest worry was of course the security of the Eden MPG base, which stood less than two kilometers from ten thousand WestHem marines. His worry was increased by a call from Sprinkle.

"What's up, Jack?" he asked, seeing the intelligence chief's face on his computer screen.

"The marines are moving a little faster than we'd thought," Sprinkle told him. "I just got a call from a few of my contacts that are part of the fast reaction division. They say that all of the Martians have been rounded up and are being held in their dorms but that the rest of the troops are gearing up for deployment. Estimates are that they'll be on the move within fifteen minutes or so."

"Great," Jackson said with a sigh. He looked at his tactical display and switched the view to a map of the military corner of Eden. Macarthur Avenue was the street that gave access to both the MPG base and the marine barracks. The barracks had two pedestrian entrances, which were located two blocks apart, and a wider, delivery truck entrance in between. He only had one single platoon of infantry troops to cover all three of those entrances. Forty men with small arms, light machine guns, and a few grenade launchers to hold back God knew how many marines who would be trying to egress from those doorways. They would be able to hold them for a little while by virtue of the fact that the marines would have to exit from a narrow corridor. Eventually however, the MPG would be as overwhelmed as the fabled Snoqualmie defenders back in World War III, that single American battalion that had tried to keep an entire Chinese army from descending out of the Cascade Mountains onto the plains of Washington. The Snoqualmie defenders had ultimately failed in their task, more than three-quarters of their number killed while buying the WestHem alliance no more than eighteen hours of time. Jackson had no intention of allowing the Macarthur Avenue defenders to share this same fate. He needed more troops there and he needed them now.

"Get me Colonel Cargill," he told his communications terminal.

Cargill was the commander of the Eden division. Like all of the high commanders of the MPG, Cargill had been briefed in on the plot to eventually seize the planet from WestHem some years before. He was an outstanding leader and an enthusiastic supporter of the plot. He came online within seconds of his hail. "Cargill here, General," he said.

"How many troops do we have on the base, not including those in Dealerman's command?" Jackson asked him.

Cargill consulted another screen for a moment. "About two hundred have arrived," he said. "Not all of them are combat troops however. Probably about half are admin and support people."

"Get them armed up and moving towards the marine barracks entrances," Jackson told him. "The marines are going to be trying a breakout any minute now."

"You mean the combat troops only?" he asked.

"Negative," Jackson replied. "I mean everyone. Get them guns, form them up into squads, and send them out there."

"But, General," Cargill protested, "a lot of those troops are women. Surely you don't mean to..."

"They've been through basic training haven't they?" Jackson interrupted. "Get them armed and on the move. Right now."

"Yes sir," Cargill said.

"Be sure to let them know what they're up against and that they will be in fact rebelling against WestHem, but get those that will go out there. And we'll need some armor on those entrances as well. As soon as you get some APC crews ready, get their vehicles moving. Send them out through the main entrance like we did Dealerman's people that went to the capital. Those entrances have got to be covered."

"Working on it now, General," Cargill said, signing off.

Lisa Wong was one of the female soldiers that were hastily assembled into a makeshift squad of infantry. Since the downtown area where she worked as a police officer was fairly close geographically to the MPG base, she and her partner Brian had been among the first to arrive. She had quickly suited up in the spare shorts and T-shirt that she carried in her locker and had been on her way to report to her duty station — the main administration office where she worked as a materials supply clerk — when her PC had gone off with an emergency tone.

"All available MPG personnel," announced Colonel Cargill, the base commander, "report immediately at best possible speed to the armory for combat load out. This means all personnel, regardless of sex or assignment. We need you over here, people, so let's move it!"

He repeated the message but by the time he was three words into it, Lisa had disconnected from the transmission and was sprinting through the hallways of the base towards the armory. His message had sounded urgent and the fact that he was asking for non-combat volunteers spoke volumes about the desperation of the situation. The materials allotment unit would just have to do without her for a while.

As she ran, others kept pace with her. Men, other women, some people still in civilian clothing, all trekked along, pushing through doors and making their way to a single destination. When they arrived there, huffing and puffing from the exertion, a group of supply personnel were hastily handing out weapons and equipment while an infantry lieutenant was forming them up into groups.

Lisa made her way to the front and was handed a helmet, a set of combat goggles, a radio pack, an M-24 rifle and five 100 round magazines. "You're C squad, part of Sergeant Jan's platoon over there," the lieutenant told her.

"Where are we going?" she asked, fumbling with all of the gear.

"Your sergeant will explain it in a moment," he said impatiently, his tone telling her that there was no time for questions. "Get outfitted and loaded up."

"What about armor?" she asked.

"No time for it," he told her, turning and grabbing another set of equipment for the man behind her.

She carried her equipment over to where a tough looking sergeant was standing with about twenty other people. There was a mix of men and women, a few of whom she recognized as being admin personnel, most she had never seen before. Sergeant Jan was dividing them up into squads and placing those few people he had that were part of the combat arm as the leaders.

"You," he said, pointing at Lisa and reading her name from her shirt, "Corporal Wong. Get that weapon loaded and those extra mags stowed. You'll be in second squad under private Zink's command. Your radio frequency for squad operations is 7-C. Got it?"

"Got it," she replied, feeling overwhelmed and more than a little confused. Just what the hell was going on here anyway? Nevertheless she put her helmet on her head and attached her throat microphone just above her shirt. The radio pack — a small plastic transmitter about half the size of her PC — she tuned to bank 7, channel C and attached to her waist. Though her entire career with the MPG had been spent as an office worker, she knew how to run the radio as well as any of the most hardened combat troops. Likewise she was familiar with her weapon, combat goggles, and other gear as well, and not just because of her job with the Eden Police Department. Ever since the earliest days of the MPG, General Jackson had made it a part of the training requirements that every member, no matter what their rank or assignment, qualify as expert with the combat gear at least twice a year. Though he had been derided many times in the Earthling media for this alleged waste of money, had had stuck to his guns and now, at what seemed a critical moment, all of that training and expense seemed to be paying off. She, as well as the other non-combat soldiers in her understrength platoon, were ready for action in less than five minutes, with weapons loaded and calibrated to the goggles.

"All right, folks," Jan said, looking them over. "Looks like we're ready to roll. I don't have time for any inspirational speeches or extended briefings so I'll give it to you straight. The MPG is in the process of capturing Eden and the entire planet of Mars from WestHem control. What we are doing is an act of treason. Right now we have some combat troops that are trying to pen the WestHem marines inside of their base to keep them from opposing our capture. They're going to need help badly in a few minutes. We'll probably be forced to fire on some of those marines in order to prevent them from breaking out. This will be seen as pre-meditated murder by WestHem authorities. Anyone who does not wish to participate in this action, put your weapons down and step to the rear."

There was a stunned silence for a moment as everyone comprehended what they were being told. Lisa had to run it through her circuits a few times to get it to clear. Capturing Eden? Capturing the entire planet Mars? Firing on WestHem marines? She waited for the punch line, concluding that it had to be a joke of some sort. No punch line came however. Jan was apparently serious. "Holy shit," she muttered, feeling a strange surge of fear and determination running through her. If there was going to be a fight to free Mars, she was going to be a part of it. She did not drop her weapon. Neither did anyone else.

"All right then," Jan said, smiling. "1st reserve platoon. Let's move it out! Triple time!" With that he turned and began jogging towards the door. His platoon of twenty-five men and women fell in behind him.

Lieutenant Rod Espinoza, a four-year member of the MPG, had been given the dubious honor of leading the Macarthur Avenue defenders. A simple platoon leader whose civilian job was head of security at a small office building, he rose to the occasion quite nicely despite his lack of previous combat experience and his usual reliance on his company commander for guidance. He had divided his forty troops into three sections. One squad was covering the south pedestrian entrance, one was covering the north, and two were covering the larger truck terminal in between. On the orders of Major Dealerman, these squads had held back, out of sight of the marine MP positions that guarded each entrance platform. Though they had aroused the curiosity of many a pedestrian walking by their shadowed forms - and more than one off-duty marine - the guards in their booths remained oblivious to their presence. That was about to change.

"Espinoza," Major Dealerman's voice told him over the command link, "move your people in and secure the platforms. Take those guards out without gunfire if possible. Disarm them and send them back into the base."

"Copy," he said simply.

"Information is that the marines are going to try a breakout within a few minutes. Once the platforms are secure, pull back to covering positions and get ready to drive them back in. Weapons are free, wartime rules of engagement are in effect."

"I understand, Major," he said assuredly, hiding the worry he felt. "What about reinforcements?" he asked. "We're pretty heavy on ammo but we're not gonna last long if they're determined."

"Reinforcements are on the way," Dealerman told him. "We've scrapped together some mixed units of combatants and non-combatants. Put them to use as you see fit, but use them. They're all trained in weapons and tactics."

"Yes sir," he said a little dubiously.

"We'll get you some armor out there as soon as it's available. Don't let those marines out of that base. The entire operation depends on keeping them penned."

"I understand," he said.

As soon as the transmission ended he began giving orders to his squad leaders. Less than thirty seconds later, his men began to move in.

The pedestrian stations were not terribly busy at this time of the day but still, there were upwards of fifty people, most of them working their way through the security checkpoints, at each one. At the truck entrance things were a little better. Since delivery trucks were a phenomenon of the night on Mars, this platform was virtually deserted. Each one of the stations was guarded by a four-man team of military police, each of whom was armed with a sidearm and an M-24 without combat goggle enhancement. Their command posts were glass-encased booths equipped with computer terminals and communications gear.

When the MPG troops stormed the stations, the squad leaders shouting at everyone to get down, one of the MPs at the north station reached for his rifle out of instinct. He was pummeled by rifle fire and dropped like a rock. The rest of the guards at that particular station, seeing this, immediately threw their hands up in surrender. At the other stations, all of the guards surrendered peacefully once they saw what they were up against.

"Civilians and non-uniformed personnel," shouted the squad leaders at each place, "off the platform and out of the area, right now! Move it!"

They moved it, rushing in a near panic down Macarthur Avenue and disappearing out of sight. The MPs were quickly disarmed and pointed in the direction of the base. "Get in there and stay in there," they were told. "Tell your commanders that we have the entrances guarded and that anyone trying to get out will be fired upon."

The MPs wasted no time in sprinting through the gates and down the entrance corridor. All three groups of them reached the main avenue of the base at approximately the same time. It was only the three that had guarded the north entrance, the entrance closest to the MPG base, that encountered marines massing for a march.

Colonel Frank Forrest was the commander in charge of the brigade that Sega had tasked with capturing the MPG base. He and most of his men were assembled on the exercise lawn undergoing final weapons checks and radio calibration prior to marching out. The men were in neat, precise military rows on the green grass, lined up by platoon and squad. Sergeants and lieutenants circulated among them, making last minute inspections and giving inspirational speeches. When the three MPs, stripped of their weapons and red-faced with terror, came bursting into the columns, they were very nearly shot by more than one startled soldier.

"What the fuck is going on here?" an angry sergeant screamed at the three men. "Corporal," he told the highest ranking of them, "you'd better have a goddamn good explanation for this!"

"Sir," he said breathlessly, coming to a partial state of attention, "greenies just stormed our checkpoint! They took our guns and sent us back in here!"

"Greenies?" the sergeant yelled. "What the fuck are you talking about, boy?"

He managed to spit out the story in a coherent fashion, coherent enough that the sergeant immediately brought him to his lieutenant where the story was repeated. From there they went to the captain of that particular company and from there, to the Major that commanded the battalion. Ten minutes after the storming of the guard posts, the three MPs were finally led before Colonel Forrest himself, by which point they had calmed enough to tell their tale without stuttering or repeating themselves.

"How many of them were there?" Forrest asked, only a little worried at the thought of armed greenies at his point of egress.

"Twenty or thirty," they all agreed, their minds wildly exaggerating their memories.

Forrest nodded. "And they were armed with M-24s?"

"Yes sir," the corporal told him, unaware that the troops with the SAWs had held back in cover positions during the charge.

"And they shot one of your men?"

"Yes sir," he said. "They blew Bill damn near in half for no reason."

Forrest's face scrunched into an expression of anger. "Goddamn greenies," he spat. "They're nothing more than terrorists!" He turned to his majors and captains, who were gathered near him. "Get on the com link and find out about the other checkpoints," he told them. "If they captured one they probably captured them all."

It took less than five minutes to confirm that all three checkpoints had in fact fallen to MPG troops. In the other two instances the estimations of the troop strength were the same as that offered by the first: about twenty troops armed with M-24s.

"We need to push out of here right now," Forrest told his subordinates, "before they are able to move enough troops in to really be an annoyance to us." He looked at Major Starr, commander of his first battalion. "Starr," he told him, "get your recon elements moving and recapture the checkpoint that our young corporal and his friends came from. Once its secure we'll move the rest of the brigade out to our main objective and send the rest of your battalion to go capture the other two positions."

"Yes sir," Starr said, hiding the dejection in his voice. He had wanted to be a part of the main thrust into the MPG base. But orders were orders. He trotted off towards his men, talking on his command link as he went. Within five minutes they were moving towards the exit corridor, his recon platoon breaking trail.

Meanwhile, back at the checkpoint in question, the MPG squad that was guarding it had pulled back to positions of cover on Macarthur Avenue. They kneeled behind the cement planter that lined the middle of the street, their weapons trained on the entrance, their combat goggles down and set for infrared enhancement. The young private that operated the squad automatic weapon was in the center of the formation, his field of fire such that he could sweep the entire corridor from one side to the other. Four extra drums of ammunition, each containing 600 rounds, were stacked neatly next to his leg.

The marine recon platoon, its members among the most highly trained in the corps, didn't make it within one hundred meters of the Macarthur side of the access corridor. Though they were moving along the walls, making themselves as small of targets as possible, there was simply nothing to use for cover or concealment and they were spotted almost as soon as they started heading for their objective.

Espinoza ordered the SAW gunner to fire a few bursts down the middle of the corridor on the theory that this would drive them back without having to kill any of them. It was a hopeful thought but one that didn't quite pan out. The private unleashed twenty rounds, the gun barking loudly, the rounds flying at high velocity right between the two elements of the platoon. Instead of retreating however, they began firing back, simultaneously pushing forward.

"Fucking idiots," Espinoza said in disgust as rounds began to slam into the concrete around them and whiz over their head. "Open fire," he told his men. "Take them out."

It was far too easy, sickeningly so. The private on the SAW swept it back and forth, moving his recticle across the figures of the marines while firing controlled bursts. The other squad members opened up with their M-24s, putting their own bursts on the men who were diving to get out of the way of the automatic weapons fire. The forty marines were pummeled with bullets, their bodies twisting and turning and dropping to the ground, every last one of them dead or dying in the space of twenty seconds. Not a single MPG soldier was hit during the exchange.

"Good job, guys," Espinoza told them as the last echoes of the gunfire faded away. The fact that they had just killed WestHem soldiers, that they had just actively partaken in a revolution, seemed to hang in the air.

Nobody said anything in reply.

"Let's do an ammo check," Espinoza said. "They'll be back soon and there'll be a lot more of them."

Starr, waiting safely back on the base, had watched the entire thing through his combat goggles by patching into the platoon commander's goggles. Never having been in actual combat before, he was horrified at the speed and violence with which forty of his men had just perished. He had in fact been holding his breath throughout the entire episode.

"Starr, report!" screamed the voice of Colonel Forrest in his radio link. "What the hell was all of that shooting?"

"Sir," he said slowly, his voice strangely calm despite the adrenaline surging through him, "the greenies fired on the recon platoon. They're down."

"All of them?" Forrest said in disbelief.

"All of them," he confirmed.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Forrest said. "How many guns do they got out there now?"

"It looked like no more than fifteen to me," Starr told him. "They're behind the planter on Macarthur Avenue, situated directly across from the entrance."

There was silence on the link for a moment. Finally Forrest came back on. "We need to take that position immediately," he said. "You had an eyeball on it. Suggestions?"

Starr put the thought of his dead men as far back in his mind as he could and thought through the problem for a moment. "Let me throw a company-strength assault at them," he suggested. "I'll put all of the men with grenade launchers on their 24s up front and have them blast that greenie position as soon as they're in range. It's simply a question of throwing enough men at them to overwhelm their defenses."

"Do it," Forrest told him after only a moment's thought. "And do it quickly. If they reinforce that position they'll be able to keep us from exiting this way. If they do that, we'll have to put on our biosuits and take that base from the wasteland side. I don't have to tell you that that would be a damn sight more difficult."

"I'll have them moving within five minutes, sir," Starr promised.

Unfortunately for the marines, five minutes was just a little too long. While they were still regrouping and getting the grenadiers adjusted to the front ranks, the makeshift platoon that had been formed back at the MPG base trotted up Macarthur Avenue and reported for duty. Espinoza put them to immediate use.

"Send five of your people to the north pedestrian entrance to reinforce them," he told Sergeant Jan. "The rest of you, take up position behind this planter with us. Spread out as much as you can but keep the guns massed on that corridor. ROE is weapons free. They're probably going to hit us with at least company-strength on the next assault and we need to engage them as soon as they come into view."

Lisa, carrying her M-24 and feeling naked without any armor on her chest, took up position about two thirds of the way to the right of center. She gazed down the long corridor, seeing the bodies of those marines that had died in the first breakout attempt. The sight of those corpses, of the blood running slowly towards the drains along the walls, brought home to her the reality of what she was getting herself involved in. "Jesus," she muttered, shuddering a little. She was participating in a rebellion against WestHem, a rebellion in which men had been shot and killed.

"You all right, Wong?" a young private from the armor maintenance section asked her. His eyes looked terrified but determined.

"Fine," she said, giving him a shaky smile. "Let's kick some Earthling ass, shall we?"

"Fuckin aye," he replied, gripping his weapon a little tighter.

The attack began a few moments later. From far down the corridor the figures of twenty, then thirty, then fifty men suddenly swarmed forward, keeping low and moving fast, the outlines of their weapons clearly visible.

"Enemy to the front," Espinoza's voice barked over the command channel. "Open fire!"

Guns began to crack from all around her and, from the center of the column, the SAW barked to life, sending streaks of bullets into the marines. They began to drop but more of them surged forward. Lisa put her targeting recticle on a figure, centering it over his chest, and pulled the trigger. The weapon jerked in her hand, exploding three rounds out of its barrel, and the figure fell forward, his weapon dropping beneath him. Without pausing to reflect that she had just killed a man, she put her recticle on another and repeated the motion.

Suddenly, all along the line of marines there were bright flashes, much brighter than the individual weapons signatures, and what appeared in the infrared spectrum to be large red blobs streaked at high speed towards them.

"Grenades," a voice barked on the radio frequency. "Cover!"

Lisa, along with everyone else, ducked quickly down behind the planter, hiding her head from view. Less than a second later the grenades exploded in the air directly above them, directed to do so by the combat computers of the marines that had fired them. The noise was tremendous, a series of harsh cracks that overwhelmed the eardrums and made the ears ring. The concussion from the displaced air slammed into them, driving the air out of their lungs. Shrapnel rained down, chipping off the cement of the planter, shredding into trees that grew from it, and striking several people. Lisa felt a piece gouge through her lower leg, stitching a burning across her calf. As her ears cleared a little from the concussions, she heard several people yelling that they were hit and calling for a medic. She moved her leg, found that it still worked, and did not add her voice to the chorus. Instead she put her head back up and found another target.

The firing from the line of MPG troops picked up again and the marines rushing down the tunnel began to fall once more. By now many of the marines were firing back, sending a hail of high velocity bullets towards them and trying to force their heads down so they could advance. The tree trunks were peppered with bullets, most flying right through and exiting out the other side. More slammed into the concrete barrier, breaking large chunks of it off and hurling them over the top of their heads. A few of these bullets found their marks. The young private next to Lisa was struck directly in the head, the bullet drilling a neat hole through the front of his helmet and exploding out the back of it in a spray of shattered Kevlar, blood, and brains. He slumped forward lifelessly, his rifle falling from his hands. Lisa ignored this the best she could and continued firing, dropping any marine that she saw moving.

Another volley of grenades came flying at them and this time not everyone ducked in time. The detonations slammed into the line and the private operating the SAW had his face and neck shredded to pieces by the shrapnel. He flew backwards, spraying blood out of his wounds, dragging his weapon down with him. From around them, more screams of "I'm hit" sounded out.

"Resume firing!" Espinoza yelled frantically, spraying an extended burst with his own weapon. "They're moving in!"

Lisa popped back up, switching her M-24 to full automatic fire. She put her recticle on a group of four marines that were rushing forward and squeezed the trigger, raking it over them. They spun and fell, crashing to the ground.

"Shimmy," Espinoza yelled to Corporal Shimamato, one of his regular men, "take over the SAW and start putting some fire on these fucks!"

Shimamato pried the squad automatic weapon from the private's dead hands and put it on its tripod atop the planter. Not wasting the time it would take to calibrate his combat goggles to it, he simply began to fire, aiming by sight and ripping into the advancing marines once again.

This, combined with the supporting fire from the riflemen and the absolute horror that they had just endured, finally broke the marines. None of them, not even the most experienced veterans of Argentina or Cuba, had ever encountered or even imagined combat as deadly as this was becoming. Bullets were flying everywhere, pinging off of the walls of the corridor and ripping through their lines like some supernatural force. Men were torn in half by the sustained bursts from the SAW. Their heads were blown to pieces by the shots from the M-24s. Blood was flowing freely on the floor of the corridor, more than an inch thick in some places, it was being splashed all over them, obscuring their combat goggles and making their feet slip. And the bodies absolutely littered the ground, some screaming in pain, some deathly silent. And as they got closer to the exit of the corridor, the fire grew exponentially more intense and accurate. There was no official call to retreat, but as the entire front rank of what remained of the company was mowed down by the renewed vigor of the MPG outside, retreat is what occurred. Men turned tail and ran, heading back for the safety of the base as fast as they could, many leaving their weapons behind them.

"They're retreating," someone told Espinoza as they saw the mad push back towards the far end of the corridor.

"Keep firing," Espinoza ordered. "Keep the pressure on them until they're out of sight.

And so the marines suffered the additional horror of being shot in the back as they ran away, a fact that pushed them even further over the edge of panic. When the battered, terrified survivors rushed out of the far end of the corridor, bullets still chasing after them, only 52 of the original 160 were still on their feet.

"Cease fire, cease fire!" Espinoza commanded once the last of them had disappeared.

The guns fell silent after a few last isolated pops, and the haze of gunsmoke that was hanging over the planter began to slowly dissipate. The ground around them was covered with ejected shell casings, chips of concrete and wood, and rivulets of blood. The moans of several wounded could be heard.

"Ammo check," Espinoza said. "Everyone make sure your weapon has a fresh mag in it. We don't know when they'll be back or with how many. Let's assume they're gonna hit us again in the next five minutes with battalion strength." He looked over at private Stinson, a DPHS employee in civilian life and the only medic in the bunch. "Stinson," he told him. "Start checking these people. I'll see what I can do about getting some dip-hoes in here to take away the wounded."

"Right," Stinson said, immediately heading for the private lying next to Lisa. He took one look at him and shook his head sadly. "Not much to do here," he said, seeing the shattered skull and the dull, dead eyes. He turned towards Lisa, spying the wound on her leg. "You're gonna need that fused back together," he told her, reaching in his pack and pulling out some gauze bandages.

Lisa looked down at her leg for the first time and saw that a five-centimeter chunk of it had been neatly ripped open by the grenade shrapnel. Blood was oozing from the wound and onto the ground.

"Can you move your foot and your toes?" Stinson asked her hurriedly.

She moved them, seeing with gratification that everything still worked. "I'm all right," she told him. "Go work on the others."

He handed her the gauze. "Wrap that up to stop the bleeding," he told her. "We'll get you off the line as soon as we can."

"I don't need to get off the line," she told him. "I'm staying until we're relieved."

He nodded, giving her a smile, and then headed down the line until he reached the next wounded person. In all, the total was three dead and four wounded. Not too bad considering that they'd been fighting a force more than five times their size.

Captain Starr, who had been leading from the rear as any competent company commander, was one of the survivors of the failed assault on Macarthur Avenue. Unfortunately he no longer had much of a company to command since three of his four lieutenants and twelve of his sixteen squad leaders, not to mention a good portion of his enlisted men, were dead on the entrance corridor floor, riddled with MPG bullets. Starr and his remaining men were moved to the rear and a fresh company, this one commanded by Captain Freely, a hardened veteran of the Cuban campaigns, was brought forward.

"Alpha company was hit hard," Freely told his men as they fidgeted in their ranks thirty meters from the front of the corridor entrance. "But we need to go back in there and take that position before the greenies get a chance to reinforce it. We need to do this so we can clear them off of Macarthur Avenue and take that base and so that we can get Alpha company's wounded out of there, understand?"

"Yes sir," they all dutifully replied, though with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. They had all seen the result of the previous attacks.

"I know that nobody wants to do this," Freely said. "It's a very poor tactical situation since we are forced down a narrow path right into the teeth of the enemy. We can't outflank them and we have little or nothing in the way of cover or concealment for our advance. Unfortunately it has to be done and this is the best time that we're going to get to do it, while they're still reeling from our first two attacks and while they're probably low on ammunition. So let's get it done. Those of you with grenade launchers I want you massed in the front. We're going to put sustained grenade fire on that greenie position as we advance. Half of you fire, half of you hold back. While the first half reloads, the second half will then fire. That way there should be minimum time where the greenies are able to put their heads up and oppose us. Once we clear that front entrance, surround those fucks and put them down. No mercy!"

"No mercy!" the marines yelled back, this time with more emotion.

"Let's move it out," Freely said.

They moved it out, not knowing, as Starr hadn't before them, that the situation outside of the corridor had already changed. Two tank crews and one APC crew, all from different units of the division, had gotten their machines fired up and were led through the larger corridors of the base to the main entrance. These three pieces of heavy armor then clanked their way out onto Macarthur Avenue, past the commuter tram station where fresh loads of troops were disembarking the trains, and down to the first of the marine base entrances. Espinoza, nearly gushing in gratitude at the sight of them, quickly commandeered one of the tanks to reinforce his own embattled position. The other tank and the APC he sent further down the avenue to reinforce the other positions in case the marines attempted a break-out through one of them.

There was no place to really conceal the tank since the center planter that the soldiers were kneeling behind was only a meter high, but there were also no working anti-tank weapons available to the marines on their base. All they had were low-yield training weapons, their real equipment safely tucked away inside of the landing ships at Triad Naval Base. This, in effect, made the armored vehicle invulnerable to being destroyed or displaced, able to put impenetrable, horrendous fire upon the enemy with complete impunity.

In a way it was perhaps fortunate for Captain Freely's company that the armor arrived when it did. Like the use of atomic weapons had done at the end of World War II, it was likely that the display of such overwhelming force created an abandonment of aggressive intentions before they could be fully implemented. The moment that the marines entered the corridor and began to set up the first of their grenade launches, the tank crew spotted them on their infrared equipped monitoring equipment. A single 80mm high explosive shell had been loaded into the long gun and aimed down the corridor. The gunner had already calculated the range to the end of the corridor and had adjusted the elevation of the barrel appropriately. As soon as he saw the marines forming up and preparing to fire he put his hand on the firing button.

"Computer," he told the tank's firing computer, "set for airburst at 200 meters."

"Range set," the computer instantly replied.

Before the first volley of grenades could even be launched in their direction, he pushed the fire button and the gun roared, blasting the shell out of the barrel at a speed of more than three kilometers per second. When it reached precisely 200 meters from its point of origin it exploded, spraying razor sharp shrapnel out in an expanding cone. The grenadiers and the other marines entering the corridor behind them never knew what hit them. They were sliced to pieces, their bodies literally torn apart from the force of the blast and the steel of the shell. In an instant more than thirty men died in a spray of blood and shredded body parts.

"They got a fuckin tank down there!" shouted a squad leader in horror as he saw the men erased from existence. He had been just around the corner from the corridor entrance, just about to step through to join the charge when the explosion had hit. He shuddered uncontrollably as he thought of the fate he'd almost shared in.

No further shots were required. Though Captain Freely and Colonel Forrest and General Sega all agreed that to attempt further breaches of the exit corridors were futile, it is unlikely that they would have convinced any of the marines to take another crack at even if they'd ordered them. Marines like to follow orders and will often fling themselves carelessly into overwhelming danger at a superior officer's whim, but they are not suicidal.

"Leave a few platoons near each entrance to keep the greenies from moving onto the base," Sega ordered Colonel Forrest. "We're not going to be able to go out that way."

"Yes sir," Forrest said, fuming at the losses he'd had inflicted upon his men by a relatively small number of greenies.

"Start getting everyone else in biosuits," Sega said. "We'll take the division out through the airlocks and move overland to the MPG base from there."

"I'll get right on it," Forrest said.

Chapter 6

There were no Internet terminals set up in the abandoned hanger the special forces soldiers were being housed in at the Triad MPG base and, though every last one of them had a PC that was capable of monitoring Internet channels, the signals had all been damped for security reasons. So it came to pass that the 640 men who were slated to strike the first real blow to the Earthlings were the least informed about events on the planet.

They had been fed well during their stay there. Dinner the previous night had consisted of steak and baked potatoes cooked in the base mess hall. Breakfast that morning had been scrambled eggs and pancakes prepared by the morning shift mess staff. All had eaten voraciously despite the nagging knowledge that some unspecified, possibly dangerous mission was awaiting them.

"When the hell are they going to tell us something?" Horishito demanded of Lon about an hour after breakfast. Lon's squad was leaning against the far wall of the hanger, very near the front doorway, their weapons and packs resting beside them.

"When they have something to tell," Lon replied automatically, though he too was growing impatient and bored.

Several of his men had brought decks of cards along with them and an impromptu poker game was being waged. In the absence of Internet access to facilitate betting they were forced to revert to the old fashioned technique of using poker chips to represent money. In this case the chips were actually paper clips that had been bent in specific formations to represent different denominations.

Lon was just about to go get himself dealt in for a few hands when the door to the opposing hanger suddenly slid open and Colonel Bright entered the room. Even at the age of 56, Bright was still an imposing presence, able to outrun and outgun a good number of his younger soldiers in the training fields. He was a stickler for training standards and quite a hard-ass when it came to admission to his elite corps. It was well known that he personally gave final approval on all inductees into the cadre.

Nobody stood up or came to attention when Bright entered the room of course — it just wasn't done in the MPG — but everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked up at him as he walked to the front of the room and took up position near a podium that had been set up earlier. A microphone sat on the podium and he tapped it a few times, confirming that it was live. He then began to speak, his voice gruff and self-assured.

"Good morning, men," he told them. "I know it sounds very cliché to say so, but I know you've all been wondering just what you've been brought here for. For security reasons I've been forced to be very vague with you in regards to the call-up and your deployment. The time for being vague is now over however. Let me begin by explaining to you all what has been happening on the surface over the last few hours and from there I'll get to the mission that I'm going to ask you to perform." He paused, his eyes tracking over the collection of soldiers. "Last night, in Denver, a federal grand jury consisting entirely of WestHem civilians and hearing evidence presented only by the federal attorney general's office, voted to indict Governor Whiting on charges of corruption and misuse of office and several other things."

Some angry uproar erupted from the crowd. Lon heard several utterings of profanity echoing off the hanger walls.

Bright waited patiently for them to quiet down and then continued. "This morning, in New Pittsburgh, a group of forty FLEB agents, all of them armed with automatic weapons, attempted to serve this warrant at the capital building and take Governor Whiting into custody. Their intent was to extradite her to Earth for trial and imprisonment, therefore leaving the Lieutenant Governor in control of the executive branch of our planetary government." He gazed out, seeming to lock eyes with everyone at once. "The capital security team — which, as I'm sure you are all aware, is made up of MPG special forces soldiers — fired upon the FLEB agents and prevented them from completing their mission."

Now there was shocked silence in the room as every man tried to contemplate the ramifications of Bright's words. Fired on federal agents? Prevented them from completing their mission?

"The attempt to take our governor into custody on these trumped up charges was unsuccessful," Bright told them. "All of the FLEB agents participating in the raid were killed or captured. The New Pittsburgh police department has been ordered to stay out of the situation by their chief. When the second wave of FLEB agents showed up at the capital, they too were taken into custody by regular infantry troops from the New Pittsburgh area division. At this moment the capital building and two blocks around it is secured and being guarded by MPG soldiers. Governor Whiting has issued an order for the rest of the MPG to mobilize for deployment. As we speak, several platoons of our soldiers are fighting a battle with WestHem marines at the main gates to the Eden marine barracks. Their intent is to keep the WestHem soldiers from exiting the base and impeding MPG operations on the surface."

He let that sink in for a moment and then went on. "Gentlemen, you're all Martians. You have all grown up on this planet under the rule of WestHem and you know what their system has done to us. We are second class citizens on our own planet. I won't try to duplicate the speeches of Governor Whiting here today because I'm just not up to the task. But I know that all of you have been listening to her words and that most of you agree with what she has been saying. It is time for us to break free of WestHem by whatever means necessary. I want none of you to make any mistake about the gravity of the situation that I have just described to you down on the surface. Our troops have fired upon federal officers, killing several of them. We have defied federal orders to hand over Governor Whiting to them. Our planetary guard troops have initiated firefights with WestHem marines and are using armored vehicles to keep them in check. What has happened today is nothing more nor less than the opening move in an armed revolt by the Planet Mars against the Western Hemispheric Alliance. It is a bid for independence from WestHem by force of arms. A revolution. And I'm about to ask you men here to play a part in it."

Without giving them time to think too deeply, he continued. "Now I've been your commanding officer for a long time now. I like to think that I'm the type of CO that makes himself available to his troops. I visit all of the commands regularly and I know most of you by name and by face. I've heard you talk to each other around the dorms and out on the training field. I've seen you all enraptured by Governor Whiting's words when she speaks on Internet. I've heard you rant about those 'fucking Earthlings' and about how Mars needs to be free. I've heard you cuss the name of WestHem and the bastard capitalist corporations that rule our lives."

He stared at his crowd, his expression now challenging. "Well, gentlemen, guess what? The vehicle for that change you all want has arrived and you have the opportunity to be it. A plan has been in place for this day for several years now and the day has come to put it into action. If you really want Mars to be free, if you really want to break the bonds of WestHem rule, the time has come to shit or get off the pot. I'm about to ask you men to go into combat against WestHem soldiers, against the institution that rules us. I'm about to ask you to commit high treason, the penalty for which is life imprisonment on Earth."

"If any or even all of you does not wish to do this you are free to stand and leave the room right now. I have orders direct from Governor Whiting herself that I am not to compel a single soldier to do my bidding. This is a voluntary assignment from this point on and that means more than one thing. If you commit to my plan, you will be doing so of your own free will and you will not have the excuse that you were simply following orders. If we lose, you will most likely suffer the fate I just explained. If we win, you will be heroes for the rest of Martian history.

"If any of you chooses not to be a part of this, I will be disappointed, I will label you as a hypocrite, unwilling to put his money where his mouth is, but you will be allowed to leave this room and go about your lives. You will of course be held until the operation is complete but you have my word and the word of Governor Whiting that you will not be persecuted in any way.

"So..." He looked at his men, wondering if any would fold. A large part of him feared that all 640 would stand as one and move to the door. "Those that do not wish to participate, please stand and exit the room at the back right now."

Not a single soldier stood up. The chant started somewhere in the middle of the room and quickly spread. "Free Mars, free Mars, free Mars!"

Before long the entire room, Colonel Bright included, was shouting it at the top of their lungs.

The Mermaid had docked at Triad Naval base two hours before after its long deployment to the Jupiter system. Though the majority of the crew had been released for three days of shore duty at Triad, Spacer first class Brett Ingram was not among them. He was in charge of a work detail tasked with unloading the unused food supplies left over from the deployment and returning them to the main Owl supply area. It was somewhat insulting work for a skilled computer technician but after nine years in the WestHem navy he was quite used to insulting behavior from his superiors. When Lieutenant Commander Braxton had been faced with the task of forming an unload detail he'd picked the six Martians out of the entire crew to form it, seeming to pick at random but, out of forty-eight enlisted men it was quite a large coincidence that only those of Martian heritage had been chosen.

This was all status quo on the good old Mermaid of the good old WestHem Navy but today it was particularly irritating because Jeff and the members of his detail were burning to monitor the news broadcasts regarding the situation on the surface. Could what they were hearing possibly be true? Had they really indicted Laura Whiting? Had her forces really fired on federal agents? And now new reports were coming in as well, reports about some sort of battle at the entrance to the WestHem marine base. Were MPG troops engaging the marines? What kind of madness was going on down there?

Of course every compartment on the ship had an Internet terminal in it and, since they were docked, they were patched into the base Internet system. They didn't dare turn any of these screens onto anything other than a music station however, nor did they dare monitor things on their PCs. There were security personnel on board the Mermaid too and, as Martians, it would be unwise to show much interest in the goings on down on the surface.

"Do you really think that Whiting is holding the capital building hostage?" asked Spacer third class Fairfield, a young black man in his first year of naval service. He was still young enough and dumb enough to take visible offense at his treatment by his Earthling shipmates. If he didn't get it under control right quick, he would find himself tossed out of the Navy and virtually unemployable before too much longer. Brett had already had a few talks with him about this.

"It sounds pretty wild, doesn't it?" Brett replied, careful to keep his voice down. They were descending the ladder from the galley area, carrying the last of the eggs from the supply room, which was connected to the spaceport dock by it's own airlock door. Since they were docked the Mermaid was connected to the base gravity generators and therefore under normal gravitation.

"It's sounds fuckin' crazy." Fairfield told him. "Can you believe those Earthling motherfuckers? Arresting Whiting? Just because..."

"Hush, Fairfield," Brett barked sharply, looking around nervously at the supply room which thankfully only contained one security person at the moment, and he was on the other corner watching two men pack up milk and powdered juice packages. "Remember where we are. Remember the talk we had. Be static."

"Yes sir," Ingram, his face scowling, nodded. "It's just that..."

"Shhhh," Jeff reiterated. "We'll talk later, once we get out of this ship. We'll go get ourselves a drink, okay?"

"Yes sir," he repeated, handing over a carton of eggs, which Jeff carried silently over to the pile by the airlock.

They continued to work, unaware that they would not be going to any bars for quite some time.

The Triad Primary control building was near the center of the city, in the worst neighborhood. It rose thirty stories above the street level and was surrounded on all sides by high-rise, low income housing complexes. The street level here was a dangerous place full of intoxicant shops, pawnshops, and massage parlors. The walls and even the ceilings were covered with graffiti of all sizes, colors, and sentiments, most of it illiterate, much of it anti-Earthling in nature. Each housing entrance lobby was a gathering place of the residents here. Most of them were unemployed and living off of the meager allowances of the welfare system. They sat out in front of their buildings hour after hour, day after day, smoking cigarettes of tobacco and marijuana and drinking Fruity. Crime was high in the neighborhood and, before the Whiting reforms of the past few months, there had been multiple incidents of control personnel being assaulted or robbed of valuables, enough incidents so that the Triad Police made a habit of hanging around the building at shift change time and escorting the workers to the tram station two blocks over.

The entrance to the building was much like the capital. Two guards armed with body armor and sidearms controlled access from behind a bulletproof layer of glass. The guards were watching an Internet screen and keeping half an eye on the pedestrian traffic walking back and forth in front of them. Currently the lobby was empty and there was not much going on. Shift change would not be for another three hours.

The channel they were watching was a MarsGroup channel of course. A live news broadcast was in progress from in front of the capital building. Nothing had changed there in the last hour. MPG troops could be seen in force out front and patrolling the perimeter. Pedestrians stayed well away from the goings on. Every once in a while they would clip to other shots; the FLEB building in New Pittsburgh, which was now under a similar guard, and the city jail, where it was believed that the FLEB agents had been taken. In Eden, news teams were reported to be heading for the entrance to the WestHem marine barracks where it was said that some sort of battle was going on.

"Governor Whiting," said a pretty female reporter of Asian descent, "has yet to make a statement of any kind in regards to the startling chain of events that has occurred today. It is unknown just where this will all lead. Speculation remains high that the only course of action that Whiting will be able to use is to give herself up to the WestHem authorities on a variety of charges, which now include murder. Like all Martians I find myself..."

"This shit is getting way out of hand," said Roger Ire, the first guard, to his partner. Like most Martians watching the events unfold he was in a state of shock and disbelief. "What's gonna happen to Whiting? They're gonna execute her when they finally get their hands on her."

"I'm not sure that they're going to get their hands on her," Julie Woo replied nervously. "This is starting to look more and more like... well..."

"What?" he asked.

"Like a rebellion," she said, saying the words that she had been thinking for the past hour. They sounded strange on her lips.

"A rebellion?" he asked, astounded and scared. "What kind of shit are you talking?"

"Think about it," she said softly. "The feds come to take Whiting into custody and the MPG fires on them. A few minutes later a whole group of MPG just appears out of the woodwork and secures the entire capital. There's a general call up of forces and now there are more MPG troops shooting it out with marines at the barracks. What does that all spell to you?"

Hearing her logic spoken out loud he had a hard time coming up with another explanation. "Damn," he said slowly. "Can we do that?"

"You mean legally?" she asked, looking at him as if he were a dumbass. "I'm pretty sure that WestHem considers it illegal to rebel against them."

"No," he said, pushing at her with his hand, "I mean physically. Do we have the manpower and the weapons to take this planet for ourselves?"

"I don't know," she said. "What if they ask you to fight?"

He thought about that for a minute. "I'd do it," he said. "Just give me a gun and I'm out there with them."

"Me too," she said.

Their chance to participate in the revolution came sooner than they thought. Their Internet screen changed from the news broadcast to the face of their supervisor. His expression was strange, a mixture of shock and excitement. "Julie, Roger," he barked at them, much too loudly. "There is a platoon of MPG troops heading your way. They are accompanying a Colonel. Let them into the building when they get here."

Julie and Roger looked at each other silently for a moment. What the hell was this about? MPG troops on Triad?

"Do you understand?" their supervisor asked.

"Yes," Roger finally replied. "What is this about? What are..."

"I don't have time to explain right now," he answered, which they correctly interpreted as 'I don't know'. "It's orders direct from Sanchez herself. Let them in when they get there and direct them to the VIP elevator."

"Right," Julie nodded.

"And let me know when they're on the way up."

They emerged out of the train platform and marched down the stairway. The stairwell was crowded with dangerous looking thugs hanging out, some of them undoubtedly waiting for fresh robbery victims. The thugs exited quickly as they saw forty MPG soldiers wearing tactical helmets and carrying M-24s out before them. Whatever was going on, they were certainly not going to mess with a platoon of soldiers in any way.

The troops formed a loose diamond formation after leaving the stairwell and began marching down the street towards the control building. A Triad Police officer who was talking to a young gang member about some outstanding warrants for theft saw them approaching and stared in disbelief. She had never seen anything like this before on the streets of Triad. What did it mean? She let the young man go about his business and walked up to the soldier on the point. The platoon halted before her and all eyes turned to her.

"What's going on here?" she asked a little nervously. Events at the capital and at the marine barracks had not escaped her attention and she could not help but draw the conclusion that they were related to this.

The soldier on point said nothing. Instead, a tall man, unarmed but wearing the rank of colonel approached her from the center of the formation. He stared at her, looking at her nametag on her right breast. "Officer Smith," he addressed her, "I'm Colonel Bright of the Martian Planetary Guard. We have been mobilized at the command of Governor Whiting and we are on our way to secure the control building."

"The control building?" she asked incredulously.

"The control building," he said levelly. "We have a mission to accomplish there. Is it your intention to try and stop us?"

"No, of course not, Colonel, but..."

"We are in haste, Officer Smith." Bright told her. "Things will become clear to you very quickly. Free Mars," he hailed using a greeting that had become commonplace since Whiting's inauguration.

"Free Mars," she replied back, smiling.

The soldier on point gave a signal and the platoon moved out again. Smith stepped aside, allowing them unimpeded passage. Bright stood until the center of the formation caught up with him and then he began to march once again.

Three minutes later they were at the entrance of the control building. Lieutenant Nguyen, the platoon commander approached the two glass encased guards and identified himself. The guards opened the doors without question, just as he'd been assured they would. He began barking orders.

"First squad, accompany Colonel Bright upstairs. Second and third squads, secure the outside of the building, fourth squad, come with me for inside security. Weapons tight people until told otherwise. Under no circumstances are you to fire on any Martians and that includes cops. If the feds show up, normal rules of engagement apply, self defense only unless they try to breach the building."

His four squad sergeants affirmed his orders and the soldiers began moving quickly to their destinations.

"Will the elevators take us where we need to go?" Colonel Bright asked Julie.

She seemed awed at his presence but answered quickly, "Yes, Colonel. We have orders to let you immediately up."

"Thank you." He began walking towards the elevators. His squad followed behind him

The elevator doors opened before them and the eleven men crowded inside. The elevator, like all of Triad, was under the influence of the artificial gravity system and the inertial damper. The elevator shot upwards towards the thirtieth floor of the building, the only indication that they were rising the changing numbers on the display. When it reached 30 the doors slid open to a small foyer tastefully decorated with modern art and couches. The carpet on the floor was threadbare but presentable. A uniformed guard stood before them.

"Colonel Bright?" he asked politely.

"That's me," Bright said, stepping forward and out of the elevator.

"Follow me, sir," the guard replied. "I have orders to take you to Mr. Sanchez and the main control room."

They were led down a long hallway and around two corners before coming to a steel security door. A computer terminal with a fingerprint analyzer was installed in the door. It was supposed to only allow access to authorized personnel. The guard placed his hand on the pad and the door slid open, revealing the large control room.

The control room was a crowded, busy place. Forty people were sitting at computer terminals monitoring all aspects of the orbiting city. They looked up as the doors opened, almost to a person. A tall Hispanic man walked over to Colonel Bright as his escorts crowded into the room and took up positions near the walls and windows. The two men appraised each other silently for a moment. Frank Sanchez, the watch commander of this shift, had been recruited for his part in the mission back in the planning stages. His counterparts on the other shifts had likewise been recruited. In this building, in this very room, was the key to success of their mission.

"Colonel Bright," Sanchez said loudly, loud enough for everyone to hear. "Welcome to the main control room. It is my honor to turn this facility over to the MPG in the interests of a free Mars."

There was a gasp from the assembled controllers, none of whom knew why Bright and his men were here. It was a shocked gasp but not an unhappy one.

"Thank you Mr. Sanchez," Bright replied. He turned to the controllers. When he'd recruited Sanchez he'd made sure that Sanchez would never allow anything other than a second generation Martian to work in this room. He didn't figure he would have any trouble with these people. "Ladies and Gentlemen, I am Colonel Bright of the Martian Planetary Guard. You have all heard of the events at the capital building and in Eden I'm sure so I will spare you the details of that. Let me say to you now that Mars is in the midst of a rebellion against WestHem rule. As I speak the MPG troops that Governor Whiting called up earlier today are making motions to secure the planet from WestHem forces. They will be successful as long as we can keep the WestHem marines trapped on their base. However the entire thing will be useless without a single key element that involves this room."

He peered at their faces, wondering how they would react to what he next had to say. "You're all Martians in here. Mr. Sanchez saw to that a long time ago. You know what WestHem rule has done to this planet. The time has come to put a stop to it. I need your help, people. You are the operators that control this orbiting city and the future of our rebellion now depends on the next two hours. I will ask you to act in the interest of Mars and Martian freedom. If you do not wish to participate you may stand up and be counted. You will be removed from the room and held until the forthcoming operation is complete and then you will be released. You will not be persecuted in any way for failing to assist and you will have the same opportunity to evaluate Governor Whiting's actions tomorrow. We will not compel a single person to participate. This is a voluntary revolution, people. So what do you say? Does anyone wish to stand?"

There was some murmuring but everyone remained in his or her seats. Colonel Bright smiled.

"I thank you," he announced. "Shortly we will begin." He turned his head to Sanchez. "Fred, have all voice and text communications from this building been halted?"

"They have, Colonel," Sanchez said with a nod. It had been done in fact, before the MPG had even entered the building. Secrecy was now paramount and they could not take the chance of word about what they were doing leaking out to the wrong ears.

"Good," Bright answered. He keyed up his communications link. "Get me Major Shaw."

"Shaw here," replied his second-in-command, who was with the bulk of the special forces battalion and who would lead the attack.

"We are in position," Bright told him simply. "Are you ready to execute?"

"We are," Shaw replied. "Standing by for go signal."

"Copy," Bright nodded. "Initiating now. Have the men stand to."

"Standing to," Shaw said, signing off.

Bright turned to Sanchez once more. For security reasons Sanchez, though a part of the conspiracy, did not know what Bright intended to do in the control building. He had simply supplied schematics, access, and promised to assist in any way possible once the time came to enact the plan. Bright sat before an empty Internet screen and called up the schematics he was looking for. "Mr. Sanchez, will you have your people shut down electric power and the trams in section 48-63, 64, and 65?"

Sanchez turned to controller in charge of electric service for those sectors. He ordered the shutdown and then did the same for the master tram controller. He saw immediately what Bright was doing and wondered how he had never managed to guess it before.

Triad Naval Base was not actually a part of Triad. It orbited two kilometers away from the edge of the city, far enough away so that the risk of the main city being accidentally struck by off-course naval vessels was at a minimum. But TNB and Triad were not completely independent of each other. When viewed from above, the two large structures seemed to be connected by three tiny hairs that stretched out from the west side of Triad to the east side of TNB. These hairs were actually steel tunnels through which freight trams and passenger trams carried people and supplies back and forth. They were the only way to move back and forth between the two places without boarding a space ship.

The sections that Bright had just ordered powered down were the ones that adjoined the connectors for Triad Naval Base. Although the trams that ran from Triad to the naval base were security controlled and separate from the rest of the city's system, and although TNB had it's own internal power supply that could not be controlled from Triad's control building, the power that ran the trams themselves came from Triad's power grid. With a simple command the trams came to a halt at the Triad end of the station. The interiors went dark as night, darker even, and the plan was under way.

"Shaw," Bright spoke into communication link.

"Yes, Colonel?"

"Everything's ready. Execute immediately."

"Executing."

He turned back to his screen and consulted the diagrams for a moment. "Sanchez, please open access hatches 3127 through 3150."

"Access hatches?" Sanchez asked, surprised. These were manholes in the street level that allowed access to the tunnels below the street. The tunnels carried sewage pipes, fresh water pipes, electrical and Internet lines. Were Bright's men down in the tunnels? It was absolutely brilliant.

"Yes, Mr. Sanchez. Open them now please."

"Carla," Sanchez said to the proper technician. "Open access hatches 3127 through 3150."

"Yes sir," Carla said, speaking to her terminal. "Hatches are open."

"And now," Bright said, "please cut power and Internet to section 29-50."

"The FLEB office," Sanchez said, repeating the command to another tech.

When this was done the waiting began.

They had marched for nearly six kilometers through the musty, smelly underworld of Triad. It was a dark, damp, crowded place, narrow and confined. Rats lived down there as well as entire species of bugs and spiders. Their combat goggles allowed them to see in what otherwise would have been complete darkness. Each member of each squad had a map of the complex as well as a map of Triad Naval Base and of their individual objectives programmed into their combat computers. The maps could be superimposed into their goggles allowing the image to seemingly float in the air before them. Each platoon of forty men was equipped with six hundred meters of primacord and the detonation equipment. They fanned out in the tunnels when they reached the staging point, every platoon going to a certain ladder beneath a certain access hatch.

Lon and his squad, who were assigned to second platoon, bravo company, took up position beneath hatch number 3140, which was directly below the southern passenger tram entrance to the naval base. "Okay, guys," he told his men as they waited, "we're gonna be less than sixty meters from the guard positions when we come up. The lights will be out and there will be a lot of confused civilians on the platform, so be careful. If we have to shoot be sure you have a positive ID on your target and be cognizant of where your stray rounds are going to be heading."

They were given the execute command and fifteen seconds later the access hatches slid open, directed to do so by the control room five kilometers away. Men began to climb as fast as they could, hefting themselves up the steel ladders in a controlled manner, separated from each other by a space of only two rungs. From twenty-three hatches, armored and armed men began pouring into the streets of Triad near the tram station that led to the Naval base.

The streets above were in chaos. People were huddled everywhere in corners and on the streets in fear of the pitch blackness that had suddenly engulfed them. Power outages were not unheard of in Triad but they never lasted more than five seconds or so, the amount of time it took for some computer to route a supply around whatever damaged area had caused the failure. In the buildings around them, elevators would be stopped, electric doors would be jammed shut, people would be in panic. It was a pity to do this to fellow Martians but it was needed.

The troops pouring from the access hatch formed into their squads and platoons as they emerged and handed up their heavier weaponry and their equipment packs. They began to move to their first objectives; the entrances to the tram tunnels that led to Triad Naval Base.

The main force, which consisted of two companies, headed for the primary personnel tunnel, since it would lead them to the main foyer of the base and drop them close to the vital control room. Another single company headed for the northern tunnel, which was a secondary entrance for ship crews and dock personnel. The last company of the battalion took the south tunnel, which was a freight tunnel though which fuel, supplies, and other staples entered the base after being shipped from the Triad civilian docks. It was this entrance where the first contact between MPG and Navy military police took place.

The freight loading platform was large and was staffed with a squad of MPs whose job it was to check each incoming train for infiltrators, bombs, or anything else. The MPs were no less confused than the civilians. They had no combat goggles so they were as blind as everyone else in this section of Triad. Their Internet screens had gone dark and they were trying to reach someone on the base over their back-up radio frequency, which did not rely on Internet cables, when the sounds of many feet and clanking armor appeared all around them.

"WestHem MPs!" boomed a voice from an amplifier. "You are surrounded by MPG troops! Surrender immediately or you will be fired upon. Drop your weapons to the ground, walk to the center of the platform, and lay down!"

Sergeant Broker was the twenty-three year old MP in charge of the five-man squad. He heard the voice just as he'd succeeded in getting through to the Naval Base MP barracks inside the main gate. He had heard the number of feet clomping around on the platform and knew that he held a useless position. His people were blind and horribly outnumbered. The greenies would have combat goggles on and probably had beads drawn on all five of them.

"Do what they say, guys," he commanded, his voice shaky with fear. "Do it now."

"Broker!" A voice replied from his radio channel. "What is going on there? Did you say the lights were out? I have reports from the main gate and the secondary of the same thing."

"This is Broker," he said. "My position is under attack from a large number of greenie troops. I am surrendering to them."

"Broker!" the voice yelled. "What did you say?"

He had time for no more. He left the link open so that they would at least be able to hear what was going on. He then walked to the center of the street with his hands in the air, moving gingerly in the darkness. His men did the same. They were quickly handcuffed with plastic ties and left lying on their bellies for the moment. The south gate had fallen without a shot being fired.

At the main gate platform things went a little differently. The MPs were more numerous and more confused by the unheard of darkness. There were also many more civilian and military people standing by the security checkpoints awaiting access to a train that was now stopped in the tunnel. When the MPG troops rushed onto the platform their commander yelled through the intercom for everyone to get down immediately.

The commanding MP was talking on his radio at that very moment.

"Lieutenant Beal," barked the confused voice of Lieutenant Smack back at the barracks. "I've just received a report that the main freight access platform is under attack by greenie troops. Expect trouble at your position, take up defensive positions."

"Greenie troops? But..." It was then that the announcement to get down boomed across them.

Beal was young and inexperienced at his job, only recently having been promoted to officer. He had no idea how many troops the MPG was throwing at him and did not consider the fact that they would have the advantage of sight on their side.

"We're under attack by the greenies," he yelled at his men. "Defensive positions, now!"

His men scrambled in the darkness, training their M-24s outward, unable to see a thing but able to hear the stomp of steel-toed boots and the clank of raising weapons. There were screams from the civilians trapped on the platform, the cries of children.

"MPs!" The voice boomed once more. "You're surrounded and your position is hopeless. Drop your weapons and move to the center..."

It happened fast and was over in seconds. One of the MPs unleashed a blast from his M-24 at the general direction of the voice. The bullets arced out and hit several civilians, putting them on the ground. Fortunately most of the civilians had taken the first piece of advice and gotten down. The other MPs opened fire also, Beal included. The darkness was filled with the thunder of automatic weapons and the nightmare strobe-light effect of the flashes.

The point platoon of the MPG reacted in less than half a second. Through their goggles they saw each MP and the flashes emitting from their weapons. They saw the white streaks of the hot shells flying at them. Thirty-six M-24s and four SAWs opened up as one, drowning out the roar of the MPs weapons. The Martian soldiers were trained well, each knowing what their field of fire encompassed. Eight of the fifteen MPs went down with the first bursts. Of the remaining seven, four of them tried to return fire and were cut down with the second burst. The remaining three, one of whom was wounded, threw down their weapons and cried surrender.

"Hold your fire," the platoon lieutenant barked over his command channel. The Martian guns fell silent at once, their thunder replaced by the hysterical cries of the civilian and military personnel that had been caught on the platform between the two groups of soldiers. He flipped on his intercom system again. "Civilians on the platform, remain where you are and do not move. MPs, walk unarmed to the center of the platform and lie down. NOW!"

The remaining MPs stood and, with hands raised, walked towards the center.

"Objective Green is secure," came the voice of Captain Evers, the commander of that section, over the command channel. "We had contact with the MPs and there are wounded enemy and civilians on the platform."

"Copy that," Shaw replied. He was a kilometer away, at the south tunnel with bravo company. "Are any of your men wounded?"

"Negative, sir."

"Get your medics in action once everyone is in the tunnel."

"Yes sir."

He then addressed all of his company commanders. "Okay Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and Delta companies," he said. "All tunnel entrances are secured. Move forward now and quickly. Heads up on the other side, the WestHems have been alerted. Weapons free but use your discretion. There are a lot of civilian and non-combatants in that base."

He received four acknowledgements and the next phase was begun.

At each of the three tunnels leading to Triad Naval Base the primacord was placed on the security doors that guarded the entrances that the trains used. The explosive material formed half ovals two meters wide by three meters high and detonators were attached. The troops stood back as safe distance from the doorways and the detonators were fired, exploding the cord and blasting neatly through the three-centimeter steel. In all three tunnels, at virtually the same instant, sections of doorway clanged to the ground, allowing entry to the MPG.

The commands to move came and, at each of the three tunnels, nearly two hundred troops rushed forward and through the newly created holes in the doors. A squad of infantry stayed behind at each platform for security and prisoner guarding. At the main entrance a squad of medics went to work on the wounded civilians and MPs.

The tunnels were two kilometers in length and thirty meters in diameter, each of them with two side-by-side magna tracks. The MPG special forces troops moved rapidly forward at not quite a double-time pace, weapons ready, infra-red enhanced eyes peering forward. Though complete surprise had been hoped for it had not been achieved. The WestHems knew they were coming and were probably scrambling troops to try and stop them. When they reached the other end of the tunnels, the fun would really start.

Commander Gravely was in command of the Triad Naval Base MPs. He was at his desk in front of his Internet terminal, supposed to be going over some budgetary figures but actually watching the Internet coverage of the events in New Pittsburgh with growing rage. What the hell did those greenies think they were doing? Firing on federal officers. Refusing to honor a valid arrest warrant. Holding all of the workers in the Martian Capital building hostage. There were even rumors that they were engaging WestHem marines down at the barracks entrance. The green bastards had gone too far this time and he relished the thought that the WestHem federal system was soon going to land on them with both feet. And about damn time too.

Things had gotten very bad since that bitch Whiting had been sworn in. What had once been simple animosity between Martians and WestHem had turned into vicious hatred that was often punctuated with violence. The naval personnel on the base were afraid to even go into Triad or down to the Martian surface for fear of being attacked by angry Martians. And now Whiting actually had MPG troops, which were under federal control for Christ's sakes, firing upon FLEB agents and holding hostages. He hoped that when this was all over they lined every one of those traitorous bastards up against a wall and...

His Internet terminal cleared, showing the face of Lieutenant Smack, the dispatch CO. "Commander," he yelled frantically, his faced flushed. He was obviously excited about something. "We need you in here right now. A serious situation is developing."

He almost asked for information right then, would have if not for the petrified expression on the Lieutenant's face. He acknowledged the request and stood, leaving his office and entering the dispatch center less than thirty seconds later. Five dispatchers sat at computer terminals, Smack included. Normally their jobs were to take calls from base personnel regarding matters that required an MP response and to route those calls to their available MP units. They weren't doing that now however. On all of their faces were expressions of disbelief mixed with fear.

"What's going on?" he demanded.

"Sir," Smack reported, "five minutes ago we received radio reports from the access tunnel stations on the Triad side. All three reported that the lights and Internet had gone out and not come back on. Shortly after that, the main freight squad leader reported that he was under attack by greenie troops and surrendering his position. We then..."

"What?" Gravely yelled loudly enough to make everyone in the room jump. "Greenie troops? Attacking our MPs? And they surrendered?"

"Yes sir," Smack nodded rapidly. "And that's not all. A minute or so later the main gate on the Triad side reported they were under fire by the MPG. We haven't heard from them since. The north gate then reported they were overwhelmed and surrendering too. While we were trying to figure this out we received breach alarms on all three Triad to TNB tunnel doors."

"The cameras," Gravely barked. "In the tunnels. What do they show?"

"Nothing sir," Smack answered. "The power is out in them. The power supply for the tunnels comes from Triad, not from TNB."

"Those green sons-of-bitches," Gravely proclaimed, now beginning to feel fear himself. He thought for a second, wondering how bad this situation was. Greenie troops were moving through the access tunnels towards the main base. Why? What could they possibly do if they got there? A terrorist attack of some sort? How many of them were there? There couldn't be that many, could there? Where could you hide a large number of troops on Triad after all?

"What should we do, sir?" Smack asked.

"Move all available MPs to the three tunnel access points. Give them weapons free status and tell them that Martian infiltrators may try to break through. Send the bulk of them to the main personnel tunnel. That's right outside here and is the best access to the rest of the base. Alert TIRT and have them deploy with all of the heavy weapons they have." TIRT was the terrorist incident response team, a platoon of specially trained and equipped MPs kept on hand for just such an incident. Well, maybe not this sort of incident. No one had ever considered the possibility of an armed number of infiltrators attacking the base through the access tunnels.

"Yes sir," Smack replied, calmer now that someone else was calling the shots. He went to work.

Gravely sat down at an Internet terminal and activated it, giving his authorization code. "This is Commander Gravely," he told the computer. "On my authority set base to condition red zebra. All personnel to GQ stations."

"Order confirmed," the terminal replied. "Initiating condition red zebra."

Red zebra was the code for occupation of the city of Triad by enemy forces. Even during the Jupiter War it had not been initiated. All over the base doors between sections buzzed and slammed shut, latching securely and trapping people in their work areas or hallways between doors. Only MP personnel would be able to get through them and only after their IDs were confirmed both by the security computer and by visualization by command staff. The base was locked down tight as a drum.

"Get me Admiral Rosewood," Gravely told the computer next, referring to the commander of the naval base.

Rosewood was on the screen almost immediately. Obviously, when his door had slammed shut on him, trapping him with his secretary in his office and when the announcement came over his screen letting him know that his base was now on the highest level of alert it had ever experienced, he became a bit curious as to what was going on. A quick check revealed the source of the order. He could have instantly revoked it, and figured that someone had made a career-ending mistake, but he decided to see what the situation was first.

"Commander Gravely," he said, staring from the screen. "Did you order a condition red zebra?"

"Yes sir," Gravely answered. "I did." He then quickly explained the chain of events that led him to do this.

"That's absolutely insane!" Rosewood said after hearing the story. "Are you sure about this?"

"As sure as I can be, sir. I already saw the alarm displays on my screen. Sir, our tunnels have been breached and I have every reason to believe that MPG troops, unknown in number, are in those tunnels for unknown intentions. They do seem to have the ability to breach the doors when they wish however." He then explained the steps he had taken so far.

Rosewood seemed deep in a troubled thought. "Gravely," he asked, "what the hell would greenie troops want to attack this base for? Why would they risk the casualties it would produce?"

"I don't know, sir," Gravely answered. "I only responded to the information that..."

"Holy shit," Rosewood interrupted. "The ships in dock!"

"Excuse me, sir?" Gravely didn't see what that had to do with anything.

"Jesus. Mars and Earth are now nearly as far apart as they can get. Whenever that happens we move a large portion of our ships to Triad in case of trouble with the EastHems during this time. We have fifteen Owls and nine Californias in dock right now in addition to the pre-positioned container ships and all of the escorts. All of the personnel that man those ships are on this base right now. If they can take the base, they can deny us nearly a third of our naval forces. A third!"

Gravely stared blankly. "You don't really think..." he started.

"Why the hell else would they be attacking us?" Rosewood asked. "Your precautions should be enough to stop them, I hope, but send the TIRT to the dock entrances in case the Martians break out. I'm gonna have the crews report to their ships and scramble the fuck off of this base until this thing is settled. But you need to give me some time to do that and you need to allow ship personnel through the check points. Can you instruct the computers to do that?"

"Yes sir," he replied. "But it'll take a couple of minutes."

"Get moving on it. And call up all off duty MPs and have them report to either the docks or the gates."

"Yes sir. Should I..."

Alarms blared in the room, making everyone peer at their terminals.

"What the hell was that?" Rosewood asked.

Gravely looked at his screen and paled. "Sir," he told the admiral, "the tunnel doors into the base have just been breached."

"Which one?"

"All of them," he answered, fighting back panic. "At almost the same instant."

"Are your men in place?" Rosewood demanded, catching a little of the panic.

He consulted his screen briefly. "No sir. Most of them are still trying to get through the checkpoints. I have fifty men spread around the three tunnels with the heaviest concentration at the main."

"Shit," Rosewood said. "I hope that's enough."

Like before, most of the action took place at the main entrance. The primacord was detonated and a large hole was blown in the door. The MPG troops were deployed well back from the entrance, backs against the tunnel wall, bodies against the floor. The minute that the door was breached, automatic weapons fire began pouring in from the MPs stationed outside. Most of the shots simply ricocheted harmlessly off of the walls but some of them found their marks in the crowded tunnel. It was inevitable. Cries of "Medic!" began echoing over the tactical net.

The MPG machine gunners opened up, pouring fire through the hole as did the troops who's M-24s were equipped with grenade launchers. Their fire was marginal at best since they couldn't really see their targets too well, but some of the bullets found their marks and some of the grenades caused injury or death by exploding luckily near a deployed MP. Still the MPGs knew the same thing that the WestHem marines down in Eden had found out the hard way. They were vulnerable in the tunnel since they were pinned into a narrow corridor. Here the difference that kept them from being routed out and pushed back to the loading platform was the fact that the doors were not completely missing. There was still solid steel to either side of the hole that had been blasted, allowing cover and a firing position for a limited amount of soldiers. Using this small place of safety to best advantage, men were stationed there to keep the approaches clear of MPs. But still, it quickly became clear that an easy break out was simply not in the cards. There were too many MPs out there and, though they didn't have combat goggles or combat computer support, they were able to lay down a field of fire that was accurate and concentrated enough to make a casualty out of anyone who tried to push out. The invasion of the base would not take place as planned right here.

At the south freight tunnel things were going easier. Once the door was breached the fire was sporadic and light from the opposition on the other side. They had not had a chance to deploy in any significant numbers. The special forces platoons that made up bravo company pushed forward to the entrance and poured machine gun fire and grenades out into the deployed MPs with much greater accuracy and effect. Squads began to pour through the hole into the freight storage and unloading platform beyond it. Here the training that they had been engaging in on the inside of the MPG base — training that they had not understood while they were undertaking it — began to make sense and show its effectiveness in the fight. Like a well-oiled machine, man after man passed through the doorway and rolled either to the left or the right, their eyes searching to acquire targets, their hands and arms adjusting their rifles and than firing at muzzle-flashes and moving figures. There were some casualties taken of course but the sheer speed with which they exited the tunnel kept them to a minimum.

Lon and his men were part of the second group through the door. They spit up into two elements, half moving to the left, half to the right. Lon and the four men with him concentrated their fire on a group of three MPs that were hiding behind an electric forklift and sniping at the men emerging from the tunnel. Lon sent three of his men further right to flank them as he and private Matza on the SAW provided covering fire. The flanking maneuver worked admirably and soon the three MPs were gunned efficiently down with a combination of grenades and automatic weapons fire. From that point on the tunnel exit was clear and Lon's squad moved off to the right flank to help silence the rest of the opposition. The remaining MPs that they encountered began to throw down their weapons and surrender. Each of them were handcuffed with the plastic ties and put down on the ground.

In all, it took less than ten minutes before the loading platform was secure and a beachhead of sorts was established. Medics were brought forward to care for the wounded Martians and, when the time was found, the wounded MPs as well. Major Shaw, who had been lingering in the rear of the column during the firefight, came forward and surveyed the first section of the Triad Naval Base to come under MPG occupation.

"Good job," he told the men. "Now let's push onward. You know your objectives so let's go secure them before they have a chance to gear up to a real defensive posture."

They spit into two elements and headed for the two large corridors at the far end of the platform, corridors that led further into the bowels of the base. The doors guarding them had slammed shut and locked in response to the red zebra condition. Teams went to work putting primacord on them.

Before they had a chance to blow the doors however, Shaw got a vital update on the other elements of the battle. The north freight tunnel, which alpha company was assigned to, had been breached and its entrance station captured with only three killed and four wounded. At Shaw's direction they too began preparing to move further into the base towards their own objective: the docking complexes and the ships that were at anchor there.

But Charlie and Delta companies, in charge of breaching the main gate in the center, had a different story to tell.

"We're pinned down in the tunnel," Captain Evers, the commander in charge of this force told Shaw over the radio net. In the background he could hear the chatter of weapons fire and the hollow booms of explosions. "We won't be able to break out without taking heavy casualties. And every minute we wait, more MPs show up."

"How bad are casualties so far?" Shaw asked him.

"Twelve wounded, six dead."

"Hang tight for a few," Shaw ordered. "I'm gonna send you some help. Wait for my order and then initiate the breakout."

"Copy," Evers replied.

Though the situation Evers found himself in was bad, it was not something that had been unanticipated. "Armand!" Shaw barked into the air, not bothering to use the radio since the object of his yell was standing less then ten meters away.

"Sir?" responded Armand, the commander of Bravo company, as he trotted over.

"Break loose a squad with a hundred meters of primacord and one SAW. We need to flank the MPs on the main entrance before Charlie and Delta can break out. Have them go weapons free by the quickest route and stand by. I'm gonna send a squad from Alpha over to hit the north flank too. Who would be squad leader you're sending?"

Armand thought for a moment. "I'll send the third squad from second platoon," he said. "Sergeant Fargo."

"Good," Shaw said, nodding in approval. He knew Lon personally and was impressed with him. "Get them moving. Fargo will probably be the senior NCO so he'll be in charge of this makeshift platoon under the direct orders of Captain Evers."

"Yes sir," Armand replied.

"Send the rest of your company to their objective but leave another squad here with two SAWs for beachhead security. If this base isn't secured in the next hour, it's never going to be."

"Yes sir," Armand said, switching his radio frequency.

Lon and his squad were called over and given their new orders. He absorbed the information quickly and then consulted his map of the base to find out the best means of getting to the main pedestrian platform. It took him only a minute or so of study to lock in on a course of action. "Let's go people," he told his men. "The sooner we get there, the less Earthlings we'll have to fight."

They made their way across the loading platform to the north side of it, where a small access corridor — its door sealed shut of course — led along the perimeter of the base. Horishito, one of the two men carrying the large coils of primacord, placed a length of it on this door and then set a detonator in it.

"Third squad, breaching side door now," he announced over the command net. There were quite possibly MPs waiting on the other side of the door and his men pointed their weapons in preparation. Part of the security squad that had already been in position trained theirs too.

"Go ahead, Hoary," Lon told him once everyone was in position.

Horishito blew the door, sending it crashing to the floor. No fire came through hole that had been made and his men advanced slowly and carefully to the sides. They took quick glances through the hole finding no MPs but about ten civilian personnel already lying peacefully on the floor, their hands behind their heads, begging the men that they assumed to be heartless terrorists not to shoot them. Lon and the others dashed into the room and secured it, ordering the civilians through the hole and into the main loading area where they joined those already taken prisoner. They then began to move towards the main tunnel entrance nearly a kilometer away.

Admiral Rosewood had moved to the command post in the main TNB control room. This room was a much larger version of the main control room for Triad since it also was responsible for controlling docking, power, gravitation, and traffic control of the naval vessels in port. Sixty-four controllers worked at computer terminals and monitored security camera displays. They watched in disbelief at the events unfolding around them. Rosewood understood.

He now had a better idea of what he was up against and, as such, he feared for his safety and the security of his base now. Thanks to digital camera images that had been taken before the cameras had been shot out, he knew that he had enemy troops in company strength fanning out from two directions, from two different tunnels into vital parts of the base. The blast doors were presenting no problems for them; they were simply blasting them open with primacord. A third company — at least he assumed it was a company — he had yet to get an image of it — was still pinned down in the main tunnel by the MPs. That wouldn't last long he feared. He could see squad strength concentrations moving in on the main gate through other tunnels, obviously to reinforce and flank. He had no MPs to spare to try and stop them, he couldn't even offer more than token resistance to the companies that were moving deeper into the base by the minute. One of them was heading, as he'd initially suspected, directly toward the space docks where access to the 43 docked ships could be had. The TIRT team as well as about twenty regular MPs, were in position there but, even with the heavy weapons, they would not be able to stand up to a company for very long. His attempt to get the crews to their ships to scramble them had been inspired but useless. It had taken too long and their access was now cut off by the advancing MPG.

He had never felt so out of his element in his life. He was a naval admiral, not a ground combat soldier and he was ill equipped to deal with this situation. He had sent off a report to Earth but the length of communications meant that he could expect no reply for nearly three hours. By then the base and all of its ships, all of its highly trained naval personnel, could very well be in Martian hands. And the pre-positioned container ships with the marine division's equipment on board! If they got their hands on those ships, it would nearly double the MPG's inventory of tanks, artillery, and other heavy weaponry! That simply could not be allowed!

It was the thought of these container ships and the marines they were meant for that gave him a glimmer of hope. There were twelve thousand marines down on the surface of Mars! Twelve thousand marines with M-24s, SAWs, and hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition. And there were lifter craft capable of bringing those marines directly to the naval base in a short amount of time.

He turned to the terminal that he was using for communications. "Get me General Sega down at EMB," he said. "Highest priority!"

A few seconds went by and the computer told him, "General Sega is not taking calls at the moment. Would you like his mail server or would you like to..."

"I'd like you to get him on line," Rosewood interrupted. "Go through whoever you have to and tell them that this is a matter of federal security that supercedes whatever he is dealing with down there."

"Attempting to recontact," the computer dutifully told him.

Another minute went by before Sega's face came on the screen, impatience clearly showing. "John," he said, "I hope this is important because we've just been hit by the MPG. I've got a bunch of dead marines over here and a bunch of greenie ass that I'm getting ready to kick. And I'm not gonna take any fuckin names either."

"It's important," Rosewood assured him, dismissing the startling news about the marine base for the moment in light of his own problems. "I'm having some greenie trouble of my own up here. My base is under attack."

This put a sobering expression on Sega's face. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly.

"They hit the access tunnels about fifteen minutes ago," he explained. "Uniformed and armed MPG soldiers, complete with M-24s, squad automatic weapons, combat goggles and combat computers. It looks like they're in battalion strength."

"Jesus fucking Christ," Sega said, paling as he heard this. "How are you holding?"

"Not too well," Rosewood admitted with a certain amount of shame. "They've breached all three of the tunnels on the base side and two of their elements are now moving through the base. We have another element pinned down in the main tunnel but the greenies have reinforcements enroute to flank my men. I need some help up here. My MPs and my TIRT team are not going to be able to hold for very long."

"Our equipment ships are up there," Sega said. "If the greenies get their hands on those..."

"I have forty-eight front-line naval vessels up here as well," Rosewood interjected. "As well as the crews that operate them. That's nearly a third of the WestHem navy. I would say that this problem is one that requires immediate attention. How soon can you get me some marines up here?"

Sega considered for a moment. "I can load a battalion into two C-12s and get them launched in about twenty minutes if I put a rush on the pilots," he said. "Once in flight, it'll take them about ninety minutes to dock with you. Can you hold that long?"

Rosewood looked at his display doubtfully. "I don't know," he said. "We're outnumbered and outgunned by the greenies. I don't even know where the hell they came from or how they got up to Triad without anyone noticing, but there a shitload of them up here."

Sega now looked a little embarrassed. "Well," he said slowly, "there were reports last night of a large number of MPG troops transporting up to Triad in C-10s."

"What?" Rosewood said, a glare developing on his face. "And nobody thought to mention this to me?"

"It was assumed that it was just one of those bizarre training missions that the greenies are always doing," Sega said. "How the hell were we supposed to know they were going to attack TNB?"

"Jesus," Rosewood said, shaking his head. "What a clusterfuck." He didn't dwell on the how of the problem and the assignment of blame for the time being. "Norm," he said, "I'll try to keep those greenies contained but I really don't know if I'm going to be able to hold until your marines get here. If that company we have pinned in the main tunnel manages to break out, they'll head directly for this command post. If they take it, I won't be able to initiate docking for your transports."

Sega paused, seeming to think for a second. Finally, gingerly, he said, "John, with all due respect, would you mind downloading me a situation schematic? I know that you're above reproach as a naval officer but what you're dealing with now is more along the lines of my profession. Maybe I can..."

"Norm, the download is on the way. I'll do more than take advice from you, I'll put the defense of this base directly under your control."

"I think that's a good idea. I'm assuming control of TNB defense as of now." He paused again while Rosewood instructed his computer to send a copy of his schematics across. Once it arrived he spent a few minutes staring at it intently. "John," he said when he came to a decision, "I need you to pull your men out of the dock area and move them to guarding your command post."

"But the ships..." Rosewood started.

"The ships can't leave or do anything without commands from where you sit. The MPG won't be able to do anything with them until they have the command post secured. Trust me. You must keep them from taking that command post at all costs until my marines can dock. That means you put every available man with a weapon in front of and inside of the building. I'll upload a deployment schematic for you as soon as I have it."

"Okay, it'll be done."

Sega's office looked out over the troop assembly area adjacent to the airlock complexes. From his desk he was able to see the huge, cavernous room that contained the flight area, where his C-12s were sitting idle, and the outside assembly staging. There were ten outdated tanks down there that had nothing but training ammunition to fire as well as twenty-five outdated APCs with the same problem. The vehicles were being ignored as the brigade he had tasked to take the MPG base - those that were left of it anyway - came out of the locker room one by one in their bulky biosuits. They assembled in their pre-determined positions, exactly one arm length apart, their weapons slung over their right shoulders. Soon they would exit through the airlocks and move overland to the main city, where they would breach a hole in the wall, causing the loss of pressure in that particular section. The blast doors surrounding the section would slam down and the marines would enter. They would then seal the hole that they had entered through, thus retaining the integrity of the section, and re-flood it with air by drilling holes through into the undamaged portions of the city. Once the pressure was equalized, they would blast through another wall and start heading for the base. This was the textbook manner of assaulting a pressurized city or structure, something that had been practiced many times but that had never actually been attempted in real combat positions, neither by WestHem or EastHem.

Satisfied that the Martian portion of his plans was going forth as scheduled, Sega instructed his computer to get Colonel Summers, commander of his third brigade, on the screen. Summers and his men were currently gearing up in the locker rooms so that they could move out through the interior gates once they were liberated from the greenies.

"Summers here, General," he said once he came on line.

"Summers," Sega said, "there's a bit of a situation going on up at the naval base. I'll need you to break loose one of your battalions to deal with it."

"A situation, sir?"

"Greenies are attacking TNB," Sega said. He then explained the details as quickly as he could.

"Those motherfuckers," Summers said, outraged. "We'll kill them. We'll absolutely murder them, General!"

"I'll be satisfied if you just prevent them from gaining control of the base," Sega told him. "Scrounge up two of our flight crews and start loading your best battalion into those lifters. I want you launching within thirty minutes."

"Yes sir," Summers said, signing off.

Sega gave a quick call to Rosewood to tell him that help would be leaving shortly. Nothing had changed up there - the greenies that had already broken out were still moving through the base, the ones that were pinned down were still stationary, and the ones who were attempting to flank the gate were moving into position.

"Thanks, John," Rosewood told him gratefully. "The shifting of troops from the docks to the control room is underway now. If we can keep those greenies contained in the tunnel for a few more minutes, we might be able to keep them in there indefinitely."

"Yes," Sega said sourly, thinking of the hundreds of casualties he had just suffered under such circumstances. "It's not that hard to do."

He had no sooner signed off from this transmission than two flight crews for the C-12s came rushing out of their ready shack to begin firing up their spacecraft. Ground crewmen followed them out and immediately started the process of hooking starter carts up so that the pre-flight checks could begin. Sega watched in satisfaction as they went about their work. The sooner his marines got up to Triad, the better chance they would have of safeguarding the pre-positioned equipment. And if they were able to do that, he thought, maybe it would become necessary to bring a few tanks and APCs down for his marines to use in retaking the planet. After all, the MPG were using such things in their defense of Eden. It would probably be prudent to fight fire with fire as it were.

Optimism flooding through him, Sega's state of mind shifted almost without his realizing it. Instead of worrying if he was going to be able to safeguard his equipment, he began speculating just what to do with it when it was secured. Surely he wouldn't need an entire division worth of tanks and APCs would he? Probably a brigade's worth would be sufficient. That way he could divide them up into four company-sized units and send one to each of the MPG occupied cities. And as for artillery, well, he wouldn't be needing any of that at all. This would strictly be an indoor conflict, wouldn't it?

As the 640 armed troops slated to head to Mars came marching out of the locker room, their weapons ready, their ammunition and supply backs upon their backs, Sega called up some planning software on his computer and began to formulate just how he was going to retake Eden and the other three cities. As the marines marched up the ramp and crowded into the two surface to orbit craft for the ninety minute trip to Triad, he had the bare beginnings of his plan already formulated.

"General Sega," came Summer's voice over the terminal a few minutes later. "We're loaded up and ready to launch."

Sega glanced at him, giving a little smile. "Very good," he said. "I'm looking at Rosewood's tactical display. The greenies are still moving through the base towards the docks and the housing areas but the main force of them are still pinned in the tunnel. I've ordered all defenders to cover the base control building. There's a good chance the main force of greenies will have broken out of the tunnel by the time you get there, but Rosewood's MPs should hopefully be able to hold them from actually taking control of the place. In any case, it is absolutely vital that you secure that building as quickly as possible. The entire base, not to mention all of the ships at anchor, are controlled from there."

"Understood, General," Summer said. "Can you keep updated schematics of the situation at TNB flowing to me and my men? That would be very useful in letting us know exactly where to land and in what direction to move once we clear the C-12s."

"I'll see to it," he promised. "Now have your pilots get moving. Time's wasting."

"Yes sir," Summer told him, offering a salute before signing off.

While the main assault brigade preparing to march out across the wastelands was still assembling, the first of the giant C-12 lifters released it's brakes and powered up its maneuvering thrusters, filling the flight deck with the roar of a hydrogen rocket motor. The brakes were released and the 350 passenger craft began to creep across the floor towards the airlock complex on the far side of the room. The first set of steel doors was standing invitingly open. The C-12 made its way inside and the doors slowly slid shut behind it, sealing it from the rest of the room. The airlock then began its cycle, expelling the majority of the air out into the atmosphere.

Two kilometers away, a ten-man squad of Major Chin's infantry soldiers were huddled inside of a forward defensive trench. The trench was fifty meters long, a meter and a half deep, and had the entire top lined with heavy sandbags filled with dense industrial shavings. The trench had been built more than ten years before as part of the basic line of defense against EastHem invasion. It was but one of more than a thousand such positions in the Eden vicinity alone. The squad had been in their position since being deployed the night before, their mission to help pin the marines inside of their base. They had been staring at the same view all night long and through much of the morning. All were tired but remained alert, especially since the word of what was happening at the main gate of the base inside the city had reached them.

It was one of the privates of this squad, a twenty-one year old junior member of the MPG, that first spotted something different in their area of responsibility. One of the massive airlock doors that led from the interior of the base to the paved flight tarmac was slowly sliding open along its track. "Movement at the airlocks," he reported, gripping his M-24 tighter against him. "Number three lock is opening."

Around him the other soldiers of his squad stiffened up, peering through the gaps in the sandbags that they were nearest to, readying their own weapons. The SAW gunner racked a round into his chamber and gripped the handles of his weapon. The squad sergeant, a twenty-six year old delivery truck driver for an Agricorp subsidiary company, took a quick look himself just to confirm that what his private had reported was true, and then pointed his own weapon outward.

"Okay, guys," he said, his voice betraying no nervousness. "Looks like the Earthlings are making their move. Get ready to light them up when I give the word. I'll get on the link to command."

As the airlock slowly ground along its track, the sergeant talked to his lieutenant, who was in a trench six hundred meters to the southwest. The lieutenant then talked to his captain, who was in an APC a half a kilometer further west of that. The captain then told the rest of his command and then switched to the artillery channel, telling the three batteries of mobile guns that they had available for their operation to stand by for a mission.

"You know the drill, guys," the captain announced to everyone over the tactical net. "As soon as they start to emerge from the airlock, start putting some fire on them. If they continued to advance, we'll plaster them with arty. If that doesn't drive them back inside, the tanks and the APCs will move up and tear into them."

The Eden MPG forces, for security reasons, had no idea what was going on up on Triad. Therefore they had no reason to think that the airlock was going to be used as it was intended: to launch a spacecraft. Everyone was braced for the rush of marines to come pouring out of the large doorway, probably in at least battalion strength, possibly in regimental strength.

It was the squad sergeant that was first to identify the true nature of their enemy. Instead of the forms of hundreds of biosuited marines, he saw the sleek shape of a modern C-12 surface to orbit lifter when the door finally opened enough to allow a visual. "That's a fuckin C-12," he yelled in bewilderment. "Hold your fire." He keyed up the command net. "There are no troops in that airlock," he reported. "It's a C-12 lifter. I repeat, a charlie-one-two surface to orbit lifter is the only thing in that airlock!"

His report was quickly passed up the chain of command and the order to hold fire was quickly passed back down. This took less than thirty seconds to accomplish, during which time the C-12 utilized its rear maneuvering thrusters and began to edge out of the lock towards the launching area a kilometer away.

Major Chin, who was in the base command post, instinctively wanted his tank crews to move in and blow the living crap out of. But then he had second thoughts. The C-12 was undoubtedly full of hydrogen and liquid oxygen, enough to blast it free of the Martian atmosphere and elevate it up to geosynchronous orbit. If the tank rounds or the lasers were to ignite this mixture in just the right way, the resulting explosion would wipe out a good portion of the airlock complex that the craft had emerged from. MPG doctrine was not to cause needless casualties to the enemy, especially not when the base that they occupied might be useful to your own forces after you took it. He quickly contacted General Jackson for instructions.

"A C-12?" Jackson said, frowning a little. He did not, however, seem particularly surprised by this. "Just one?"

"Yes sir," Chin said, looking at his tactical display. "I have no idea what they're hoping to accomplish by launching spacecraft."

"There's a special forces operation taking place on Triad," Jackson said, figuring it was safe enough to let that particular cat out of the bag since it was well underway now. "They're probably trying to get some marines up to reinforce the navy forces up there. We can't allow them to dock."

Major Chin smiled at the information he had just been given. Special forces up on Triad? Naval forces engaged? That could only mean that the MPG was trying to take the naval base and the ships at anchor there. He silently wished them luck and then returned to business. "My tank crews have a bead on it," he told Jackson. "Should we try to take it out without hitting the fuel tanks? We could probably put a few rounds low and take out the gear."

"No," Jackson said, shaking his head. "Too risky. Let it proceed unmolested to the launch pad and lift off. We'll take care of it once it's in the air."

"Yes General," he said.

The C-12 rolled slowly across the tarmac of the exterior base, its occupants completely unaware that hundreds of Martian eyes were peering at it, that dozens of anti-tank lasers were pointed at it, that a battery of artillery guns were tracking it. It was painted in Martian camouflage colors, patterns of red, like all Mars assigned ships and it was filled to overfull with 340 angry marines packing M-24s, grenade launchers, and SAWs. The marines had been hurriedly briefed on what the situation in Triad was. The greenies were trying to take the base. The greenies! They were outraged by the very thought of this and they were eager to land on the base and kick some green ass. They could also show the navy pukes a thing or two about defense while they were at it.

Five minutes after leaving the airlock, the spacecraft rolled to the launching platform and stopped. The platform latched onto the ship and lifted it to the textbook sixty-degree launch angle. Inside the passenger compartment the marines sat in continued comfort thanks to the inertial damping system. They felt the thrum as the engines slowly cycled up and then dropped back. They waited, gripping their weapons. In ninety minutes they would be docked and deploying. The greenies were going to get a little more than they bargained for.

The Eden area regional command building for the MPG was located six kilometers west of the main base in the unsavory neighborhood of Helvetia Heights. Even in times of absolute peace it was necessary to guard the building with a full platoon of armed MPG soldiers and to escort the workers to and from the tram stations lest they be molested by the gangs that ruled the streets here. On this day however, while the building was rapidly filling with recently called up MPG workers, a full company of infantry had been sent over from the main base and were now deployed around and inside of the building and all the way to the nearest tram station six blocks away. The street thugs were smart enough to keep well clear of the area. The MPG soldiers did not seem to be in a playful mood.

Inside the building the excitement was electric as word was passed about recent events at the capital and the marine barracks. Rumors flew in all directions. On the sixth floor was an office labeled "REGIONAL AIR DEFENSE". Inside this office were fifteen technicians, many of them women, who were monitoring the airspace in a ten thousand square kilometer range around Eden. Orders had already been sent out to the civilian spaceport to halt all flights to or from Eden until further notice. For the first time since the Jupiter War, there was not a single craft in the air or in transit to or from the surface.

The air defense commander, Robert Vendall, had not been briefed in about the events that were now taking place on the planet but he, like most of the people in the building, had long since glimmered that a revolution was now under way. As such, when he received a very powerful order from General Jackson himself, he did not question it and was proud to be the man to carry it out. He in fact had every intention of forcing any man or woman from the room if they hesitated for an instant in following his commands.

"Section four and six," he said into his terminal, speaking to the controllers that manned, or in this case, womanned, the tracking terminals for that particular section of the city. "A C-12 will be launching from EMB in less than five minutes. Charge your lasers and lock onto it as it ascends."

"Yes sir," came the duel reply. The women spoke commands into their screens.

On the northern fringes of Eden, just outside the city perimeter, two fixed anti-aircraft laser sites came to life. Their covers slid open and the stubby barrels of their 150mm cannons pointed upward. The lasers charged up, an operation that took about fifteen seconds, receiving the power from a cable that ran from Eden's main grid. If this supply were to fail, something that could happen in time of war, each laser had a self-contained hydrogen powered generator beneath it. The barrels swung back and forth restlessly as their human controllers, peering through infrared magnifiers that were attached to the top of the laser and down linked to their screen, searched for a target.

The pilot of the C-12 received his launch order. He ran the engines up to one hundred percent thrust and the entire craft began to shake as hydrogen was burned and expelled with great force out the back of the craft. It shot quickly up the launch platform and streaked into the red sky. Inside, the marines watched the ground drop rapidly away below them as they flew out over the greenhouse complexes and the frozen wastelands of Mars.

"We're coming to get you, you fuckin greenies," a young corporal yelled out triumphantly.

His call was met by enthusiastic cheers from his comrades.

"I have the C-12," the first controller said calmly. And so she did. The infrared plume from the spacecraft's engines was glowing brighter than the sun.

"Me too," said her counterpart on the other gun.

"Lock onto them," Vendall ordered.

"I have a lock."

"I have a lock."

The anti-aircraft lasers revolved on their axis, following their targets remorselessly, awaiting their own orders.

"Altitude and range?" Asked Vendall.

"Passing through twelve thousand meters," came the answer. "Sixty kilometers downrange."

"Are they past the edge of the agricultural complexes?"

"Just about."

Vendall nodded, his face expressionless. "Fire."

The two controllers looked at each other for a moment and then at their commander, perhaps wondering if they'd misunderstood him.

"I said fire," he repeated. "Do it now!"

Another brief look passed between the two women but they followed their orders. Two fingers reached down to two buttons and pushed them.

The effect on the C-12 was instantaneous. The quarter second laser pulses burned through the steel of its engine compartment and the delicate thruster engines exploded, sending a rain of steel fragments out in all directions. The spacecraft shuddered violently and began to spin, continuing upward through sheer inertia but rapidly feeling the effects of the Martian gravity pulling it back down. Inside the passenger compartment the inertial damper died at once and the marines, none of whom were wearing their safety harnesses, were thrown against each other violently and tossed about the cabin. Unfortunately for them, the cabin had not depressurized from the strike, an act that would have left them mercifully unconscious. The pilot, who was wearing his safety harness, tried desperately to power up the maneuvering thrusters, which were used for landings on the surface, but his display was dead and dark, the APU attached to the engines destroyed. He knew it was hopeless but he kept trying anyway. Out his windscreen the ground, far below him, was spinning madly around.

The C-10 finally reached the limit of it's forward momentum and started downward in a ballistic arc, spinning lazily all the way like a pencil that has been tossed by the hand of a child. It took nearly five minutes before the craft met the stony Martian soil eighty kilometers from Eden and smashed itself and everyone in it to oblivion.

Lon and his company were now nearly in position. They had been moving section by section through the perimeter corridor of the base, blasting open the doors with primacord as they came to them. These doors were situated every one hundred meters and were monitored by security cameras up on the walls, cameras that fed directly to the main control building. His men shot out the cameras as they went, knowing that it was a case of closing the barn door after the horse had gotten out, but doing it as a matter of course anyway. At each door they blew they braced for MPs on the other side. At each one they found nothing except the occasional unarmed military person whom they advised to march back to the main loading area to be taken prisoner.

"People wandering around by themselves might get hurt," Lon advised each of these people. "Announce yourself well before you get to the last door and keep your hands up. I'll let them know you're coming."

All of them did just exactly as they were told, surrendering themselves to the Martians. Lon announced each one's presence to the sergeant in charge of securing the docks and told him to expect them.

At the eighth door they passed, two before their new objective, some MPs were trying to pass through the security point. They made the lethal mistake of firing at the new hole in the door and were cut down in less than two seconds, their bleeding, dead bodies crashing to the steel deck in a heap.

"Idiots," Lon commented, before moving his men forward.

The ninth door revealed a deserted corridor. They moved to the tenth and Lon halted his squad in place. On the other side of that door was the main entrance to TNB, the place where the MPs were pinning down Charlie and Delta in the tunnel. He contacted Captain Evers on the command link.

"Fargo to Evers," he said. "We are in position, awaiting orders."

"Stand by for movement orders," Evers told him. Lon could hear the sound of small weapons fire in the background. "The other reinforcement squad is still moving in. They made contact with a squad of MPs in one of the corridors and this slowed them down a bit."

"Copy that," Lon said.

"I'm sending you a schematic of the known enemy position and strength out there. We're gonna move ASAP because the longer we wait, the more of them show up."

His combat computer beeped with an incoming download. Lon called up the schematic and it superimposed itself over the map of his objective. He could see the layout of the base main entrance area floating before him but now there were symbols representing enemy concentrations. Red marks indicated known positions, yellow marks indicated suspected positions. There were more yellow than red. He ordered his computer to download the information to the rest of his squad. They waited.

General Sega was following the advance of the greenie flanking position on his screen, noting with alarm that they were now both in position. He expected them to move in and hit the defenders with a brutal cross fire any time now. It would be touch and go for the MPs guarding the base entrance and the command post. Only about a quarter of the troops he'd shifted from the dock area were in place and he foresaw heavy casualties on their part when the greenies finally initiated contact. He hoped they could hold for another ninety minutes.

Now that the first ship was in the air and the second was clearing the airlock, he looked out over the assembly area. Almost all of the troops assigned to take the MPG base were now geared up and ready to roll. He expected them to start heading out through the personnel airlocks shortly.

Sega, aside from being a career military man was also the holder of a master's degree in military history. A part of him analyzed the moves that the Martians had made so far and couldn't help but be impressed. Imagine the MPG pulling off something like the assault on Triad. Imagine them even conceiving of it. Like most Earthlings he held a low opinion of Martians and their intelligence. After all, where had the majority of Martians originated? They'd come from the ranks of the hopelessly unemployed, the welfare recipients of the Post World War III era. Vermin were their forefathers, hopping on a ship and traversing across the solar system to a godforsaken dirtball in space just to hold a job. It never occurred to him to remember that this was the same manner in which the states of California, Texas, and Alaska had been founded. How the countries of Australia and South Africa had begun. Though a student of history he'd failed to learn an important lesson from it. He was missing something big but could not put his finger on it.

The sensation nagged at him as he watched the three columns of red symbols march rapidly forward on his TNB display, pausing for approximately two minutes at each door in the station, the length of time it took for their primacord teams to cut through it. They had assaulted TNB brilliantly in what was obviously a pre-planned and pre-staged invasion. Their intentions were clear: to seize the base and gain control over the ships and personnel on it, denying WestHem of a good portion of their navy. It smacked of a carefully thought out and planned operation. Someone had even entered a counter-plan in the event that one of the attacking companies became trapped in the tunnels. Had whoever planned this not considered the fact that there were twelve thousand armed marines only ninety minutes away in Eden? Surely anyone who planned this operation would have taken that factor into consideration, wouldn't they?

Was there some sort of nasty surprise awaiting his men up in the orbiting city? What sort of plan could be in place to prevent reinforcement? The front of his brain assured him that the Martians had counted on seizing the base so quickly that reinforcements would not have time to arrive. This answer did not feel right however. The Martians were gambling heavily on this operation, which could only be the opening move in a full-blown revolt, a war of independence. They had planned smartly and well so far. They had to have some sort of contingency plan to keep reinforcements from taking back the station from them. What was it?

The answer was so obvious and was staring him in the face so closely that he did not see it until the base control tower urgently called him.

"General Sega!" shouted the excited Lieutenant in charge of the tower crew. Even looking at the two dimensional image on the Internet screen, Sega knew by the man's face that major trouble had just showed it's head.

"Yes, Lieutenant?" he asked tonelessly, bracing himself.

"The C-12 has disappeared off of the screen! It's gone, sir! It's fuckin' gone!"

"Lieutenant," Sega addressed, feeling dread worming its way into his stomach, "I need you to calm down immediately and give me a short, concise report on whatever the hell you're talking about. Start with what C-12 we're discussing here and work your way forward in chronological order from there. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir, I'm sorry, sir!" he barked, seeming to take a deep breath. "The first C-12 full of the marines headed for TNB launched normally six minutes ago. It went up on a normal path until it reached thirteen thousand, six hundred and seventy meters. It was sixty-eight kilometers downrange. The flight path was right on the money sir and then..." He shook his head. "And then it just disappeared from our screen. The IFF display went dark and it was gone. No distress calls, no nothing. We've been trying to contact it ever since with no result."

"I see," Sega answered, lowering his head a little, knowing now the obvious, stupid mistake he'd just made that had killed 350 men. "I suppose you've contacted Eden tower for assistance?"

"Yes sir," he said, nodding rapidly. "Its SOP. We did it within a minute of losing contact. They said they'd tracked it on infrared for the same amount of time we did and then it just disappeared at the same time we have. They even yelled at us for not filing a flight plan or letting them know we were launching."

That had been on Sega's orders. He hadn't trusted the Martian civilian controllers. He'd been right not to. "I understand, Lieutenant. Have you halted the launch of the second C-12?"

"Of course, sir." he said, and then paled. "Is that okay? I mean we don't know what happened and we have to launch some Hovers to go look for..."

"That's perfect, Lieutenant. Initiate your SAR procedures and continue to hold the remaining C-12 until we find out what's going on."

"Yes sir."

Sega figured he already knew what was going on. The missing piece of the puzzle had just fallen neatly into place. His suspicion was confirmed a minute later.

"I have General Jackson from the Martian Planetary Guard on the line," his computer announced. "It is a highest priority communication attempt. Do you wish to speak to him or would you like me to refer him to the mail server?"

General Jackson, Sega thought sourly. A man who he'd held in contempt since his appointment to the leadership of the MPG when it had been formed. A man he'd considered to be no more than a figurehead who knew a few military terms, a has-been soldier in charge of a large group of men and women that were thought to be no more than a speed bump in their role as defenders of Mars. Had he planned all of this? It seemed unlikely. Could he see reason? "Put him on screen."

It took only a second before the dark black face was staring at him. "General Sega," Jackson greeted politely. "Nice to talk to you."

Sega decided to take a stern approach. "Jackson," he demanded, "are your forces responsible for the loss of one of my C-12s a few minutes ago?"

Jackson seemed to smile. "Yes they are, General. Your reinforcements for Triad Naval Base were shot down by the anti-aircraft lasers that defend the City of Eden. Any further attempts to launch spacecraft or aircraft of any type from that base will be dealt with the same way. I suggest you stand down your troops."

"I have rank over you, General," Sega said. "Your little band of wanna-be soldiers are subservient to federal forces under the constitution. I order you to cease all hostilities immediately on Triad and everywhere else. If you refuse my order you will stand trial for..."

"General," Jackson interrupted, shaking his head in amusement, "surely you have figured out what is going on here. Mars is in a state of revolt against WestHem. You are not in command of me, you are an enemy soldier and I'm advising you to halt all flights from your base. If you launch a single vehicle from there, it will be shot down. And before you ask, yes I am well aware of the consequences of my actions."

"Jackson, listen to me," Sega said reasonably, "I need to launch hovers for search and rescue of the downed C-12."

"Not a single vehicle, General," Jackson repeated. "The C-12 was shot down from an altitude of nearly seventeen thousand meters. Eden air defense personnel tracked it all the way in. It came down without power and struck hard. Survivors are out of the question. And as for that cute idea you have about sending your marines out through the airlocks to take my base from the wastelands, forget it. I have a battalion of armored infantry deployed right outside of your base, covering all potential exits. They have heavy artillery support and in about fifteen more minutes they'll have air support as well from our Mosquitoes."

"My men outnumber yours," Sega said. "They will be coming to take your base."

"Then they will be slaughtered needlessly," Jackson told him. "You have no tanks, no anti-tank weapons, no significant air support. All you have are a bunch of jarheads with guns who will be forced to come out of predictable avenues of advance. Keep your people inside. Stand down your troops and await further developments. There's nothing you can do to help. We planned things this way you see."

"Jackson," Sega prophesized. "You'll be executed for this."

Jackson simply shrugged. "Whatever will be will be," he told him. "But that's not your concern. I've given my advice and I suggest you take it. In the meantime, I've got a war to fight." He gave him an ominous grin. "I'll be talking to you soon, General."

With that, he signed off, the image on the screen being replaced by his schematic of Triad once more. Without surprise he saw that the Martians had broken out of the main tunnel there.

The MPs guarding the main gate had the advantage of knowing exactly where their enemy was, in what numbers they were in, and what their plan most likely was. They knew that two squads and at least one battalion would push towards them from three directions, undoubtedly all at once. For many groups of trained soldiers this might have been enough despite the numerical and weapon superiority of the enemy. But the MPs were not trained as soldiers, they were trained primarily as a security force for the base, and while General Sega had issued orders on where they were to deploy in general, it was up to the on-scene officers to decide where at that spot to put the men. They thought that they had decided well by positioning the troops in groups behind planters, MP carts, and other obstacles facing all of the known egress points of the enemy. This seemed like it would keep the men safe from deadly crossfires. On the surface the defensive plan looked good; underneath, it was a deadly mistake.

On a given signal the two steel doors adjacent to the main gate were breached by primacord charges and came crashing to the steel floor. The MPs opened fire into the holes trying to drive the invaders back in, trying to pin them down as they'd pinned down the main battalion. The MPG troops inside held their rifle fire, returning fire only with short bursts from their SAWs while the men armed with grenade launchers on their M-20s crept forward as far as was safe on their bellies. They marked the position of the flashes and aimed targeting lasers towards the obstacles.

Horishito, one of the grenadiers under Lon's command was among the first to fire. Bullets pinged all around him and tracers from the friendly SAW behind him streaked less than two feet over his head as he concentrated on the MP cart in the main foyer area where the flashes were emanating from. His body was flooded with adrenaline and he was seriously wondering if he would live through the next two minutes but he went forward nonetheless. He pointed the targeting laser on his M-24 at the cart and sent it out. The reading flashed before his eyes, seeming to float in the air courtesy of his combat goggles. 93 meters.

He flipped the selector switch on his weapon to the grenade setting. A red targeting recticle appeared in his goggles. He centered it in the air about a meter above the cart.

"Ninety-three meter air burst," he said into his throat microphone, which was set to computer command mode. When his instruction was logged, he spoke a single word and switched it back to communications mode.

"Hoary, taking a shot," he told Lon.

"Weapons are free," Lon replied. "Get the fuckers."

He pushed the fire button on his weapon and it kicked harshly against his right shoulder as the 50mm high explosive fragmentation grenade was shot out of the stubby barrel below the M-24s main barrel. The grenade exploded precisely over the top of the cart and the weapons firing behind it went instantly silent. He inched forward some more, focusing on a planter where another group of flashes was emanating from. He pushed the target laser and began setting up the next shot.

From all three locations where MPG troops were facing the MPs from tunnels or corridor entrances, grenades came flying out, exploding with deadly precision over the top of groups of defenders. The steel shrapnel sliced easily through the armor and helmets of the MPs, killing many outright, horribly wounding others. The sounds of the explosions echoed loudly off of the steel walls, reverterbrating back and forth with jarring concussions. In between explosions the air was filled with the chattering of machine guns and the screams of wounded men.

When the firing positions in front of them were knocked out or forced into silence, the MPG troops were at last able to rush out of their hiding holes. The reinforcement squads came first, all at once. They ran into the main foyer area and spread out, diving to the ground and searching for targets. The remaining MPs reacted quickly, shooting at the choke points and hitting a few of the Martians as they exited.

Lon, positioned in the middle of his squad, his own weapon gripped tightly in his hands, saw rounds from the MPs' weapons go flashing within inches of his head, some of them close enough that he could feel the wind of their passage. On his right Jim Gantry, one of his senior men, suddenly gasped as two high velocity bullets slammed into the top of his head, drilling through his helmet and sending a spray of blood into the air. He slumped forward lifelessly, his weapon dropping from his hands, a puddle of blood forming beneath him. A part of Lon wanted to cry out at the loss of one of his men, one of his friends, but his training kept him from reacting. Instead he simply continued to crawl forward, placing his targeting recticle on the head of an MP and squeezing off a burst. Around him, the rest of his men were doing the same, including his newest member, Matza, who was spraying the MP positions with pinpoint bursts from his SAW, providing covering fire for the advance.

At the entrance of the pedestrian station the two companies that had been pinned in place for nearly forty minutes now finally were able to attempt a break out. With the defenders of the entrance occupied by the flanking squads, they began to pour out of the tunnel using the same entrance maneuvers that the rest of the teams had. One by one, from each side of the entrance, they hurled themselves outward, diving to the ground and then rolling clear for the next man, firing as they went. They drew some fire from the MPs of course, some of it quite heavy, and several of their numbers were struck by bullets, but within thirty seconds enough of them were out to lay down a vicious blanket of gunfire on the MPs.

Hit from three directions at once, and unable to find anywhere on the entrance platform where they could be safe, even for a second, from bullets smashing into them, the MPs gave up the field very quickly. Those who had not been killed or wounded retreated in disarray towards the main corridor of the base, desperate to get to a place of relative safety. Many were shot down since Evers had given the order to keep the pressure on them. Targeting recticles were placed on their backs and rounds reached out, cutting them to the ground. But the MPG could not get them all and more than twenty made it through the wide door at the far end of the platform before the steel door was shut and locked. Battered and terrified, they were ordered to the control building to help with the last line of defense.

The foyer area, for the first time since the doors had been blown, was now silent of gunshots and explosions. Men were screaming in pain and despair and the air smelled thickly of gunpowder and burned explosives. Expended shell casings were everywhere, marking every point that someone had fired from. The MPG soldiers, weapons trained before them, fanned out through the platform to secure it. For the first time they saw the results of the battle they'd been engaged in. They saw it in graphic detail as they came across dead MPs with their heads torn open and brain matter leaking out, armor ripped apart by steel fragments with intestines, kidneys, livers protruding through the holes. They saw heads blasted apart by high velocity bullets and higher velocity, larger caliber SAW bullets. They saw wounded MPs screaming in pain and fear and they kicked their forgotten weapons away from them. They saw their own comrades dead on the steel deck or wounded by the same weapons they carried. They looked at each other with haunted eyes, the gravity of what they were a part of coming home to them in a big way. Thoughts of shouting "Free Mars" at the MSG base a few hours ago entered some minds. They were hard pressed to believe the ease with which they'd shouted that incantation.

Medics went to work on the wounded, treating the MPG first before they even headed for the worst of the MPs. Captain Evers, himself somewhat shaken by the mayhem that had taken place, did his best to put it aside and immediately issued orders for the attack to continue towards the base control room. Within three minutes of securing the platform, primacord was being placed on the door that the surviving MPs had escaped through.

Admiral Rosewood had watched the entire battle on the security cameras. He was numb with disbelief and fear. He could not believe how quickly his MPs had been overwhelmed and soundly slaughtered by the MPG troops once the break out had occurred. The entire thing had taken less than eight minutes. Only twenty of the ninety-three MPs that had been deployed at the main gate had made it through the corridor at the end of the battle. They were now rushing to join the defense of the control building. He had forty-five MPs already in position there. 115 more, including the elite TIRT team, were moving in from other parts of the base but their deployment was pitifully slow, hampered by the very security procedures that had been initiated by the Martian attack.

He checked his computer, looking at the time display. The marine reinforcements would arrive in less than an hour now. Would they make it to the control room in time to prevent the MPG from gaining entry?

As if in answer his Internet screen came to life, showing the face of General Sega. Sega did not look happy at all, in fact, he looked downright miserable. This did little to allay Rosewood's own fear.

"General," Rosewood enquired, "did you see the results of the main gate battle on your display? Those MPG troops killed..."

"I saw it, Admiral," Sega said with a nod, his voice strained. "I'd hoped your MPs would have held longer, but I suppose it doesn't matter now."

"Doesn't matter?" Rosewood exclaimed. "Are you mad? We have to hold until your reinforcements..."

"There will be no reinforcements," Sega said simply.

Rosewood stared in disbelief. "No reinforcements?" he demanded. "What the hell are you talking about, man? Didn't you tell me that they launched and were on the way? Where the hell are they?"

"They were shot down by MPG air defense batteries," Sega told him. "340 of my marines went crashing to the ground from seventeen thousand meters in the sky. That's 340 E-mails to 340 families that I have to write. General Jackson contacted me right after that and informed me that any other ships launched from my base will also be shot down."

"They can't do that!" Rosewood yelled, outraged.

Sega blinked. His patience was obviously at a minimum. "John, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that statement. If you mean that it is morally and legally wrong to shoot down WestHem armed forces ships and kill WestHem marines, I agree with you, but as for the Martians abiding by that code, I'm afraid that they've already proved that they don't. If you are referring to the physical possibilities of the greenies doing this, well, I'm afraid they've got the upper hand there too. My barracks is located directly adjacent to Eden and the city is virtually ringed with anti-aircraft lasers of varying caliber. There is no way for me to launch a vehicle of any size without their noticing it and engaging it. In addition, they have my pedestrian access tunnels blocked in by armed troops and armored vehicles, making it impossible to exit into the city to retake it. I intended to move my men overland through the airlocks to seize the base from that direction, but Jackson has assured me that that avenue of escape is covered with infantry, tanks, and artillery. While I have not actually checked out this statement, I find myself inclined to believe Mr. Jackson in this instance. In short, my men are stuck here on this base, as useless to what is going on as a cock on a cow."

Rosewood sat silently for a moment, letting the information he'd just been given sink in. Faintly, even through the steel walls of his building, he could hear gunfire erupting from the street level below as the battle for the control building began.

"What do I do now?" he finally asked. "I have the MPG right outside my building now."

Sega stared levelly at him. "Surrender your forces," he told his naval counterpart.

At first Rosewood was not sure he'd heard him correctly. "Did you say surrender?"

"I did," he repeated. "You have a grand total of about two hundred poorly armed and poorly trained MPs, many of whom are not even in position yet. Pitting this against a battalion of trained infantry soldiers with machine guns and grenade launchers is like sending a Boy Scout troop to defend South Korea during I-day. Without hope of reinforcements all you can accomplish is the needless deaths of your MPs. Surrender your men right now, before any more of them are killed."

"And just turn the base over to the... the greenies? I will not!"

"You will!" Sega commanded. "I am the highest ranking WestHem military officer on the Planet Mars. As of now I'm assuming command of all WestHem forces stationed here and that includes your naval base. I'm giving you a direct order to surrender the base peacefully to the MPG."

"Sega, do you know what you're saying?" Rosewood was outraged and terrified. "A third of the WestHem navy is in dock here right now. You would turn that over to the greenies? You'll be imprisoned for ordering such a thing!"

"We can't win this battle, John," he said, seemingly near tears. "All we can do is get a shitload of our forces killed and give the greenies valuable combat experience in the bargain."

"But what about..."

"John, sit there and think for a minute. What are the greenies going to do with all of those ships? They don't have the personnel or the know-how to man them. Are they going to use them against us? Please. And did you think that WestHem is simply going to relinquish the planet to them because their guard force managed to overwhelm the pitiful number of troops that are stationed here." He shook his head firmly. "Mars has enough armor and trained men to hold back a few divisions of EastHem troops for a week or so. Our intelligence estimates have always been that it was doubtful that they could even do that. Do you really think they can stand up against the full fury of the WestHem armed forces when they come to re-occupy this planet? WestHem will send five times the number of men the MPG has and will equip them with five times the armor. Sure, we'll be taken prisoner for about five months or so, the amount of time it will take for WestHem to send over a task force, but believe me Rosewood, there will be a reckoning for this and the greenies are gonna pay a stiff price for fucking with us this way. That cunt Whiting and that nigger motherfucker Jackson are going to have their heads on spikes on top of the capital building in New Pittsburgh. The MPG will be disbanded and its officers will be imprisoned for life, some of them even executed. As the old saying goes, they may have won this battle, but they don't stand a fart's chance in a windstorm in the war."

There was silence as Rosewood considered these points. He found that Sega's words made sense, as much as he was loath to surrender his beloved base to those green traitors. He had to admit that there seemed no other option. Already he was envisioning his testimony before the justice subcommittee that would inevitably follow this heinous act.

"Okay," he said to Sega. "I'll reluctantly surrender."

Sega nodded. "Good. Do it immediately so that not a single soldier is unnecessarily killed or wounded. Send a report off to Earth before the greenies take control of the base and for God's sake, be sure to disarm and scramble all of the nuclear weapons on your ships." He smiled. "Perhaps we'll see each other in whatever POW camp they send us to."

"Perhaps we will." Rosewood nodded miserably.

General Sega got General Jackson on the computer and told him his intention to surrender the forces on the planet and above it, effective immediately.

"Very wise decision, General," Jackson said amicably. "I must say that I'm relieved. Our intention is to make this transfer of power as bloodless as possible."

"The marines are going to come take this planet back from you," Sega told him. "If you truly want it to be bloodless, then you'll surrender to me immediately before they deploy."

"Why don't you let me worry about the marines?" Jackson said. "In the meantime, we have some shooting to stop, don't we? Things are quiet at the base right now. I'll instruct my troops guarding it to take defensive measures only for the time being. You need to instruct your troops to disable their weapons and put them back in storage. Nobody is to leave. When things stabilize around here, we'll be entering the barracks to take control of it."

"I want my men to be treated as POWs," Sega said. "With all the rights and privileges that come with it. I don't want any of them beaten or killed by your thugs."

"They'll be treated under the Geneva Accords, you have my word on that," Jackson assured him. "In fact, they'll be held right where they're at. EMB will make an excellent POW camp once we get all of the computers and weapons taken out. Now, shall we discuss the situation on Triad? We still have heavy fighting taking place outside the control room. The navy personnel and my men are being needlessly killed as we speak. I'll order my men to hold in place and take defensive measures only. You get Admiral Rosewood to have his men cease fire immediately and disable their weapons."

"It'll be done," Sega said.

He signed off a moment later and then began composing a hasty email video that would be sent to Earth.

No further shots were fired at the Eden Marine Barracks. The MPG troops holding the perimeter continued to build up at each stronghold, just in case Sega's surrender offer was nothing more than a deception, but they kept their weapons down and their lasers uncharged.

Up at Triad Naval Base, things went just a little differently. Thanks to communications difficulties between Rosewood's command center and the MPs that were deployed throughout the base, it took nearly twenty minutes before all of them got the word that the brief war was over. Several skirmishes occurred in the corridors near the housing area and the ship docks resulting in more than fifteen deaths - all of them MPs, and more than thirty wounded - twenty-five of them MPs. At the control room itself, the MPs here were among the last to hear about the cease-fire. Finally, however, after more than twenty of them were shot down, the proper radio frequency was located and the order was given. The word was quickly passed and their guns fell silent one by one. More relieved than anything else, they dropped their weapons and allowed themselves to be taken into custody. They were handcuffed with plastic ties and stripped of their radio gear. The MPG troops then moved to the control room itself.

They did not have to blow open this door with their primacord. Admiral Rosewood opened it for them voluntarily. A platoon from Charlie Company entered the building, their guns ready for action. They didn't need them. Everyone inside was unarmed and sitting peacefully in their chairs, some of them weeping softly in fear or anger, most stoic. Admiral Rosewood was one of the stoic ones.

"You will all be executed for this you know," he told the troops as they searched everyone, one by one.

"We all have to die sometime, don't we, Admiral," a voice replied. "I'm Captain Evers, the commander of the group that hit this part of the base. You put up a much better defense than we gave you credit for in the planning stages. You should be proud of yourself. You cost me a lot of good men."

Rosewood said nothing. He simply glared at the captain.

Evers was unoffended. He had seen too much in the last hour to be offended by much. He tuned his radio to the command frequency and keyed it up. "Evers here," he said to Colonel Bright, who was still back at the Triad Control Center. "We have the TNB control room secured. We'll start working on gaining control of the security functions."

"Copy," said Bright. "We've restored light and power to the main tunnels. We're offloading all of the passengers on the trains that were trapped at this end and then we'll be sending them back empty to start transferring the wounded. I've got the dip-hoes moving to the platform to help our medics and start transporting them. How many are we talking about from your section?"

"I've got nineteen dead and thirty-three wounded," Evers told him. "We're still getting a count of the MPs but it looks like upwards of seventy dead and almost a hundred wounded."

"Could've been worse I suppose," Bright said with a sigh.

"Yeah," Evers agreed. "We could've lost and had them die for nothing."

Brett Ingram and his group of Martians that were unloading supplies from the Mermaid were as surprised as anyone when the security alarms had activated in response to the condition Red Zebra. Still, they had followed the protocol that was established for such an event, which stated that any ship personnel in the immediate vicinity of their vessel at the time of the alarm would return to their vessel and assist in its individual security. They hadn't done much to assist in the security but those of them that had been in the supply room at the time had come back just seconds before the base computer system automatically closed and locked the docking door, sealing them inside for the duration of the crisis. And so, as the MPG special forces troops were forcing their way through the access tunnels and engaging in battle with the MPs, Brett was sitting on a small chair in the supply room.

Trapped in the ship with he and his offload crew were two security personnel — who's presence were required at all times due to the nuclear warheads on board — and Lieutenant Commander Braxton, the executive officer, who had been overseeing the details of extended docking. They too had been quite confused at first, with the security personnel grumbling about ill-timed drills and Braxton complaining about missing a lunch date with his wife. That confusion came to an end when they scanned through the radio frequencies and happened across the MP force's tactical channel. Upon discovering that Martian troops were invading the base, their grumbling had turned to rage that had quickly been turned upon the six members of the off-load crew. Guns had been pulled and Brett and his people had been ordered into the crew quarters.

"Sit the fuck down there!" Ordered Braxton, pointing at the floor next to the folded-up sleeping racks. "If any one of you green motherfuckers so much as twitches I'm gonna kill you!"

Braxton kept the two security men with him, putting the three of them between the Martians and the hatch. Their guns remained in their hands while they monitored the developing situation on their com-links. Brett was able to overhear enough information to gather that the MPG had attacked the base in force and were overwhelming the base security teams.

What the hell was the meaning of it? he wondered silently, trying to figure things out. Obviously the attack was related to the events going on in the capital but what was the purpose of attacking TNB? Whatever it was he was very fearful as he watched the faces of his captors. They were scared stiff and they were holding guns on them. As reports of company strength incursions moving towards the docks surfaced, they became even more nervous.

Finally came the order for all WestHem forces to surrender.

"Surrender?" Braxton yelled in disbelief. "What the fuck are they talking about? Surrender the base to greenies?"

"What's gonna happen to us now?" one of the security men enquired. "Are the greenies gonna kill us all?"

"What about the ship?" asked the other one. "What about the torpedoes on board?"

Braxton ignored their questions, fixing his eyes on Brett and the others sitting next to him. His gaze was murderous as he raised his pistol and pointed it at them. He began to walk forward.

"Your fuckin' people did this," he said, his finger firmly on the trigger of the gun. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill every fuckin' one of you green bastards!"

To Brett the 3mm hole at the end of the pistol looked as big as the tunnels the MPG had used to infiltrate the base. He swallowed nervously, staring back into the furious madness of Braxton's face.

"Sir," he finally said, fighting to keep his voice calm and reasonable. "We are WestHem naval personnel. We are not MPG members. If you kill us you'll be committing cold-blooded murder and you'll be court-martialed for it when this is over. Don't do anything rash. We didn't attack the base. We're spacers, just like you are."

"You're fuckin' greenies!" Braxton yelled, stepping closer and training the pistol directly on Brett's forehead. "How dare you say you're just like me! You are lowlife pieces of shit and your people just killed hundreds of my people. You fuckin' terrorists!"

"Commander," Brett said, "we may be of Martian descent, but we are WestHem naval personnel. We are not enemy soldiers. We are not terrorists. If you kill us you will not be a hero, you'll go to prison for the rest of your life. Think this through, sir!"

"Commander," said one of the security men, who looked even more nervous than Brett felt, if that were possible. "He's right. They may be greenies but they're spacers in our navy. You can't kill them."

"C'mon, commander," The other security man chimed in. "Put the gun down. Think about what you're doing."

Braxton took a deep breath, his hand trembling a little on the barrel of the pistol but not wavering in its aim. "You're the little green prick that's always making me look bad in front of the captain," he said. "I bet you just love what's going on here, don't you? I bet you just love that your terrorist buddies have taken over this base."

"Sir," Brett said, "I'm just as appalled by what's going on as you are." This was not exactly true, he was more confused than appalled, but it seemed that a little white lie was appropriate under the circumstances.

"Yeah, right," Braxton said, but he seemed a little calmer now. Slowly he lowered the gun down, not holstering it, but at least not pointing it at anyone anymore.

Brett let himself exhale a brief sigh of relief, aware that he had come within a bare inch or so of death.

Just then an announcement was paged across the ship's intercom, which had been accessed by the main control computer.

"This is Admiral Rosewood," a voice said. "Greenie troops have attacked this base in large numbers and we have been forced to surrender it to them. All ships in dock will remain sealed for the time being. We will delay allowing the terrorists access to them as long as we can. The highest-ranking officer on each vessel carrying nuclear weapons is ordered to disable those weapons as quickly as possible using the computer scrambling procedure. I repeat, the highest-ranking officer on each vessel carrying nuclear weapons is ordered to disable those weapons as quickly as possible. These weapons must not fall into the hands of the greenies in a state in which they can be detonated. Scramble them immediately! When the greenies do gain access to your ship, you are instructed to surrender peacefully to them and to obey their instructions. Do not attempt to fight or flee them. God help us all in this dark hour."

There was no further from the admiral or anyone else.

Braxton left the six Martians under the watch of the two security personnel and headed up the ladders to the torpedo room. It took him less than ten minutes to permanently destroy the detonation computers on the weapons.

Brian could not believe the day he was having. He had awakened early that morning expecting nothing more than another day on the streets of Eden, answering calls for assistance and taking crime reports. Now, with lunchtime barely passed, he was in a completely different uniform, sitting in the cockpit of a Mosquito, and circling two thousand meters above the MPG deployment area on the edge of the city. His laser cannon was set to wartime charging level and his wing pods were each holding a 1000-kilogram free-fall penetration bomb. Mars was rebelling against WestHem. He still couldn't believe it, was still not quite sure just how he felt about it.

The surrender and cease fire had taken place less than an hour before. Down below he could see the rows of MPG tanks and APCs that were forming up. The call-up was still underway of course but better than seventy percent of the Eden division soldiers had already reported for duty. More than a hundred armored vehicles were now poised and ready for action, their task to march on the marine barracks and gain entry to it. The APCs each contained a squad of heavily armed and bio-suited infantry troops. The tanks would support them at the entrances. Brian and his gunner were but one of more than thirty aircraft that were circling above in tight formations. Their task would be to support the breach from the air, which meant that they would bomb the living shit out of the barracks if any harm came to the troops trying to enter it.

"I feel like a sitting duck up here circling like this," said Colton, his gunner. "Those anti-air emplacements on the edge of the barracks have probably got a lock on us right now. Those are heavy caliber guns. If they hit us, we won't have to worry about ejecting. There won't be anything left to eject."

"There's only four emplacements," Brian said soothingly, although he was a little nervous as well. "They may get four of us but they'll be dead before they can recharge. I don't think even marines are that stupid."

"I think maybe you're giving them too much credit," Colton replied.

They circled in silence for a few more minutes, the engine humming at only a few RPMs above idle, the fuel and oxygen gauges steady. They could stay up nearly five hours at this rate of consumption.

"Where's this all gonna lead, Brian?" Colton said softly, breaking the silence. "Did Whiting just dig herself a hole and pull us in after her?"

Brian made a quick check out the cockpit window, checking the position of the Mosquito on his wing. He then scanned his eyes over his instrument panel, checking the readings. He then returned his eyes forward, looking out at the armor that was assembling below. "She might have," he allowed. "But we all got the speech before we suited up today, didn't we? We all had the opportunity to back out of this thing. If we're going down a hole it's not because she dragged us in. We jumped in after her."

The Martian troops began to move in a few minutes later. From the wasteland side of the marine base, the tanks and APCs rolled across the sand at half speed, their treads kicking up a huge cloud of dust that was slowly blown east by the prevailing winds. The Mosquitoes moved even closer to the base, circling virtually right above it, where they could provide mass bombing and laser fire support if needed. The tanks held back a half a kilometer from the airlocks, their laser cannons charged, their eighty millimeter main guns locked and loaded with high explosive, penetrating shells. The APCs continued on, not coming to a halt until they were less than a hundred meters from the doors of the airlocks. Their ramps swung down and the troops off loaded, quickly forming up into company sized units, their rifles and SAWs ready for action. Slowly they advanced, expecting to be fired upon at any moment.

Their expectations were not met. When they reached the airlocks, the doors slid obediently open, just as had been promised in the surrender agreement. Inside, all of the marines had been removed from the assembly area and the entire section had been decompressed. The troops passed through the airlocks and into this room quickly, fanning out and covering all of the doors. The airlock doors were then shut again and the assembly room was recompressed, a process that took more than twenty minutes. Only then were the doors to the main part of the base finally opened. The troops began to move onto the base to take it under occupation.

At the main entrance on the Macarthur Avenue side, other troops moved down the corridors to enter from here. At the tunnel where the fighting had taken place they stepped over the corpses of the marines that had fallen in the three breakout attempts.

In all, more than nine hundred MPG infantry soldiers entered the base and took up occupation duties. They found the marines inside to be verbally abusive but otherwise unarmed and docile. They were instructed to return to their dormitories for the time being and they went without question. No shots were fired and the long process of clearing the base of weapons and communication gear began to take place.

At Triad Naval Base a similar process was underway. Here the task was complicated by the limited number of soldiers available and the high number of civilian personnel that worked on the base. It was quickly realized that more soldiers were needed and an order went out to both New Pittsburgh and Libby to send a battalion apiece up. The decision was made to hold all personnel exactly where they were until their arrival.

Meanwhile, the deployment of the MPG continued and by 4:00 that afternoon 98% of the active members had reported to their duty stations across the planet. Each unit that deployed was told of the circumstances of the call-up and offered the chance to forgo participation in what was going on. A few took the offer, removing their uniforms and going home, but the vast majority stayed and agreed to follow whatever orders they were given.

Movement orders were issued to nearly every combat unit that formed up. In every Martian city, armed and armored soldiers took control of control centers and federal offices. Corban Hayes and the remaining agents were in the New Pittsburgh office when a company of troops rolled up outside in APCs and surrounded the building. Though the agents were armed with automatic weapons, they gave up without a fight when an MPG captain in the city control center shut off their power and utilities. Hayes was reportedly in tears as he was handcuffed and led towards the city jail to stew with the rest of his men.

Laura Whiting was still sitting in her office, high above the streets of New Pittsburgh, her attention divided between two Internet terminals, one of which was showing a MarsGroup station, the other of which was showing a big three station. For once the two news services shared a common thread: that of confusion. They reported on the fighting that had occurred on Macarthur Avenue in Eden, and the movement of troops and armor outside the two military bases themselves. They also had a few reporters on scene up on Triad near the tram stations, although they had no idea of what had occurred there except that there had been shooting on the platform between MPG soldiers and MPs.

"The only thing we know for sure," the MarsGroup anchor told her audience at the hourly recap, "is that a large scale deployment of the Martian Planetary Guard has taken place and that those soldiers are being used to fight WestHem forces that are stationed on the planet. Heavy fighting was reported at the Macarthur Avenue main entrance to the Eden Marine Barracks, including the use of tanks and armored personnel carriers with heavy weapons. MPG troops in large numbers have been observed entering the base from both the Macarthur Avenue entrances and from the outside airlocks on the planetary surface itself. They did not seem to be under hostile fire as they did this. It is unknown just what their exact intention is but it would seem that occupation of the base is their goal.

"Meanwhile, other elements of the MPG have taken control of federal buildings, including the FLEB offices, in the cities of Eden, New Pittsburgh, Libby, and Procter. We have tried to interview some of these soldiers but they have all refused comment on what their exact mission or intentions are. Governor Whiting, who's indictment and arrest warrant are what apparently precipitated all of this activity, has not responded to requests for interviews but she has released an email announcing that she will address the planet tonight at 1900 hours, New Pittsburgh time. We will of course carry that address live."

The big three recap was basically the same information, although with a decidedly different slant to it.

Laura sighed as the reporters began rehashing the same information again. Her stomach was knotted and burning from the tension of the day. She took a sip out of her ninth cup of coffee and continued to wait and watch.

Soon Jackson's face appeared on one of her screens. His face was showing the strain of the past few hours as well but he seemed to be happy nonetheless. "The planet is pretty much secure," he told her.

"Pretty much?" she said.

"We have TNB locked down tight and all of the MPs accounted for. The same goes for EMB. We're in occupation of the base and more than ninety percent of the weapons there are now accounted for. We're going room to room with scanners to find the rest. In the four cities where we have MPG divisions, all of the FLEB and other federal law enforcement have been captured and are accounted for. Now we just need to get some soldiers over to the other cities and take control of them there. I've already sent battalions out on the inter-city trains for that duty."

"Could those agents cause problems for us?" she asked, knowing that each of those offices had around a hundred agents.

"Nothing that's going to put our possession of the planet in jeopardy," he said. "They could put up a fight if they were stupid I suppose, but it'll be an ultimately losing one. We'll have them all secured or dead within twenty-four hours."

She nodded. "Let's hope that it doesn't come to that," she said. "What else has been done?"

"Communications with Earth have been virtually shut down," he said. "We've assumed control of the com-sats and have shut off all outgoing transmissions except media broadcast. Per your orders, they're still allowed to receive signals and email."

"Very good," she said, and then braced herself. "And the casualties?"

"Relatively light," he said, offering a crooked grin. "Since General Sega surrendered all of the WestHem forces once it became apparent that they could not win, we were spared..."

"Numbers, General," she insisted.

He breathed deeply, casting his eyes upon her. "Thirty-three dead, forty-seven wounded," he told her. "Most of them up at TNB from the force that was pinned in the tunnel."

"And the enemy?" she asked next.

"We haven't got a firm count just yet but we have a rough estimate," he told her. "Including the feds at the capital building and the marines in the C-12, it looks like about 560 dead, 133 wounded. We also lost two civilians and had three of them wounded when those idiots guarding the passenger platform at TNB opened fire on our troops instead of surrendering. For what its worth, the numbers are considerably lower than what was predicted for the operation."

She nodded. "I understand. See to it that names are gathered as soon as possible and that the families of those killed are notified immediately after my speech tonight. And as for the WestHem casualties, make sure a full accounting is sent to Earth as soon as possible."

She seemed morose, and this bothered Jackson. It bothered him greatly. After setting all of this in motion, after all the years of planning and scheming, was she now paling due to the casualties sustained in the successful operation? She should be cheering.

"Laura," he said carefully, "we knew we were going to take casualties when we started this thing. Those MPG troops knew when they went in that they might get killed. The all voluntarily went in anyway. They died fighting for Mars. For Mars! Not for some moon that circles around Jupiter that nobody was even using but that our government wanted to deny to EastHem so they could keep selling them fuel. They didn't die in some godforsaken shithole in the southern hemisphere of Earth fighting fanatical nationalists that hate WestHem rule as much as we do. They died for Mars, Laura, for this planet, so that we could be free. And while I'm sure they'd rather be alive right now and I'm sure their families feel the same, they died for us and I'm sure they'd be proud of that fact; as should we all."

"I understand all of that, Kevin," she told him. "I also understand that you did everything you could to keep those casualties to a minimum. It's just that..." She paused, trying to figure a way to articulate what she was feeling. "It's just that I sent those people in there and some of them are dead now. Tonight I'm going to ask for more people to sign up to do the same and, if they agree to do it, we're going to lose some of them too. We face a long, hard struggle against a superior enemy and each one of our soldiers that dies in this conflict is a living, breathing person with a family, with a life. I just want to make sure that I never allow myself to forget that, that I never treat them as pawns in a chess game against WestHem. I never want to hear you say the term 'acceptable losses' to me. Never. No loss is acceptable, Kevin. Each one is a tragedy and should be treated as such. If I start accepting the deaths of my soldiers as acceptable or inevitable, I'm no better than the pigs we're fighting. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Governor," he said, finding himself moved by her words. Laura had a gift for that. He remembered himself as a young private in the WestHem marines, stationed in Argentina region and fighting the nationalist guerillas. He remembered his friends dying there, ambushed when alone by the poorly trained and equipped but fanatical Argentines. He remembered the sensation that his superiors simply didn't give a shit whether or not he lived or died. He did not want a single soldier under his command to ever feel like that. "I do understand, perhaps even better than you do yourself."

"Good." She gave him a weak smile. "Please continue your report."

Jackson looked down, consulting some notes he had before him. "We have a preliminary estimate on POWs here. We have captured approximately forty-six thousand WestHem military personnel at the two bases on Mars. Of course more than eight thousand of those captured at TNB are Martian civilians that worked on the base. They'll of course be released as soon as they are identified. The rest are sworn members of the WestHem armed forces. Preliminary numbers put the number of those that are Martian citizens at approximately eight percent. We've got people working the computers right now and we'll segregate the Martians from the Earthlings when we ID them. As for how many of that eight percent are loyal to Mars?" He shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. I like to think it'll be in the upper ninety percent range, but who knows?"

"If it isn't at least in the upper eighties, especially among the navy," Laura opined, "we're in a lot of trouble."

"Well, we'll squeak by, no matter what," Jackson answered optimistically. "Right now the POWs are still confined to their bases, most of them in their assigned housing units. Processing will start shortly. We'll segregate the Martians and keep them at TNB and then we'll move the bulk of the Earthlings to the compounds we'll be setting up in Libby and Procter. Most of the marines however, will be held right on the barracks grounds where they were stationed. A convenient, pre-positioned POW camp. We'll use the MPG troops that are prison guards in their civilian lives to watch over them; those that aren't vital to combat operations anyway."

"Sounds like a good plan," Laura said approvingly.

"Thank you. I thought of that part myself."

"Any idea whether or not we'll be able to use Interdiction as a plan?"

"Matt Belting will be launching to Triad later today. He'll be the man to make the final decision on that but I don't imagine he'll be able to say until after we vote whether to go ahead with this revolution or not and after he has a preliminary report on the recruits we get with naval experience. I certainly hope we'll be able to pull it off. If we don't, my troops are gonna have quite a fight on their hands when the WestHems finally make their landings here."

"Too much of a fight?" she asked.

He stared at her. "Laura, you know what kind of odds we face even under the best of conditions. WestHem has the power and might to send a whole lot of trouble our way. We need Interdiction to go off at least in some capacity or we're going to lose some cities to the marines once they land. That may not lose us the war, but it'll sure make it longer, harder, and deadlier. I've planned my campaign under the assumption that we won't man a single ship or stop a single WestHem transport before it reaches Mars, but my job will be a whole lot easier if Interdiction goes forth with at least a small measure of success."

"Then I guess my speech tonight had better be inspiring," she said simply.

"If I know you Laura, and I do, you might even get some of those corporate haunchos to sign up."

Under Whiting's orders, all of the office workers in the capital building were released, including the legislature and Lieutenant Governor Scott Benton. They did not go home as was offered. At Benton's suggestion, the legislature immediately convened a special session and voted to condemn Laura Whiting's actions and to open an investigation into impeachment proceedings for her actions. They added an addendum demanding her immediate removal from office during the course of the investigation. This time, with a clear course of action and with no pause to consider recall campaigns, the vote passed, with only half of those legislative members that had shifted loyalties during the last few months voting against it. The Lieutenant Governor ordered the results of the vote immediately transmitted to her through the secure Internet channels.

Laura did not address them in person, though she did broadcast her reply to them on the big screen in the legislative chambers.

"Sorry, folks," she told them, shaking her head sadly, "I'm afraid I won't be honoring your vote, at least not yet. Things have gone a little far for that."

"It's a constitutional requirement that you honor the vote," Benton, acting as spokesman, told her firmly. "You do not have a choice whether or not to honor it. You will step down immediately and I will take over as Governor."

"Our constitution was put aside when the first shots were fired downstairs," she returned. "I will not stand down unless the Martian people ask me to stand down. No votes from the legislature will be binding until further notice."

"You can't do that," Benton nearly screamed. "You have no authority to disregard a vote. None!"

"Those armed men under my command have given me the authority," she said. "Right now they are following my orders and they are securing this planet from WestHem interests, of which you Scott, and most of you on the legislature are included in. As Martian citizens you will have the opportunity to judge my actions and vote upon them in a few days. Until then, this office and the Martian Planetary Guard are in charge of the planet. The legislature is hereby dismissed from office until further notice. You will all vacate the building immediately or I will have the troops remove you."

"We're not leaving," Benton told her. "And we will not allow you to pervert our constitution in this manner. You will step down right now and submit yourself to custody or I will..."

"You will what, Scott?" she asked him. "Have the feds take me into custody? There are no more feds in New Pittsburgh. The MPG is loyal to me and my orders and we have initiated a revolt against WestHem. A revolt, do you understand? Revolts are not stopped by votes cast by playthings of the people we are rebelling against. Now I'll tell you one more time, leave the capital building or you will be removed by force."

"We're not leaving," he repeated stubbornly.

She smiled. "Tell that to the soldiers when they come up to remove you then," she said, and then signed off.

Ten minutes later, an entire platoon of armed soldiers entered the legislative chamber. Five minutes after that, the entire legislature and Scott Benton were escorted out of the building at gunpoint.

Chapter 7

At 1800 hours, New Pittsburgh time, people all over the planet found an Internet screen and tuned it to the proper channel. Some were gathered around a single screen in the living room of a public housing apartment. Some sat in luxury apartments on the edges of the cities. Many were freshly deployed MPG troops on occupation duties. If they were near a screen they watched it, if they weren't near a screen, they watched their PCs instead.

When the speech began there was no fanfare beforehand, no commentary by reporters, no speculation as to what was to be said, no spurt of advertising commercials. The image simply blinked on, showing Laura Whiting sitting at her desk dressed in her normal garb, a dark blue T-shirt. Her graying hair was styled but not perfect, her face showed strain with large bags under her eyes. In that instant the planet held its breath. And then she began to speak.

"Citizens of the Planet Mars," she said, looking easily into the camera as she'd done so many times before. "By now you undoubtedly know that some rather strange events have been taking place on this planet, most prominently right here at the capital building. I will now explain in detail what has happened today, what steps I have taken, and what I hope will come next.

"I was elected Governor of this planet by a considerable margin. As I've mentioned in my speeches before, I ran under a false flag, proclaiming my allegiance to WestHem, and particularly certain WestHem corporations. This was done so that I could be put into a position where I could fulfill a life-long dream. My dream was not to rule Mars, but to free it from WestHem control and influence. My goal, as I've told you time and time again, was to bring this about peacefully. I offered many times to negotiate with the WestHem government in Denver and the various corporations that control this planet and its assets. I have done this publicly and in private, pleading with the so-called 'powers-that-be' for a transfer of assets over to Martian control that would allow these corporations to maintain a profit while still allowing us self-rule and self-determination.

"They refused to even consider this. Instead, they committed themselves to removing me from office in order to silence my voice. When their attempts at using legal means failed, they attempted to destroy my reputation with their propaganda arm — also known as the Big Three media corporations. When that failed — which it did only because of the intrinsic intelligence of you, the Martian people — they began resorting to other means, namely, the use of the WestHem federal government and it's law enforcement branch.

"Now I know that all of you are aware of this tactic affecting you, the citizens. They arrested hundreds for doing nothing more than exercising their freedom of speech. They shot down others like dogs. But while they were behaving like Nazis in our streets, stomping on our human rights, violating all we hold sacred, another group of them was working in secret, acting directly against me. They put together federal charges — charges that were completely and totally fabricated — against me as a means of removing me once and for all. As you all have undoubtedly heard during the course of this day, a federal indictment with six separate charges was issued against me yesterday in Denver. This indictment was followed up with an arrest warrant today — a warrant that calls for my extradition to Earth for trial. The charges listed in this indictment are as follows: Abuse of high office, solicitation of bribes, racketeering, gross incompetence of high office, and..." she offered a smile to her viewers, "... my personal favorites, incitement of terrorism and trafficking in explosives."

Her face turned back to serious. "These are six very serious federal charges against me. I refused to recognize the legality of this indictment when it was served and I'll explain why. For one, this indictment was handed down by a grand jury in Denver. Denver! On Earth. The members of this grand jury were not citizens of Mars. They were not my peers. I was never given the opportunity to answer to any of these so-called charges leveled against me. I was never questioned a single time about these charges by any federal officers. Does this sound like a fair and impartial investigation?

"Some might say that an indictment is merely a charge and that if I'm innocent it will be proven in court. I'm sorry but I just don't see it that way and I believe that most of my fellow citizens don't either. If I were to have gone to Denver and stood trial, I would have been found guilty on all counts by another jury of Denver citizens, after being defended by a federal defense attorney. No, this indictment was not a response to criminal activity committed by me. It was meant to be my removal from office.

"I have committed no corrupt acts, I have not abused my office, I've accepted no bribes, and I don't believe I've been incompetent in my duties. I have certainly not incited any terrorism or trafficked in any explosives. So when federal agents showed up at the capital building this morning to take me into custody, I refused to go. And I will not go until you, my true peers, tell me that I must go, that the events that took place today must end. As it stands now, I'm guilty of much more than simple corruption. I will now explain what happened today so you can all fully understand what it happening.

"When the agents showed up to arrest me, my security detail was ordered by me to stop them. I will point out that I carefully explained to them that if they thought the indictment should be honored, if they truly thought that I was a corrupt, incompetent governor, then they should not follow my orders, that they should allow the feds entrance to the building and assist them in the arrest. I explained to them that failing to follow the feds' orders might expose them to treason charges later on. Not a single one of my detail backed down.

"My detail attempted to take the FLEB agents into custody until such time as the matter of Martian autonomy was hashed out. Unfortunately the FLEB agents did not surrender peacefully but elected to shoot it out inside the lobby of the capital. My troops returned fire, killing and wounding many of them. Most of the outside detail, as you saw on Internet, were taken peacefully into custody.

"As for the other events at the capital this morning, the reinforcement of the feds, the pull-back of the New Pittsburgh Police Department, the peaceful surrender of the remaining feds, you all saw that on Internet live as it happened. I will not rehash those events right now but I would like to thank Chief Sandoza for pulling his men back at my request. This kept Martian police officers from becoming involved in a firefight with MPG troops and led to the surrender of the federal agents. That is how I was kept from being taken into custody for these fabricated crimes under the guise of this illegal and fabricated indictment.

"But as you know, some other things have taken place on this planet and above during the course of this day, things much more serious than my refusal to surrender to a warrant, things with far-reaching implications for the future of this planet."

She paused for a second, taking a sip from a glass of water that was sitting next to her. She set it down and then looked into the cameras once more. "I have known all along," she said, "that the WestHem powers-that-be would most likely not go along with my plans for a peaceful transition to autonomy. I have hoped for the best but at the same time I have prepared for the worst. I have moved forward under the assumption that most of my fellow Martians favor autonomy and are willing to take certain risks for it. As I've said, you will all have opportunity to judge my actions in this regard.

"Many years ago, long before I was elected your governor, in order to assure that when the time came the citizens of Mars would have the means to make ourselves free, I asked my good friend General Jackson of the Martian Planetary Guard to draw up plans for assuming control of this planet from WestHem authorities if it ever became necessary. That plan was code-named Operation Red Grab and today it was put into effect on my orders. Whether or not it was necessary will be up to the Martian citizens to decide and you will be given the power to shut down this operation if you so desire, but let me explain first what steps were taken and where we stand at this moment.

"When word of the coming indictment and arrest reached my office yesterday afternoon, I put the plan into action. The first thing that happened was a call-up of the entire special forces battalion planet wide. These soldiers were transported up to Triad last night and stationed there to wait for confirmation of the indictment and arrest attempt. At the same time, additional MPG combat troops were called up and activated down here in New Pittsburgh and in Eden. Some of these men helped secure the capital this morning but most of them were stationed outside of the Eden MPG deployment center, where they manned tanks, aircraft, artillery, and infantry positions. They too waited for conformation of the indictment and arrest attempt. When that confirmation came, the special forces battalion, who again, were given the free choice to back down from their task, invaded Triad Naval Base and secured it. As we speak right now, TNB and all of the WestHem naval ships docked there are firmly in our hands. At the same time, the infantry and tank troops outside of Eden moved in to secure the Eden Marine Barracks. That base too is now firmly in our hands, all of its occupants and weapons captured."

She frowned sadly. "Unfortunately these two bases did not meekly surrender to our troops. Thirty-three of our soldiers lost their lives in the fighting. Forty-seven were wounded. Casualty lists are being formed right now and the families of those soldiers killed and wounded will be notified shortly after my speech tonight.

"These deaths weigh heavy on my soul," she said, seeming to stifle a tear. "I know that is what a politician is supposed to say and I know that they rarely mean it but please believe that I am speaking these words with the utmost sincerity. Thirty-three young men died while following orders that initiated with me. Thirty-three people with families, children, lives. I will not try to justify their deaths with a lot of patriotic blathering. This was a tragedy and I want you all to know right now and understand that if we follow through with the course of action that I have set into motion today there will be more tragedies like this, some undoubtedly worse, and maybe too many for us to handle."

She stopped, wiping a tear from her face and clearing her throat before continuing. "Once the fighting began at the two bases, I ordered a general mobilization of the entire MPG. My purpose for this action was nothing less than to take control of this planet, to seize it from WestHem in the name of the citizens of Mars. This goal was successful. As of 1520 hours today, the Planet of Mars is firmly in the hands of the MPG."

She took a deep breath. "This is where my actions will stop without further consent from you, the Martian people. Most of you are probably trying to digest what I have just told you. You are saying to yourselves in disbelief 'My God, Mars has rebelled against WestHem'. But that is not what has happened, not yet. Mars has done nothing, I have. I have initiated preliminary actions to secure this planet in the hope that we will rebel, that we will tell WestHem that we no longer wish to be a part of their corrupt system, that we are going to carve out our own destiny from now on. But I will not, I cannot go any further without the consent of the people in whose name I am doing this.

"I've told you several times during the course of this speech that you will have the opportunity to evaluate my actions. I will now explain just what I mean by that. I am calling for a vote on this matter. I will give you two days to think it over and then you may cast your ballots via your Internet terminals starting at 0800 local time on Friday. The question will be simple. Do you wish to declare autonomy from the Federal Alliance of the Western Hemisphere and enforce this declaration by any means available and necessary?

"This is a question that requires a simple yes or no answer. But this yes or no will be the most important you will ever answer in your lives. Your future, your children's future, and your grandchildren's future rides on this vote so I want you to discuss it with your friends, your families, and then vote how your heart tells you to. Due to the gravity of this decision I will require more than a two-thirds majority of yes votes before I will consider the measure passed. I will also require greater than ninety-five percent voter participation before I will consider a yes vote to be binding.

"If the vote is no, either through lack of participation, lack of two-thirds majority, or outright defeat I will immediately stand down the MPG and release all federal agents and WestHem soldiers. I will turn myself and my conspirators over to federal custody to stand trial on whatever charges they can initiate. Lieutenant Governor Benton will assume the governorship and things, for the most part, will go back to the way they were before. If this is your wish, then vote no. If you do vote no however, you will never again have the right to complain about the unfairness of the WestHem system or the unfairness of their rule.

"But before you vote yes on the matter I want some hard facts out on the table for you to peruse. To gloss these facts over would be the worst sort of hypocrisy on my part. I want to make sure that each and every one of you knows exactly what a yes will get us into.

"Right now the timing for a revolt against WestHem could not be better. Mars and Earth are nearly as far apart as they ever get. It will take at least twelve weeks before WestHem can send any troops our way, but believe me when I say that they will send them. Mars is worth trillions of dollars to WestHem and is a primary source of food and steel. They will not simply let us go. If we want Mars to be free, we are going to have to fight them for it.

"Will we win?" She gave a cynical smile. "I certainly hope so but it will not be a cakewalk in any case. No matter what we do, no matter how prepared we are for them, WestHem marines will establish orbit around this planet. We do not have sufficient resources or people to prevent that. WestHem marines will establish beachheads outside of our cities. We do not have the resources or people to prevent that either.

"'So we cannot win', some of you may be saying right now. That is not true. In order to take this planet from us the WestHem marines are going to have to march from their beachheads to our cities and occupy them. Sounds simple? It would be if not for the Martian Planetary Guard. This is exactly the situation the MPG was formed to prevent in the first place. Now you have all seen Internet shows deriding our planetary guard force, proclaiming it to be nothing more than a 'speed bump', good only for holding off an EastHem invasion long enough for 'real' soldiers from WestHem to get here." She smiled. "Well, I believe we can do a little better than that. Under General Jackson's command the MPG is a highly and specifically trained group with excellent equipment and tactics. Their very reason for existence is to prevent, not just hold off, an armed invasion of our planet and if WestHem comes in here thinking that they're dealing with a simple speed bump they're going to have a nasty surprise in store for them.

"But as the MPG stands right now we do not have enough combat personnel for a prolonged combat operation. We need volunteers to sign up for service and, if you vote for rebellion, we need you right away in order to give us time to train you prior to the arrival of the WestHems. If you sign up you must know that you may die or be horribly wounded in this war. We may, despite all of our preparations, lose this war and you may be arrested and charged with treason if this occurs. I want that to be right up front and in the open.

"We may lose. I cannot, and General Jackson cannot guarantee success. If we lose we will be subjected to occupation by WestHem soldiers for the foreseeable future. We will be subjected to even greater persecution and prejudice than we already have to deal with. We will never be trusted, never! If you need a graphic example of this take a look at the fate of the Asian descendents of Earth. More than a hundred years ago they initiated and lost World War III. On Earth today it is still legal to discriminate against Asians, even those whose ancestors were American or Canadian citizens during the war.

"In addition to the tactics of fighting WestHem we have to worry about one other thing. Fuel. Fuel to run our tanks, our aircraft, our space fighters. This fuel, as you know, comes from Jupiter and is supplied to us by WestHem. It is the one resource that we are not self-sufficient in. If we are to successfully fight WestHem and gain independence, we must secure a fuel supply. Now obviously WestHem is not going to keep sending fuel ships here. That leaves us with the unappetizing necessity of trading with EastHem for fuel.

"Aside from the distastefulness of doing business with an entity that once bombed our cities and killed our people, this opens up several variables to the equation of independence. For one, I have not yet contacted EastHem and asked if they will assist us; if they will trade fuel for our food surplus. They may refuse. If they do, all is lost. EastHem is going to have to make a decision of it's own.

"If EastHem does agree to assist us, WestHem may try to stop them. I don't believe that they will since this will flash the cold war to a quick heated state, but they might. If they do that I cannot predict what the long-term consequences will be. Again, this is a chance we'll have to take if the vote is yes.

"So you can see that our fate is far from certain if you vote yes. If you vote no, you can all go back to your lives in three days. You can continue to work for WestHem masters and continue to be fired at their whim and forced to be quartered in public housing.

"But know this. This is the best and only chance we will ever get to make ourselves free. If we vote no, WestHem will see to it that this opportunity is never repeated. Never. We will spend all of eternity as WestHem subordinates and second-class citizens. We will spend all of eternity as slaves to that corrupt, evil system.

"I urge you all to think very carefully about this decision, to think not just about your own future, but the future of this entire planet and all of your descendents. It is my feeling that we can win this war, that we can throw these greedy, corrupt Earthlings off of our planet and live in a society ruled by common sense and justice. Talk to others and gather information and, most important of all, keep an open mind. Most important of all — vote. For better or for worse, I ask you to give me that 95% turnout in this most critical decision.

"In the meantime, I'm declaring a two day holiday for all except vital services workers. The planet is not under martial law so you may move about your business as normal and I encourage you to do so. The MPG will remain activated until after the vote and will be patrolling our cities to help the police keep order. Earthlings among us, you are free to move about as you wish as well. It is not my intention to make prisoners of you in this conflict. If the vote is for independence you will be allowed to leave the planet if you wish if transportation is available.

"That is my speech for the day. I hope I have explained myself sufficiently and I hope that you will head my words. Good night, and think carefully about what I have told you."

Orbiting City of Departure—Geosynchronous Earth orbit.

Admiral Tanner Jules was the commander-in-chief of the WestHem navy's Far Space fleet. CINCFARSP was his handle. He was the latest in a long line of naval commanders his family had produced, a direct descendant of the first captain of the first space-going warship that WestHem had ever launched. Though he was mainly a bureaucrat these days, he had seen combat as the captain of a California class warship back in the Jupiter War; a ship that had destroyed two EastHem warships before being crippled by a nuclear torpedo from an EastHem stealth attack ship.

He had not been privy to the impending arrest of Governor Whiting on Mars and his day had been filled with routine computer work. He was now at home, with no idea that the worst evening of his life was about to commence.

This really was a pity, because he was engaging in a rather pleasant evening otherwise.His wife was on vacation in Hawaii and he was entertaining a young staff officer that worked in the Far Space Headquarters building at Armstrong Space Force Base, where the space fleet of Earth was based. She was twenty-six years old, blonde, very attractive, and very eager to work her way, as it was, up the Navy bureaucratic ladder. He'd spotted her from almost the instant she'd appeared in her current assignment but this was the first time he'd managed to get her alone. She seemed more than receptive to what his intentions were.

They were in his residence quarters on the —103rd floor of an exclusive housing building on the outside of Departure. The apartment itself was six hundred square meters, a virtual kingdom aboard a space city. The living room, in which they were currently sitting, featured a large picture window that looked out upon the blue, white Earth floating far below. From the Internet system soft, sensual music was playing and a blazing fire hologram (complete with artificial warmth) was showing in a space specifically designed for it across from the window. The furniture was ultra modern, comfortable, obviously expensive. Jules was in a genuine silk dressing gown, sipping a glass of white wine. The young staff officer, Lieutenant Megan Riley, was wearing a cocktail dress. She was beaming at him delightfully, making his libido soar.

"More herb, my dear?" he asked, inching a little closer to her.

She giggled. "Maybe a little."

He picked up the slender hose that sat on the table before her, putting it to her lips. The other end of the hose led to a small electric bong that sat on the table. The bong had a cartridge of compressed Martian green marijuana in its chamber, perhaps the finest and most expensive variety commercially available (a product of Agricorp). She giggled as he pressed the button on the hose and a water-cooled stream of smoke was ejected. After inhaling deeply he gently pulled the hose from her mouth and put it to his own. A push of the button and his own lungs filled with the sweet, intoxicating smoke. He held it in, staring into her eyes, noting her receptiveness. He put his arm around her and pulled her to him. She came willingly. He knew that when he exhaled the smoke he would kiss her and then the fun would really start, all of the innocent, though politically necessary innuendos cast aside.

The music was suddenly halted, breaking the mood.

"What the hell?" Jules barked, the smoke belching out of him.

"Priority message from Admiral Lucid," the voice of his computer said. "Would you like to answer it or refer it to the mail server?"

He felt his face turning red. What the Christ was this? A priority message? From Lucid? Lucid was the supreme commander of WestHem naval forces — his boss — though he was an idiotic political appointee. He looked at the nearest time display, seeing that it was 2135 hours here in space. That would make it 2035 hours in Denver, long past the time that fat prick should have been gone from his office for the day. What could possibly have come up after office hours that he needed to send a priority message — which Jules was obligated to answer — right now?

He sighed. "Excuse me for one moment, my dear, will you?"

"Of course," she giggled, picking up the marijuana hose again.

As he strolled over to the nearest terminal he shot a glance out the window. Departure was in geo-synch orbit over the west coast of South America. From this vantage point Jules could clearly make out North America. The central portion was in darkness at the moment but free of cloud cover. He could see the tiny blot of light that signified the Denver metropolitan area. He projected a death wish towards it.

"Send the message to terminal two," he spoke into the air.

The computer picked up his voice, performed the normal security check upon it, and then routed the transmission to the living room Internet terminal. The screen filled with the face of Admiral Lucid.

"Hi, Gene," Jules said pleasantly. He was an experienced bureaucrat and allowed no hint of his real feelings in his voice or facial expression. "What's going on?"

"Tanner," Lucid answered, visibly upset. "We've got big problems on Mars."

"Mars?" Jules repeated, alarmed. "Is it EastHem?" In any hot war with EastHem, Mars would most likely be a primary target for attack or invasion.

"No," was the reply. "It's not that bad, but it's close and much more embarrassing for you and me both." He shook his head sadly. "The goddamn greenies have attacked and captured TNB."

"What?" Jules said, his mouth dropping open. The greenies? Triad Naval Base? Attacked it? "How? Who?" he finally asked.

"That's not all they've done," Lucid said. "That bitch Whiting has apparently taken command of the Martian Planetary Guard and they have the entire fucking planet under control. They have possession of all of the ships in dock at TNB and all of the personnel that manned them. They have possession of the nuclear torpedoes on the Owls and the Californias as well."

"Gene," he said in disbelief. "That's insane." He had more than 40,000 people stationed at Triad! He had his entire far space fleet there except for whatever was deployed at Ganymede. "How could they have done something like that?"

"My understanding is that it was a surprise attack by the MPG, forcing entry through the transportation tunnels and cutting their way in with primacord charges. They overwhelmed the security force in less than an hour. General Sega — a fucking jarhead in charge of the Marines on Mars — took command of all the Martian forces and surrendered them." He shook his head. "Surrendered them! To greenies! Can you believe it? That bastard will be court martialed for that little decision, I can tell you that."

Jules paled as a thought occurred to him. "The nuclear torpedoes, Gene, are they still..."

"The security watch crews were able to wipe their programming. It's SOP. I wouldn't think that the greenies would be able to utilize them for anything. But they do still have the physical components."

"Thank God for small favors. But Gene, how could something like this have happened? What the hell are the greenies doing? What could they possibly hope to gain?"

"We don't know but we need to find out," he said, since the transmissions in which Whiting gave her speech to the planet were still on their way across the emptiness of space. "I need you to address the executive council tomorrow morning at 0800 on what has happened and what we're going to do about it."

"The executive council?" he said, fear shooting through the stoned haze of his mind. "I don't know anything about what's happened! How can I brief them? I need someone to brief me! And that will take..."

"You need to get dressed immediately and head for Armstrong. A T-7 will take you down to Colorado Springs. I'll have all of the info we've developed so far on a disk waiting for you. You can get yourself briefed in on the way down. Once you're in Colorado Springs I'll have a room ready for you at VIP quarters. Get on the Internet and start researching from there. You need to have a complete briefing ready for them at 0800 tomorrow even if you have to stay up all night. Include what happened, how it happened, and what the possibilities are that the greenies can get any of those ships operational."

"Operational?" Jules said, puzzled. "How the hell would they do that? They don't have any naval personnel capable of commanding a warship."

"Don't they?" Lucid asked. "They have a hell of a lot of former WestHem navy spacers living on Mars and carrying Martian citizenship. Many of them work on the food and steel transport ships. Is there any possibility that..."

"No," Jules said firmly, wondering why he had to explain something so basic to a man that was allegedly his superior. "No Martian has ever been placed in command of one of our ships since that idiot Belting back in the Jupiter War. And you know what happened there. I'd say that well over ninety percent of the Martians that have served in the navy never made it past enlisted rank. Sure, some of them may have observed command tactics and procedure but it is simply inconceivable that they would be able to operate a single one of those ships. And even if they could, what would they do with them? The most dangerous things they have are the Owls and those are useless without the torpedoes being active."

Lucid seemed somewhat relieved. "That's good to know." He said. "Be sure to come up with hard statistics to back it up when you brief the executive council. I just got the ass chewing of my life from them a few minutes ago. They are extremely worried about the possibilities of the Martians manning those ships. You'll have complete, top secret Internet retrieval access of course."

Jules shook his head again, still unable to believe what he'd just been told, still waiting for Lucid to tell him this was an elaborate joke. But it wasn't.

"Your T-7 pilot has been told to be ready to depart for Colorado Springs in one hour. See to it that you do not make him late."

"Yes sir," Jules said.

The face disappeared from the screen, leaving only the time display. From the speakers the soft music returned. He looked across the room at the young lieutenant. He no longer felt stimulated.

Armstrong Space Force Base — Departure

The T-7, and it's civilian counterpart, the LX-5, were among the smallest Earth-to-orbital vehicles manufactured. They were less than seventy meters in length, ten wide. Their primary purpose was the transportation of the elite, those that did not care to travel with the masses on standard orbital flights. In the civilian world the LX-5s were utilized by corporate heads and upper management. In the military world, they were used by executive committee members and high-ranking command staff. They were obscenely luxurious, equipped with plush seats, carpeting, overlarge Internet screens with full access, drink and marijuana delivery systems in each seat, and inertial dampened comfort to keep the occupants unaware of the stringent pitches, dives, and acceleration/deceleration cycles.

Though Admiral Jules was not important enough to rate his own personal T-7, he was important enough to rate the use of one of the spares that were always in waiting at Armstrong for people such as him. He and his two senior staff members boarded at the prescribed time, each grabbing a seat and plugging the briefing disks they'd been provided into the Internet screens before them. Though the craft was capable of carrying another twenty-two passengers in the same comfort as the Admiral and his staff, the pilot, a senior commander, knew that this was the load for the trip. It seemed an awful waste of the precious fuel that had come all the way from Jupiter to be burned, but that was not his concern. He sealed up the craft and was given immediate departure clearance.

The T-7 broke contact with the docking airlock and fired its starboard maneuvering thruster briefly, causing the orbiter to drift away. As it cleared the docking area, the thrusters were fired again, longer this time, pushing it out into the departure corridor. With further bursts of different maneuvering thrusters the craft spun around so it's main thrusters were facing in the direction of its orbit. This minute maneuvering was the main part of the pilot's job. While he was doing it, the computers calculated all of the factors to bring the craft out of orbit and onto a proper trajectory towards Colorado Springs and a soft landing at the field there.

When the pilot had the craft steady in the corridor he checked with Armstrong control. They gave him the go-ahead and he gave the computer the go-ahead. There was a brief countdown and the main thrusters fired, initiating the de-orbit burn. From the perspective of the T-7, the spacecraft seemed to streak rapidly away from the orbiting city of Departure, leaving it far behind. In actuality it was Departure that was continuing ahead on its normal orbital path while the T-7 was decelerating at three times the force of gravity. It began to drop towards the Earth and it's rendezvous with the atmosphere far below.

Inside the cabin Admiral Jules did not watch the Earth growing in his window and, thanks to the inertial damper, he was not pressed violently backwards into his seat. He was watching in disbelief as the events of the last eight hours were displayed for him on the screen. He watched the news clips of the shoot-out in New Pittsburgh, he watched the initial reports from TNB as the MPG troops attacked it. He replayed several of these over again, as did his staffers.

Just as he got to the cry for reinforcements from Admiral Rosewood to General Sega, the T-7 cut its engines and spun around once more, presenting it's belly to the approaching atmosphere of Earth. It continued to drift downward, pulled by the forces of gravity that were now stronger than its forward momentum. Shortly the craft entered the atmosphere where friction began the job of decelerating it from orbital velocity to atmospheric flight speed. The view out the side windows disappeared, replaced by steaks of fiery red as the tremendous heat of re-entry was bled off.

Normally during re-entry flights Jules would stare out the window at this point, nervously awaiting the reappearance of scenery, which would signify the end of the dangerous friction period. Over the course of history, re-entry had accounted for more spacecraft accidents than anything else. Accidents that were invariably fatal to the occupants. A single flaw in the heat shield, the simple result of a simple maintenance oversight, and the spacecraft in question would incinerate itself and everything inside of it. It was said that it usually happened so quickly that the occupants were dead before they even glimmered that something was wrong. Jules would ponder that knowledge while watching the streaks of intense heat outside his window, wondering what it was like to be there one moment and evaporated into ash the next, wondering if what was said was nothing but propaganda designed to make space travelers ride easier, if they actually died in burning agony, their deaths taking minutes.

But on this flight he paid scant attention to re-entry, not even breathing a sigh of relief when it was over and the many cities of Brazil, Venezuela, and Columbia regions could be seen glowing beneath them once more. As the wings deployed, slowing them further, and the T-7 turned northwest, heading across the Caribbean Sea towards North America, Jules continued his perusal of the attack on TNB, expressing guttural profanity but also feeling, very much against his will, a large measure of respect for the author of the attack. They had been caught with their pants down; nothing more, nothing less. But how could they have anticipated something like this? An attack on the base by so-called friendly forces? They had underestimated the MPG. It would not do to make such a mistake again.

WestHem Capital Building—Denver

The view was impressive from the large picture window in the executive council briefing room. The window looked east, out over the entire expanse of the thirty-eighth most populous city in WestHem; the sixty-third most populous in the solar system. The tops of innumerable high-rise buildings could be seen stretching away for kilometers in every visible direction. Each roof was dotted with landing pads and parked VTOLS, the transportation system for the elite. It was 0745, just fifteen minutes before the start of the workday, and the little craft could be seen buzzing and circling everywhere like flies, the computer systems that ran them delivering their corporate masters to their offices. Beyond the high rises of downtown were the housing complexes of the upper and then the middle class. Beyond those were the slums, which stretched to the horizon and beyond; thousands of square kilometers of unspeakably dangerous neighborhoods populated by more than eight million unemployed and unemployable. Every major city on the planet had similar ghettos of similar proportion.

Like most employed WestHem citizens, Admiral Jules got the screaming horrors at the mere thought of ever having to live in the squalor of WestHem's ghettos; the fate of those that suddenly had their income removed from them. They were the epitome of lawlessness and chaos. The cops themselves did not enter them in anything less than platoon strength; and even then they might take casualties. They only reason they did go in was to track down a person responsible for a crime against an employed person or to enforce the stringent breeding laws. Among themselves the unemployed were free to rape, kill, assault, rob, or even molest each other's children. They were an entity onto themselves with little chance to ever pull themselves free. They were not even counted in the census. As long as they stayed within their boundaries, obeyed the breeding law, and confined their crimes to each other, they were left alone, living on welfare money, free alcohol, free marijuana, free Internet, free substandard housing. He eyed the ghettos nervously from his chair in the briefing room while he awaited the arrival of the rulers of the western hemisphere. The TNB fiasco would be penned as his responsibility. Would they dismiss him for it? Remove his pension? Sentence him to live out his life in those ghettos? He vowed he would kill himself long before it came to that.

He was bleary from lack of sleep and his stomach burned from the three strong cups of coffee he'd consumed with his breakfast. He'd been up until well past 0400 researching and preparing his briefing; perhaps the most important briefing he would ever give in his career. He was dressed in his Class A uniform of course, all of his campaign and service metals neatly in place. Before him, at the large rounded oak table where the guests of the council sat, was an Internet terminal into which he'd already inserted the briefing disk he and his staff had created. At the front of the room, above the elevated seats that the executive council would soon occupy, was a larger screen, onto which his figures and the figures of the other briefers would appear.

Would there be other briefers? he wondered. Currently he and his staff were the only ones in the room besides the secret service team, who stood expressionless at their positions near the doors, the council chairs, and the window. Surely he would not be the only one called on the carpet for what had happened on Mars.

As if in answer to his question the door slid open behind him and General Wrath, the commander in chief of the Far Space marines entered. CINCFARMAR was his designation and Jules knew him well, on a first name basis in fact. The far space navy and marines, though full of the traditional animosity that had existed between the navy and the marines since the 1700s, worked closely together and relied upon each other. Wrath and Jules' jobs were closely entwined. The two were professional acquaintances, quite close in that regards, although not exactly friends.

"Richard," Jules greeted, offering a smile and an outstretched arm as the General and his staff entered the room.

Wrath, dressed in his own class-A uniform, little changed since the early twentieth century, shook his hand warmly. "Tanner," he greeted. "I see you're here for the same purpose as me."

Jules nodded his head cynically. "Yes I am. It seems our bosses want a few questions answered about what happened yesterday."

"Those fuckin' greenies," Wrath commented sourly. "Who the hell would have believed they were capable of this? And that bastard Sega." He shook his head. "He'd better hope the greenies kill his ass. Can you imagine? Surrendering all of the forces with barely a fight? He must've been mad."

The men took their seats, Wrath taking the chair next to Jules, Wrath's staff taking the seats on the other side. The marine general inserted his own briefing disk into the Internet terminal before his chair.

"Were you up all night too?" Jules asked, noting the bags under his counterparts' eyes.

Wrath nodded wearily. "This clusterfuck pulled me out of a formal dinner party. Not that that was upsetting; I hate those fuckin' things. But I spent the next five hours on a flight from Buenos Aires getting briefed in. We then stayed up all night researching and planning how to take that planet back from the greenies if it comes to that."

"Do you think the greenies will really vote for independence?" Jules asked him. "I mean, Whiting didn't exactly make it sound too hopeful in her speech or anything. She actually told them that they might not win. What kind of propaganda is that?"

Wrath shook his head. "I think they just might," he said. "Greenies are not like Earthlings. They don't think the same way we do. Think about where they came from; the unemployed. They actually like speeches like that, they actually like to fight the odds."

"They can't possibly beat us though," Jules pointed out. "What the hell are they thinking?"

"I don't know," Wrath answered. "She told them in her speech that we would send troops to take the planet back and you can bet your ass that we will. She can't possibly think that their little civilian soldier force and their cute little airplanes are going to stop us when we land a half a million troops with tanks, full hover support, artillery, and APCs on that flying shithole. We'll have them routed and mopped up in two days."

"Maybe she is mad," Jules suggested. "Maybe she's trying to go down in Martian history as a martyr; the first woman who ever tried to make Mars free or some shit like that. Who knows what she is thinking but I've been over the figures time and time again and I can see no conceivable way that they can prevent us from landing and taking that planet back."

"There is no way," Wrath agreed. "But whoever said the greenies were smart?"

The door opened once again and yet another briefer entered. This time it was a man that neither Jules nor Wrath had ever met personally though both recognized him on sight thanks to his frequent appearances in Internet news clips. It was FLEB director Stanley Clinton. He was dressed in a neat, conservative suit and had bags under his eyes similar to the two military officers'. He had no staff with him, simply walking alone to a seat well away from the military leaders and their staffs, making not so much as a nod of greeting, and sat down. He inserted a disk of his own into a terminal.

Silence prevailed until 0804 when the set of doors near the front of the room slid open, signaling the entry of the council. Everyone in the room quickly stood to attention as the nine men and three women of the council, all dressed in business suits of their own, strode into the room. Their faces were grim as they took their chairs, taking their time making themselves comfortable. Finally one of them, Loretta Williams, spoke. "You may be seated," she said stiffly.

With a shuffle, everyone resumed their seats.

Williams, as the representative of Mars, was still acting as the spokesperson for the council in this matter. "Begin recording," she told the room computer system. Digital cameras and audio microphones clicked on.

She stared at the assembled group of military officers and the single civilian. Her expression, matching the other council members, was of barely concealed rage. "Gentlemen," she said coldly, "yesterday an unprecedented event took place on the WestHem possession of Mars. An event with such far reaching and cataclysmic implications that, even if the situation is resolved quickly in the next two days, an issue which is doubtful, we will be left unable to predict the long-term consequences." She shook her head angrily. "What in the hell happened here, gentlemen? How in the hell could something like this have been allowed? These are questions that I want you to answer only briefly in as few words as possible before you start explaining to this council how we are going to rectify this situation." She stared at the two military officers in particular. "I trust that we can rectify this situation."

"Yes ma'am," spoke Jules and Wrath in unison.

"I certainly hope so," she said. "I don't need to tell you that the entire WestHem economy is fully dependant upon that little red planet. Ninety-eight percent of our steel comes from there. Forty-six percent of our food, our food, comes from there. The profits from that planet account for more than twenty-nine percent of our tax base. And, as if that wasn't bad enough, more than a third of our navy is in dock under Martian control right now. Admiral Jules, I trust you have prepared a side-briefing on the implications of that."

"Yes ma'am," Jules answered, grateful that he'd taken the time to do that. He almost had not.

"Very well," Williams said. She turned her gaze to Clinton. "Director," she said, "we've already been over the fact of Laura Whiting's election to high Martian office in the first place time and time again with you. We will skip re-hashing that part. But if you will please begin our briefing by explaining how the circumstances of her removal went so badly wrong?"

"Yes ma'am," Clinton replied, standing and activating his Internet terminal.

He explained the fiasco of the previous day in short, concise statements, occasionally using news clips or transmissions from his disk to illustrate some point. The council listened without interrupting. They knew most of the story anyway. When he finished they had only a few questions.

"How many agents do you have on Mars?" Asked one council member.

"Six hundred and forty-three," Clinton replied. "Of course twelve of them were killed at the capital building yesterday."

"Are the whereabouts of all of these agents on Mars accounted for?" was the next question.

"Not officially," he answered. "I know that all ten of my field offices were occupied by Martian troops and that all ten surrendered to them. We can presume that all of the agents in those buildings at that time are in Martian custody. As to the fate of those agents that were either off-duty or out in the field at that time I have no information, nor even a guess as to how many that might be. Unfortunately though, the number of off-duty agents is probably pretty low. When news of the events in New Pittsburgh reached Director Hayes he mobilized the entire force. Many of them were probably inside the buildings when they were taken."

"In any case did the FLEB offices under attack by the MPG request assistance from the local police departments?" asked Williams.

"Ma'am," Clinton replied, "in every case they did and in every case the assistance was refused on orders from the various police chiefs. I have information that in three of the cities; Eden, Dow, and Triad, the mayors attempted to override the orders of the police chiefs in question. The mayors of each Martian city, as you are aware, are subjected to the same scrutiny that legislative and gubernatorial candidates are." By which he meant that the corporations owned them. "In all cases, obviously, the orders were disregarded and no assistance was given. As far as I know not a single Martian police officer lifted a finger to prevent this revolt from occurring. As to the fate of the mayors and city councils involved; I have no information. I suspect they may have been taken into custody but we are currently completely out of communication with Mars; even the Internet feed has been severed from their end."

"So we are no longer receiving Martian Internet transmissions?"

"That is correct; although they are still monitoring our Internet. I ordered that the feed not be cut to Mars on the hope that some of the citizens will be able to access our point of view in this thing; to see the preparations we will be utilizing if they do not surrender themselves. It may assist in having Whiting's proposal voted down."

There was some quiet murmurs among the council at this. Finally Williams said, "That seems a wise move, Director. You may continue to allow outgoing transmissions. Since you brought up this vote that Whiting has asked for, what would you say the chances are that it will be successful? Also do you think there is any possibility of fraud in the vote?"

This was a trick question. Voter fraud and false results were a patent impossibility with the current system of ballot casting. It was done on the Internet by social security number and fingerprint identification. The programs that ran the voting were unalterable and would not allow such a thing. But if the vote were to be in favor of revolution, then the WestHem authorities would of course issue propaganda stating that the election had been rigged and was meaningless. Clinton knew this and knew how he was expected to answer.

"I believe that fraud is the most likely possibility and that we will be unable to trust any election results they send us," he said. "There is no way that Laura Whiting is going to back down now. If the Martians do not vote this measure in — and I don't believe that they are so mad as to do so — then her conspirators will simply change the results to look as if they did." This was of course a bald-faced lie. He knew it, the council knew it, any thinking person would know it; but it was how the game was played. If the Martians voted down Laura Whiting's proposal then WestHem would demand that she abide by her promises. But if the Martians actually did vote for independence, then WestHem would claim the election was rigged and demand she surrender. Of course it didn't matter one way or the other which way they voted. The vote itself did not carry any legal weight under the constitution. But politically, WestHem would never admit that the Martians actually wanted to be independent in overwhelming numbers. They would have to portray the vast majority of the Martians as innocent, loyal WestHem civilians caught up in a conspiracy by a few radical elements acting in self-interest.

There were a few more meaningless questions, which Clinton answered to the best of his ability. Williams then said, "Thank you, Director. You are dismissed. I would like your office to begin immediate research and author some recommendations as to who should be prosecuted and charged after this little revolt is over and done. Should we prosecute every police officer? Every MPG soldier? Every citizen that voted for independence? Please be firm in your recommendations, with an eye towards ensuring that our Martian friends never get any cute ideas like this again. I would also like recommendations as to what we should do with those Martian citizens on Earth or Ganymede at the moment. How many such people are there? Should we take them into custody until this is over? Do they represent an espionage or sabotage threat? Can they be used as leverage?"

"Yes ma'am," Clinton said, standing and gathering his briefing disk. "My staff will get to work on this immediately."

"Fine," she said. "We will expect a briefing on these matters by early next week at the latest."

Once he was out of the room, the council's attention turned to Admiral Jules.

"Admiral Jules," Williams said, staring at him, "you are the current commander in chief of WestHem far space naval fleet, correct?"

"Yes ma'am," Jules answered, not caring at all for the way in which she'd emphasized the word 'current'.

"Please enlighten this council on the events that transpired yesterday on Mars. After this we will have many questions for you I'm sure."

"Yes ma'am," Jules replied, standing up.

His initial chronology of the attack on TNB took nearly thirty minutes. Like with Director Clinton before him, the council simply stared at him or his presentations on the screen; asking no questions, making no comments. Jules knew how the game was played too. He already sensed who the fall guy in the Martian revolt was going to be, General Sega, and he placed blame heavily upon him.

"That last communications we received from TNB stated that the arming and detonation programs for all of the stored nuclear torpedoes, both onboard the ships in dock and in the storage facilities on base, had been wiped. This will, of course, make it impossible for those weapons to be detonated." He spoke a few commands into the screen before him. "You can see here a complete list of all naval ships that were in dock at Triad during the takeover. You will note that it includes nine California class warships, fifteen Owl class attack ships, and our three pre-positioned container ships full of marine landing equipment and supplies. We are formulating a list of the naval personnel captured there. As for the MPs killed in action; we will not know their identity unless the Martians provide us with that information."

Williams looked at him for a moment and then asked, "So it is your opinion Admiral, that had General Sega not ordered the surrender of your MPs, the base might have been saved?"

Again politics was at work here. He knew that the defense of the base had been hopeless. A few hundred lightly armed naval MPs stood no chance of standing up to a battalion of trained, well equipped special forces soldiers. Had Sega not surrendered them, the base would have fallen in the next thirty minutes anyway, only with more dead MPs to add to the list. But that was not what the council wanted to hear. They wanted the blame shifted off of surprise and overwhelming superiority and onto a single man; a traitorous man. They wanted Sega to be blamed for the loss of Mars. The MPG did not take Mars, Sega gave it to them. By the time this made it to the Internet they probably would have "evidence" showing that Sega had been in collusion with the Martians the whole time.

Jules was only too happy to go along with this. He felt a twinge of sorrow for Sega, who had only been doing what he thought was right under the circumstances, but it did serve to shift the blame off of him. WestHem could not admit defeat after all. Someone had to be responsible. He suspected that had they not found Sega as a convenient target, he himself would have been cast in the role. He suppressed a shiver as he realized how close he'd come to becoming a federal scapegoat. They would have said that he'd been criminally negligent in his anti-terrorist preparations for TNB. They probably would have manufactured evidence suggesting that multiple warnings had been issued about an imminent attack on the base and that they'd been disregarded.

"Admiral Jules?" Williams, clearly irritated, barked at him.

"My apologies, ma'am," Jules said with a start, realizing that he'd been so lost in his near-demise that he'd forgotten to answer her. "In my opinion the base would undoubtedly still be in our hands had Sega not surrendered its defenders. At the very worst, the MPG might have eventually taken the base but we would have been able to scramble all of the ships out of docking; keeping them in our hands."

The council members actually smiled at this statement; reinforcing Jules' belief that it was exactly what they wanted to hear. He breathed a sigh of relief, feeling himself slipping off of the proverbial hook.

"Thank you, Admiral, that is as we'd suspected."

There was a brief conversation between the members for a moment, their words whispered. Finally Williams said, "Now that we have a good idea what happened at TNB, I would like to address our primary concern. Will the Martians be able to man any of those ships they have captured and use them against us?"

"Absolutely not," Jules said firmly, grateful to be speaking what he thought was the truth. He spoke a command to the Internet screen and a row of figures appeared on the main screen. "As you can see here I have compiled statistics on all Martian citizens with naval experience. This would be, obviously, experience gained in the WestHem navy. The population of Mars, not including WestHem citizens living there, is just over eighty million as you can see. I asked the Internet to give me a count on all Martian citizens, currently living on Mars, that have naval experience and are between the ages of eighteen and sixty years old." He pointed to one of the figures with a laser pointer. "There are twenty-six thousand, four hundred and sixty-two people who meet this category."

"That certainly sounds like enough to man some ships," Williams replied to this. "If your intent is to make us feel better about this, you're doing a poor job."

"Yes ma'am," Jules nodded, licking his lips nervously. "I know the initial number sounds like a lot, but allow me to explain the other factors involved here. Just to account for the absolute worst scenario, I instructed the computer to assume that all of these Martians are loyal to Mars and will go along with Whiting. Of course I do not believe that will be the case; I believe that many of these are actually loyal WestHem citizens who will..."

"Admiral," Williams interrupted. "Please save the patriotic bullshit for the Internet cameras and continue your briefing."

Jules jumped as if slapped. "My apologies," he said. He took a deep breath to gather his thoughts and then went on. "Of the twenty-six thousand, four hundred and sixty-two, fourteen thousand, five hundred and eleven are over the age of forty and have not served aboard a ship in more than ten years. The technology involved has changed considerably since then and it is unlikely that those people will be of any help to the Martians. That leaves us with a core group of eleven thousand, nine hundred and fifty-one. Of this group only nine hundred and twelve have ever served aboard an actual combat ship capable of doing any harm to our forces. Of that nine hundred and twelve only thirty were ever officers and only sixteen of those were ever officers that had conning responsibilities. Twelve of them on a California, four on an Owl. None of these sixteen except for one — the infamous Lieutenant Commander Matt Belting — has any command experience."

"Belting is still alive?" one of the other council members interjected at this point. "I thought he'd died years ago."

"He's still alive and living in the ghettos of New Pittsburgh. He hasn't held a job of any kind since his release from federal prison five years after the Jupiter War armistice. My guess is that he is an alcoholic or a dust addict that probably doesn't even remember his navy time. In any case, it is quite inconceivable that the greenies could put together enough people to effectively use one of those ships in any manner. And even if they could, they have no pilots capable of operating the F-10s or the A-112s on the Californias and the nuclear torpedoes they've captured are useless to them. Without the torpedoes, the Owls are useless as anything other than a monitoring platform anyway."

"There is no way they can reprogram those torpedoes?" Williams asked.

"It's impossible," Jules said. "Once the computer that controls the detonator has been wiped, it is impossible to reprogram it. It is nothing more than junk after that."

They seemed satisfied.

"The pre-positioned marine ships," another council member spoke up. "What of those? Will the Martians be able to utilize the equipment inside of them?"

Jules replied, "I think that there is a good possibility that they may not even be able to manage the unloading and transfer of this equipment to the planetary surface. It is quite a complex procedure after all. The landing craft that contain the equipment must be launched from the Panama class ship itself and then piloted down to the surface. However I believe it may be prudent..." He cast a glance at his Marine counterpart for a moment, "... and I am actually stepping into General Wrath's briefing here, but in my opinion I believe in assuming the worst; to assume that they will in fact manage to utilize this equipment."

"Do you agree with that assessment, General?" Williams asked him.

"I have taken into account the faint possibility that they will be able to unload those ships," Wrath replied.

Williams nodded. "Very well." She turned her attention back to Jules. "Do we have any assets in the area at all?" She asked him.

Jules nodded. "Yes we do, ma'am. We have an Owl that had been returning to TNB from Ganymede at the time of this revolt. They were in their coasting period between acceleration and deceleration burns, about halfway between the two planets. I ordered them to take up position as close to Mars as they could get without detection. That should be close indeed, probably inside of twenty thousand kilometers. They will be on station in less than a week and able to send us data on what the Martians are up to with the ships at TNB. They should also be able to monitor communications. They are low on consumables and on refrigerant for the anti-detection systems but with rationing they will hopefully be able to remain on station until our forces can get there. We have other assets in place in the Jupiter system; two California groups and two Owls, but frankly, they are needed there in case of trouble with EastHem; particularly with the loss of our marines and their equipment. I'm quite hesitant to break them loose and I don't see what good they would do anyway."

They nodded. "Any other points that you would like to add, Admiral?"

"Yes ma'am," Jules said. "As you are probably aware, we have a number of Martian citizens enlisted in the Navy. Three thousand, nine hundred and forty-six of them are on ships that were not captured by the Martians or on Earth shore stations. I have ordered all of them removed from duty and kept under house arrest for the duration of this crisis and pending a decision on what to do with them."

"Good thinking, Admiral," Williams said. "I want all of them removed from our ships as soon as possible. They are not to be trusted and they are never to be allowed to enlist in our navy again. We will decide later what to do with them when this little revolt is over."

"Would you like my briefing on our naval situation as it stands with the loss of the far space fleet?" Jules asked next.

"Not just now, Admiral," Williams replied. "We'll hear it after General Wrath gives his briefing. You may have to modify your calculations when he tells you what equipment will be needed for the retaking of Mars."

"Yes ma'am," Jules agreed, not mentioning that he already had anticipated the equipment that his counterpart would need.

General Wrath began his briefing in the same manner. Like Jules, he placed the bulk of the blame on the traitorous General Sega, claiming that his Marines could have easily faced off anything the MPG threw at them. Like Jules he knew it was a lie; but he knew how to play the game too. He apologized sincerely for allowing such an incompetent traitor to achieve a position such as commander of Martian marine forces. In a particularly dramatic bit he even proclaimed that he was indirectly responsible and offered his resignation if the council so desired.

"I don't think that will be necessary just yet, General," Williams responded, smiling at him. She seemed quite touched by his offer however. "I would like to hear you plan for regaining control of the planet though."

"Yes ma'am," Wrath responded. He called up some maps and plans on his screen. "My staff and I worked well into the morning hours on this plan, taking many things into consideration. Chief among them is the avoidance of WestHem casualties during the operation. I have taken the liberty of naming the operation. I would call it 'Martian Hammer'."

The council exchanged pleased glances as they tossed the name around. It had become customary back in the late twentieth century to give a catchy name to military operations; all the better to ensnare public support for it.

"Now I could undoubtedly retake that planet with one hundred thousand troops complete with hover support, tanks, APCs, and support troops. We are dealing with a poorly trained civilian force after all. But I believe that unacceptable casualties may result." By this he meant more than two hundred or so WestHem soldiers killed. Enough to displease the masses. "So the plan I have developed, though it may seem a bit excessive, will ensure that minimal WestHem casualties are taken, while at the same time, heavy damage is inflicted upon the MPG. Damage that they will remember for generations if they are so foolish as to not surrender immediately."

"Yes, General," Williams said. "Your proposal please?"

"I propose a force of five hundred thousand marines equipped with massive tank support, heavy hover support, and heavy artillery support hit that planet all at once."

"Five hundred thousand?" Williams said after a moment of disbelieving muttering from the other council members.

"Yes ma'am," Wrath said enthusiastically. "And I propose that we start assembling this plan today, right after the briefing, with full media coverage. Since you are allowing Internet transmissions to be returned to Mars, there is a good possibility that the Martians may surrender or vote Whiting's proposal down when they see what we are sending their way. If they do not, we will offer them one more chance after we establish orbit, warning them that once the landings take place, we will make unrestricted war upon their planet. I believe that will do the trick if the initial phase does not, but, on the off-chance that they still insist on non-surrender, we will make landings at the following places." He pointed out cities on a map of Mars. "Eden, New Pittsburgh, Dow, Libby, and Procter. We will establish beachheads according to doctrine, three times the distance of artillery range from the nearest enemy position. On Mars, with it's thin atmosphere, that means we land three hundred kilometers from each city. We unload our equipment and assemble the tank columns and artillery. We give them one last chance to surrender, and if they don't..." He paused dramatically. "We move in. It's a two-day march across the wastelands from those distances. We send in the hovers ahead of our tanks and pound on their defensive positions. We then move the artillery forward and pound on them some more. If they still insist upon fighting, we roll forward with our tanks and continue the job of destroying them. Four days after landing we'll have those key cities under our control. They will have no choice but to give up then."

"You said unrestricted warfare, General," Williams asked. "Surely you don't really mean that?"

"Of course not, ma'am," Wrath replied. "We are not EastHem after all. We have to use that planet after we take it back from the Martians. Obviously we cannot do many of the things that the EastHems would. We cannot shell or bomb the agricultural complexes or the cities themselves. We cannot go after the power reactors. We can only concentrate upon the MPG equipment itself and, in truth, I'd prefer not to destroy too much of that. It is, after all, top of the line military equipment that our future forces on Mars can use. But the Martians won't know this. We need to make them believe that we are willing to destroy that planet before we let them have it. We need to appeal to the common Martian that our fight is not against them, but against Whiting and her forces. I believe there's a good chance that we can end this conflict without a shot being fired. But if we can't, we'll outnumber the Martian troops by more than four to one in both personnel and equipment; even assuming the use of our pre-positioned supplies. At worst, I cannot conceive of losing more than a hundred men in this fight or having it take more than a week once we land."

"They have a space guard at Triad," one of the other council members pointed out. "Will they be able to use it against our forces in orbit?"

"I'll refer that particular question to Admiral Jules," Wrath replied. "Fleet defense is more his line of expertise."

"Admiral?" Williams asked.

"No," Jules answered immediately. "Their space guard poses no threat to us as Whiting herself pointed out. Their purpose it to prevent attack upon Triad and upon the communications satellites. The wing that they have there would have to fight its way through our combat space patrol and then through our fleet anti-spacecraft defense systems before they could even get in range to attack any ships. They would have to attack with every ship that they had at once to even hope to get four or five ships in close enough to fire their lasers with any accuracy. These four or five would not be able to do much damage and it would leave Triad undefended except for its fixed laser sites. No military commander, no matter how incompetent, would ever take such a suicidal risk. It's a lesson we learned in the Jupiter War. Fighters and bombers cannot go up against space stations or heavy ships.

"On the other hand, we will not be able to attack Triad for the very same reasons and we will be forced to establish our orbit well away from Triad, preferably on the other side of the planet. The only way to get Triad back is to have it surrender to us."

"Which they will do," Wrath picked up the thread, "once their ground forces are defeated."

"Do we have sufficient forces and equipment readily available to initiate this operation?" was the next question.

"Speaking from the marine standpoint," Wrath said, "I have the equipment readily available from units in training and from supply warehouses throughout WestHem. I propose that we start moving it to Colorado Springs, Edwards, Buenos Aires, and Dallas for transport up to Admiral Jules' ships. As for the men, I can pull them from Argentina, Cuba, Brazil, Hawaii, and Alaska. The army can send in replacement troops in Alaska and as for the rest, I can call up reserves to replace them."

"And the navy?" Williams asked Jules. "Do you have sufficient ships available to transport and defend the operation and still maintain security in the event of a conflict with EastHem?"

Jules consulted some figure before him. "It will be a little overcrowded," he finally said. "And I won't have as many Owls and Californias in defense as I'd like, but I can do it. We can put the troops and their equipment into eighteen Panama class transports. We can escort them with three California groups and four Owls. This will leave us with enough ships to defend Earth and Ganymede in the event of a conflict."

The council seemed satisfied with this. "Operation Martian Hammer it is then," Williams said happily. "We'll have our staff contact the media groups today so we can start pushing it."

Capital Building — New Pittsburgh

The time difference between Denver and Eden was variable, dependant upon the differing rotational periods of the two planets. On Mars time was kept differently than on Earth in order to account for the slightly longer amount of time it took the latter to rotate once. This was augmented by the long delay in the reception of transmissions. In Denver it was 6:00 PM, nearing the end of a frantic workday. It was 1:24 AM in Eden, the early morning hours after the capture of the planet.

Laura, General Jackson, and several of Jackson's command staff were in the Capital briefing room viewing the Internet news programs from Earth. Though they had expected just what they were seeing in one form or another, it was still infuriating to watch the lies the WestHem media were formulating. The media, in their normal fashion, had turned the Martian revolt into popular entertainment.

Crisis on Mars was the heading flashed on the screen every time that the program returned from an advertising break. The words took up the bulk of the screen and were etched in 3D against a Martian red background. A dramatic flare of trumpets accompanied each flash of this motto. The news reports had initially consisted of rumors only, sketchy reports of fighting between "rogue elements of the MPG" and WestHem forces on the planet. It was reported that Whiting had touched off this fighting when federal forces attempted to take her into custody on corruption charges. There were reports of executions and atrocities committed by these rogue elements. It was even reported that the MPG was running rampant through the streets of the cities, killing those MPG troops that were not loyal to Whiting and raping any convenient women that happened to be around.

Finally WestHem executive council member Williams, her expression sober and concerned (executive council members had to be, above all else, good actors), appeared before the cameras for the first official statement.

"My fellow WestHems," she said, staring into the camera. "By now you have heard reports of some unbelievable events taking place on the WestHem federal colony of Mars. Events that began early this morning, our time, and are continuing as I speak. When these events were first brought to the attention of the council we viewed them, as many of you undoubtedly are doing, with shock and disbelief. Mars after all is full of WestHem citizens, innocents for the most part. We expressed shock that such events were even possible in the first place. We did not address you prior to this because we wanted to get as many answers as we could before we passed the facts on. I believe that we now have an accurate summary of all that took place yesterday."

"This should be good," Jackson commented sourly.

"Yesterday afternoon, Denver time, a federal grand jury issued an indictment and an arrest warrant for Martian Governor Laura Whiting. This indictment was handed down after the grand jury heard more than a week's worth of testimony from various sources and examined pages upon pages of computer documentation from Mars. The charges consisted of corruption, incitement of terrorism, graft, trafficking in explosives, and gross incompetence. As you are aware from previous news reports, Governor Whiting has been quite a nightmare for the Planet Mars since her inauguration when she revealed herself to be a radical separatist.

"This woman and her core of followers have managed to intimidate other members of the planetary legislature into not impeaching her. Her conspirators were quite canny in covering their tracks and we were able to produce no proof that this heinous perversion of democracy took place. Under the law, Whiting had to remain in office."

"This is actually pretty amusing," Laura pointed out. "It is sad to think that most of the WestHems will actually believe it."

"If you see it on Internet," Jackson said, "then that's what happened. Right?"

"But our FLEB agents stationed on the planet Mars were not intimidated by Ms. Whiting and her thugs," Williams was saying. "They watched her every move knowing that criminals like Whiting always make mistakes. Well Whiting made many of them and she was caught at them. A legal indictment was issued, an indictment which Whiting says she will not honor, and our brave, diligent FLEB officers in Eden went to arrest her as they were commanded to do."

She paused, staring into the camera, anger spreading across her face. "Those federal agents were ambushed by followers of Whiting as they entered the capital building. We have confirmation that more than ten of them were killed, gunned down by thugs masquerading as soldiers, using the very weapons that our military has provided for planetary defense."

"Notice how she doesn't mention," Jackson said, "that we taxed ourselves to pay for those weapons."

"The whole thing is a production," Laura said. "God forbid they admit that there are discontented people. God forbid they admit that they'll fight to the death for this planet because of money. Oh no. There have to be oppressed people and horrible human rights abuses. Earthlings are so shallow."

They turned their attention back to Williams, who was now talking about the attack on TNB.

"These terrorist criminals entered Triad Naval Base under cover of darkness. They were led by this man." A graphic of Jackson was placed on the screen.

"Hey," Jackson said to the applause of the assembled staffers, "there I am. But what the hell did they do to my face?" The image of Jackson had been worked on by someone. His handsome face had been altered to look evil and scowling. His eyes had been darkened considerably giving him an almost demonic appearance. And the blackness of his flesh had been enhanced, making it appear darker than it really was.

"So-called General, Kevin Jackson. The man Laura Whiting appointed as the head of the Martian Planetary Guard. This man, who we believe to be Whiting's chief conspirator, led a group of armed, radical separatists, equipped with MPG weapons, to the gates of Triad Naval Base. They were allowed entrance to the base by this man."

"Allowed entrance?" Jackson asked no one in particular. "We blasted our way in."

"Who the hell is that?" asked Whiting. "He's not one of our people."

Jackson looked, his eyes widening in surprise. "That's Sega!" he exclaimed. "The Martian marine commander for the expeditionary force."

"General Ronald Sega," Williams confirmed. "And I am sad to state that this man is not a separatist. He is not even a Martian citizen. He is, or rather was, a highly trusted commanding general in the WestHem marines."

"Holy shit," Jackson said, shaking his head. "They're gonna blame Sega for all of this!"

"This man was in charge of the marine forces on the planet of Mars." Williams said with utmost sincerity. "He was also the highest ranking military officer on that planet. We now know that he is the worst traitor this great hemisphere has produced since Benedict Arnold in the American Revolutionary War. General Sega apparently provided Kevin Jackson with access codes that allowed him and his thugs entrance to Triad Naval Base. The MPs on the base responded quickly to the intrusion and managed to pin the invaders near the front gate of the base. General Sega, as I mentioned before, was the highest-ranking officer on the planet. He declared an emergency and then sent a message to all WestHem military personnel ordering them to surrender to the Martians. To surrender! To throw down their arms. He stated to the brave commanders leading these MPs at Triad, as well as his very own marines at Eden Marine Barracks, that the situation was hopeless, that fighting on would only get them killed. And these brave soldiers, who lacked the information to make any decision to the contrary, who had no information to tell them that their commander was exaggerating things horribly, did as they were ordered.

"Thanks to General Sega, Martian separatists have taken control of all of our military assets on that planet. We have information that the separatists then marched onto TNB and executed more than a hundred of the MPs that were fighting them!"

"Executed?" Jackson nearly screamed at Williams' image. "You have got to be..."

"Shhh!" Laura hushed him.

"Before communications with the naval base were shut down we received frantic cries for help and horrid descriptions of these thugs lining up the MPs and spraying them with machine gun fire, of shooting grenades at them. These are atrocities on the magnitude of the Asian Powers during World War III. Worse even. At least the Asian Powers were humane about how they killed prisoners."

"Laura," Jackson said, "are you sure we should be allowing this feed out to the entire planet. Some of our people might believe this crap. This could alter the vote."

Laura simply smiled. "On the contrary, Kevin," she said. "I have a little more faith in the intrinsic common-sense of our citizens than that. I believe these broadcasts will do nothing but help our cause."

Jackson was doubtful but he knew that Laura was almost supernaturally adept at reading the pulse of the citizens. He would trust her judgment over his own.

Williams lies continued. She claimed that General Sega himself had executed scores of marines after the base fell. She claimed there was evidence of a sexual relationship between Sega and Whiting. She claimed that thousands of MPG troops had been shot or imprisoned by the "rogue elements" when they refused to take up arms against WestHem. "It appears now that Generals Jackson and Sega have purged the MPG of all soldiers that have professed allegiance to WestHem," she said. "And unfortunately, all of our soldiers on that planet have been captured. Their fate is unknown and our prayers are with them. Our prayers are also with all of those loyal Martians and WestHems trapped as hostages on that planet by this terrorist take-over."

"Terrorist take-over?" Jackson said in disgust. "Hostages? Shit."

"Did you really expect anything else?" Laura asked him.

"No," he admitted.

"But you can be assured," Williams proclaimed firmly, "that this lawlessness and terror will not be allowed to continue. As we speak, preparations are being made to send a force of WestHem marines to Mars to restore order and to effect the arrest of those responsible for this situation. As you all know it takes some time to travel to Mars; approximately eight weeks at the current planetary configuration. It will take at least two weeks to assemble the forces and equipment necessary for this operation.

"We on the council realize that this leaves two and a half months for the current situation on Mars to continue. As horrible as that sounds, leaving those poor people under those conditions for that length of time, there is no other option. We will of course commence negotiations with Laura Whiting and her cohorts and let them know in no uncertain terms that what they are attempting will not be tolerated and that we will hold them responsible for any lives lost during this period. We will try to convince her to surrender herself and her thugs before our Marines land.

"But if she refuses, then our Marines will land on that planet and forcibly return it to the citizens of Mars and it's proper place in the WestHem system. Ms. Whiting," Williams stared meaningfully, "if you are listening, and I suspect you are, then I advise you to stop this madness before it goes any further. If you really care about the Martians, if you have a single ounce of empathy for them, you will stop this dangerous game before our troops arrive.

"Since I doubt that you will do this and, since I have received information that this broadcast may be still visible to the citizens of Mars, it is Whiting's sympathizers that I am now addressing. I'm talking to the men who have, for whatever twisted reason, volunteered to take up arms against WestHem at this evil woman's direction. Drop those arms now, right this minute, before it is too late. We have no wish to land on your planet and kill you; our quarrel is with the leadership you have followed. If you have not killed anyone, if you have simply gone with the crowd out of peer pressure, than you are in no trouble as long as your weapons are dropped by the time our forces land.

"Because, believe me, they will land and they will take control of the planet. I hope with all of my heart that this is a peaceful process, but if it must be a violent one, you stand absolutely no chance of preventing our re-occupation. None. I do not wish to see a lot of misguided people killed for no reason, so I plead with you, I beg of you, drop your arms. Do it now, today, this very moment, and do not pick them up again. That is the worst path that you could possibly follow."

That was the end of Williams' speech. The news conference continued on with a question and answer period in which the reporters began inquiries into such things as what the name of the operation would be and when bids on the advertising and marketing contract would be accepted.

Laura ordered the computer to reduce the volume. "She got in some good blows there near the end," she was forced to admit. "She must have a hell of a speech writer."

"Do you think anyone will listen to her?" Jackson asked. "Do you think it will change the vote?"

Laura smiled. "Maybe a little," she admitted. "But I still think that our citizens have had quite enough of WestHem and their lies. I think most of them will see right through that speech."

"But what about the threats?" Jackson asked. "Many will believe in that even if they don't believe anything else. It would be ironic indeed if our citizens voted for autonomy and then no one volunteered to fight for it."

Laura stared at him, anger now apparent on her face, anger that had not flared this brightly even during the worst part of Williams' inflammatory speech. "Do you really think that our citizens are that shallow?" she asked him coldly. "Do you really think that they would vote for freedom and then ask someone else to fight for it?"

Jackson looked back at her, upset by her anger but unwilling to concede her point. "I certainly hope not, Laura."

Martian Planetary Guard Base Troop Club — Eden

The smell of marijuana smoke hung thickly in the air, overpowering even the odor of alcohol and tobacco smoke. The ventilators in the room struggled to keep up with the outpouring but it was a hopeless task. Scores of off-duty MPG soldiers of all ranks, sexes, and ages were sitting at the bar or at cocktail tables; smoking and drinking the intoxicating substances, unwinding from the stressful twenty-four hours that had just occurred. Even though the bar contained about twice as many MPG members as usual, particularly for a weekday, the absence of any marine personnel was conspicuous and a constant reminder of what had occurred.

The speech that Whiting and Jackson had just witnessed had been played in the club on the large Internet screen above the bar; the sound reproduced perfectly by speakers at every table. During the speech itself the room had been eerily quiet, the silence broken only by the occasional outraged muttering from a soldier that knew what Williams was saying was a lie. But the final part of her speech, the part addressed to the soldiers in this room, had been met with stony, worried silence.

When the speech ended conversation erupted everywhere, much of it angry, some of it terrified and hysterical.

At a table near the rear of the room, Lisa Wong and Brian Haggerty sat together. Lisa was taking a thoughtful draw off a bong the server had brought to her. She had paid for the double hit with her debit card; forking over six dollars for it, and was now smoking the last of it. Across from her Brian was sipping out of a bottle of beer. He'd declined the marijuana, not caring much for it. The two partners had coincidentally run into each other at the front door of the club an hour ago and decided to sit together.

"Brian," Lisa said, "you're in a combat branch and I'm only in admin so I want you to give me an honest opinion."

"Okay," Brian agreed, already knowing what she was going to ask.

"Can we win this thing? Can we actually hope to defeat the WestHem marines when they land here? I mean really? I know most of what that WestHem bitch said was bullshit, but she wasn't bullshitting about them sending marines over here to take this planet back from us."

"No," he agreed thoughtfully, "she wasn't. They're gonna send a shitload of them here."

"So are we fighting a hopeless cause here? I don't mind fighting for Mars. In fact I'd be more than proud to do it. And since Whiting is opening up combat branches for women, I'll volunteer for combat duty." She smiled. "I should be able to get in given my background, don't you think?"

Brian nodded.

"I don't even mind fighting if the odds are way against us. I will gladly take the consequences of losing too. But are there any odds? Is there any chance at all we'll win? I don't want to sacrifice myself for no chance at all. I don't want to be a martyr if it's hopeless before we begin."

Brian picked up his beer and took a sip from it. He stared at his partner thoughtfully, thinking of a way to say what was on his mind. "I met General Jackson a few times," he finally said.

"Oh?"

"I did more than just meet him once. We were at a formal party for MPG promotions and I actually got to sit down and talk to him for a while. He's a very smart man. You can tell that just from a few minutes of talking to him."

"What did you talk about?" Lisa asked, suspecting that whatever they talked about had bearing on her questions.

"Military history," Brian replied. "Of course I never got much further than tech school. I'm not one of the elite that was allowed into our university system. But I have studied quite a bit of military history on my own. Do you know what General Jackson's degree is in?"

"Military history," she answered. "Any MPG member knows that."

"That's right," he said. "Military history is his passion. In the fifteen-minute conversation I had with him I could see that he was more than an expert on the subject. He is the authority on it. And do you know what particular wars interested him the most?"

"What?"

"There were three of them that fascinated him. Three that he told me he'd studied extensively. One is very famous; the war that brought the beginnings of what would become WestHem eventually."

"The American Revolution," Lisa replied. "The birth of capitalism and so-called democracy."

"Right," he said. "But the other two wars were very obscure conflicts. Most school kids today have probably never even heard of them. The first was called the Vietnam War. The second was called the Afghanistan War. Both took place in the second half of the twentieth century. All three of these wars have a single thing in common. Do you know what that is?"

Lisa's mind, assaulted by cannabis, could not think of a common thread. She shook her head.

"In all three of these wars," he told her, "an enemy that was better equipped, in better numbers, and that was absolutely sure of victory, invaded a smaller country expecting the conflict to be over in a matter of weeks with their unconditional victory. And in all three cases the under-equipped, undertrained, understaffed inhabitants of those lands defeated those enemies. Soundly defeated them."

"I'm not sure I'm following you," she said, although she was starting to get a glimmer.

"In all three of these cases the enemy — the Russians in Afghanistan, the French and the Americans in Vietnam, and the British in the revolutionary war — were invading unfamiliar terrain at the end of long supply lines. They were fighting an enemy on their home ground, an enemy that was committed to not being pacified, an enemy that was fighting for independence from a superior power, an enemy that had something to fight for. In each case the invaders did not really care for the task that they were embarked upon. They had no passion for the battle. They only wanted to get the job done and get out of what they considered to be a shithole. What do all of the Earthlings call this place?"

"A shithole," Lisa replied. "Or worse."

"Do you think any of the WestHem marines are going to want to die for this place? To give their life to return Mars to the WestHem corporations? Because no matter what kind of bullshit the WestHem ruling council slings via the media, anyone with any intelligence on that planet is going to know what the real reason for the war is. That includes the marines. When they start seeing their friends die, when they realize that this war is not a cakewalk, their morale is going to go down the shitter. Troops with poor morale are the perfect setting for defeat."

"So you think we can defeat them?" she asked. "Drive them off this planet with poor morale? Even though they'll have five times the equipment that we do?"

Brian pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and lit one with a laser lighter. He drew deeply, exhaling a plume of smoke into the air. "I've been thinking about this a lot lately," he told his partner, his friend. "It goes back to those three wars. Now General Jackson hasn't confided his plans in me or anything, but I can make a few guesses as to what he's going to do. Do you know what the major factor in the victory of those three wars was?"

"Home ground?" she ventured.

He nodded. "Exactly. The victors were on their home ground. They knew every nook and cranny of the battlefields. And they all made extensive use of guerrilla warfare. They were all under-equipped forces, with inferior weaponry. They rarely, if ever, hit the enemy head on. What they did was pick at them, piece by piece in their own rear areas. A few squads of harassment troops here and there, squads whose job was to pick off soldiers one by one, when they were least expecting it. The concept is simple. Never give your enemy a place where he can feel safe. Even in their own heavily guarded encampments they were hit by snipers, or mortar fire, or rockets. They made the enemy feel that as long as they were anywhere in those godforsaken places that they were in peril, that they could be killed without warning at any time.

"I believe General Jackson is going to employ a lot of special forces teams whose job it will be to do just that. To go out into the wastelands, to their very landing sites, and pick at them. To position themselves along the march and hit their tanks and APCs with lasers. To knock them off one by one and to degrade their morale."

"And that can win the war?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "Although in all of the above cases it was a long, protracted process that cost a lot of the defenders their lives. They all took horrible casualties doing this. It took years in every case. With the Vietnamese it took nearly a generation. But they all achieved their goals in the end."

"So you're saying we're going to have to fight them for years?" she asked, depressed at the thought.

"Well," he said, "there's a basic difference between them and us."

"What's that?"

"The Americans, the Vietnamese, and the Afghans were all under-equipped and poorly trained forces. We, on the other hand, though numerically inferior, have the same equipment that the WestHems have. In fact, we have equipment specifically designed for use on Mars, something WestHem lacks. We also have training that's better than the WestHems."

"So how does that fit the equation?"

He smiled. "I think that WestHem is in for a big surprise when they come over here. A shocking surprise. In any case, to answer your question, this war is far from hopeless. I think we're gonna kick some Earthling ass."

All over the planet people did as Laura Whiting had instructed. They talked to each other. They discussed the question. In some cases there were arguments. In some cases the arguments were violent. In a few they were deadly.

In Libby a man shot his wife to death when she refused to change her mind on how she was going to vote.

In Procter two street gang members shot another when he told them that he was going to vote no and they disagreed with his choice.

On Triad there was another violent voting argument between gang members. Shots were fired in the heat of the disagreement and two were killed.

There were other episodes of violence during the period between Laura Whiting's speech and the vote itself. In the industrial city of Dow, for instance, the regional manager of MarsTrans corporation headed for his office as he usually did the morning after Laura Whiting's speech. His wife, a high society Earthling who hated her husband's assignment on Mars, protested, warning him that it wasn't safe but he scoffed at her and headed out of the two hundred and eighth floor apartment, intending to take a first class tram downtown and begin calling each of his managerial staff and ordering them to come in. Where did that Martian bitch Whiting get off declaring a work holiday anyway? He was going to show those greenies a thing or two about playing hardball. He made it less than a block from the front of his apartment before an angry group of middle-class Martians, many of them employees of MarsTrans, attacked him and beat him to death.

But for the most part the presence of the MPG on the streets kept the planet in order. In every city roving patrols on foot and in clanking APCs took up positions on major street intersections and augmented the police force. The actual incidents of street crime — already at an all-time low — took an additional dive.

The cities of Mars were confined to the Western Hemisphere of the planet and stretched across only nine of the twenty-four Martian time zones. The prime meridian for the planet ran through New Pittsburgh, the first of the Martian cities. The furthest city to the east was Dow, a mining city in the northern latitudes with a population of five million. Dow was three hours ahead of the prime meridian. It was here that the polls first opened on the morning of the vote; at 0800 Dow time, 0500 New Pittsburgh time.

Voting was accomplished by calling up the ballot program on an Internet screen. The main computer that controlled it was in the capital building in New Pittsburgh. The computer had been instructed to allow only those people who were Martian citizens to vote. It obtained a list of these people from the census computer and downloaded their names, social security numbers, and fingerprint information. The voters would identify themselves by placing their right index finger on the pad of the screen they were using.

Once the terminal sent the identification information to the main voting computer and the main voting computer was satisfied that that person was a Martian citizen of voting age that had not already voted once, the ballot was sent. In this case the ballot had a single issue on it that required either a yes or a no vote. When the voter made his or her decision it was sent back to the main computer and logged.

The program that controlled voting, aside from being completely tamper-proof (attempts to change the programming would erase the program completely), would not allow the release of any results until all polls had closed planetwide. This was because in the past it had been found that the release of such information as it was collected tended to discourage many people from voting at all. After all, what was the point of casting your ballot if the issue already seemed decided? This was a particular problem among the western time zone cities both on Mars and Earth. Since 2070 the new system of non-release had been in place and all but the media, who used to delight in making daylong newscasts out of Election Day, seemed to like it.

The westernmost city on Mars was Procter, an agricultural city of six million. It was six hours behind New Pittsburgh and Eden, nine hours behind Dow. At 2000 Procter time, the polls were shut down. In Eden it was 0200 the next day. In Dow it was 0500. Despite the late hour, not many Martians were asleep.

The department of voting office was on the seventy-third floor of the capital building. The head of the department, Jackie Yee, heard her computer terminal send a simple message to her. "Voting is complete. All polls are closed. Would you like to release the results?"

She sighed deeply, her body tingling with anticipation. "Not just yet," she told the computer. "Get me the governor."

It took less than fifteen seconds for Laura Whiting's face to appear on her screen.

"Are all votes in?" she asked Jackie. If the governor was nervous, she certainly didn't show it.

"Yes, Governor," Jackie replied. "Would you like me to release the results now?"

"Yes I would," Whiting answered. "It's time we found out what we'll be doing tomorrow."

"I'll order them released immediately," Jackie said. "And Governor?"

"Yes?"

"I voted yes," she said. "And I hope everyone else did too. Free Mars."

"Thank you, Jackie," Whiting replied, smiling. "Now go ahead and release the results so we can all stop wondering."

"They'll be out in less than a minute."

Jackie instructed the computer to make public the results of the vote. The actual results would now be stored forever in its memory bank and would be accessible to anyone, anywhere with an Internet terminal, which meant pretty much everybody in the solar system. As a perk of the job Jackie was the first person to actually see the tally. Her screen filled with figures listing the number of voters on the planet that fit the requirements, the number of those voters who had actually voted, and finally, a breakdown of yes and no votes.

"Wow," she said simply, staring at it.

A second later a counter near the bottom of her screen began to whir rapidly upward. It was an indicator of the number of requests for information from the voting computer. In less than fifteen seconds it had spun well past sixty thousand.

In her office Laura Whiting sat with Kevin Jackson. Outside the window the stars were visible, shining as brilliantly as the lights from the surrounding high rises.

"Well," said Jackson. "Shall we see?"

She nodded. "Let's find out if we're going to be in jail tomorrow or not." She took a deep, nervous breath. "Computer, access Martian voting computer and display results for last ballot issue."

"Accessing," replied the computer, which had no idea of the magnitude of what it was doing.

It took less than four seconds and the screen lit up with the requested information. Jackson and Whiting stared at it, eyes wide, mouths agape.

"Well would you look at that," Laura said softly, unable to develop a reaction just yet.

"I can't believe it," Jackson mumbled beside her.

MARTIAN SPECIAL ELECTION 041513

WILL THE PLANET OF MARS DECLARE INDEPENDENCE FROM THE FEDERAL ALLIANCE OF WESTERN HEMISPHERE AND ENFORCE THIS DECLARATION BY ANY MEANS AVAILABLE? YES OR NO?

PARAMETERS FOR PASSAGE:

1. MUST HAVE GREATER THAN 95% VOTER PARTICIPATION

2. MUST PASS WITH 66.667% YES VOTE OR GREATER TO BE CONSIDERED BINDING

RESULTS

NUMBER OF PLANETARY INHABITANTS OF VOTING AGE WITH MARTIAN CITIZENSHIP:

49,346,412

NUMBER OF ABOVE THAT PARTICIPATED IN THIS ELECTION:

49,005,922

PERCENTAGE OF VOTER PARTICIPATION:

99.310%

WITHIN PARAMETERS?

YES

YES VOTES:

45,820,537 93.504%

NO VOTES:

3,185,385 6.496%

YES VOTES ARE MAJORITY

GREATER THAN 66.667%?

YES

RESOLUTION IS PASSED

Capital Building, New Pittsburgh

May 26, 2146

Like her speech before, this one was going out live all over the planet. The media had been informed of its imminence and had been reporting it since the votes had been counted the previous night. The planet was abuzz with the news of the successful vote and very few people had slept. And like the previous speech it was being transmitted to both WestHem and EastHem on Earth.

Laura was dressed again in a simple cotton shirt, produced from the vast cotton fields of Mars. She wore no make-up and her eyes were bleary, with obvious bags under them. But her face was radiant and happy.

"Citizens of Planet Mars," she began her address. "Today that phrase has entirely new meaning. By an overwhelming majority you have sent a strong message to me and to WestHem. We are no longer citizens of the WestHem colony of Mars, we are truly, for the first time, citizens of the independent Planet of Mars. We have voted for freedom. Let today, May 26, be forever known as Martian Independence Day. Though we have yet to put a constitution in place I do not think it will be too forward of me to declare this day as our first planetary holiday.

"As I've promised time and time again, a free Mars is meant to be a Mars of the people." She stared into the camera. "Of the people, not of the corporations, not of the rich. Our goal should be the betterment and prosperity of Mars and everyone on it, everyone, not just those with money and power. Not just those with political clout, and most certainly not those from Earth who own everything."

She smiled wickedly, knowingly. "Did I say own? I must have misspoken myself. As of yesterday at the close of polls, this is an independent planet. All industries, including of course, the vast agricultural and steel industries that forged this planet, that made it what it is today, belong to the people of Mars. The goal of these industries will not be profits for powerful corporate conglomerates on Earth, but the betterment of the Martian people. Each and every Martian person will benefit from them. All of you. I give my sacred vow that this will be so.

"When things settle down a bit on this planet, when we get the necessary steps that need to be taken in these first days taken, we will convene a committee to begin work on a new constitution for our planet; a constitution that will guarantee for perpetuity that Mars will forever remain a planet of the people and that the horrible abuses of the old system will never be repeated.

"But in the meantime we have much to do and little time in which to do it. Our most daunting task of course, is to keep the forces of WestHem from taking this planet back from us. We must not allow this to happen. If it does, never again will we be given opportunity to free ourselves. We've made our move, now it is time to enforce it. For that we need to beef up our military forces. To do that, we need volunteers.

"As I explained in my first speech this will be a voluntary war. We may be defeated and the fate of the military personnel if that should happen is unknown. You may be killed in battle whether we win or lose. But if we're to win, we're going to need as many new soldiers as we can get our hands upon. This includes men and women, employed and unemployed. You are all Martian citizens and you all should have the opportunity to fight for Mars if you choose. So please, sign up for service.

"We have approximately ten weeks before WestHem marines land on this planet with the intent to return us to WestHem rule. We'll take military volunteers at any time of course, but we really need people to sign up as soon as possible so we'll have time to train you prior to deployment. The more training we can instill in you, the better chance you'll have of surviving this conflict and the better chance we'll have of remaining free.

"In addition to military personnel, we'll need other things for the coming conflict. Weapons, tanks, artillery pieces, ammunition. All of these things are produced here on Mars in the manufacturing cities near the steel belts. For those workers that are vital to those operations, I ask that you remain in your jobs. You will be much more valuable to us there. We need to gear up production in our war industries and that also means we need to gear up production in the steel fields and the mining industry. I ask that all of these industries, and in fact, all places of employment on Mars, please return to work tomorrow.

"I realize that your WestHem managers will not be there. But you never needed them in the first place now, did you? For the most part their job was to count and distribute the money and to hire and fire people. All of you that performed the actual work are still Martians though and I'm confident that you'll be able to run the various facilities in their absence. First and foremost we must continue productivity on this planet during these trying days. Food must continue to be harvested and packaged, products and services must still be available to all. I wish for all manufacturing and agricultural facilities to please give as much productivity as possible. In the case of agriculture, we will need that food as a trading chip with EastHem if they agree to supply us with fuel for the coming conflict.

"So please, return to work and be productive. Let us have no fighting over who is going to do what in the management levels now that the Earthlings are gone. There is no time for that. Work something out and get back to work.

"As for the unemployed among us we are going to need your help also. We need volunteers for the military and we need workers for the factories and industries. I realize that there is a certain amount of strife between the employed and unemployed. There are different values, different points of view and the two groups have not gotten along well in the past.

"Please use your common sense and believe me when I say that this antagonism is of WestHem making. The unemployed have been kept segregated from the rest of society, made to feel inferior while the employed have been encouraged to feel superior. This must stop. We are all in this together.

"Some of our unemployed have not been able to work in generations. Well this is your opportunity. We are all descendants of a people who left Earth looking for employment, who were so desperate for it that they were willing to leave their planet behind and travel to an artificial environment just to get a job. I know that some of that courage rests in the majority of the unemployed and I hope to see it now. We need you; we need everyone to help here. And if we are successful in this coming conflict you need never be unemployed again. You will also have access to higher education if you so desire. It is you unemployed who stand to gain the most from this new freedom, but we may not be able to win it without your support.

"And for those at the factories and industries that will be hiring these people, I ask that you put aside your hostility towards ghetto inhabitants. Put them to work, train them, and try not to hold any pre-conceived notions about them. I'm confident you will be pleasantly surprised at the productivity.

"For the time being we will consider ourselves under planetary government rule with myself as titular head and the remaining members of the planetary legislature as my balance system. All of the current laws and regulations will remain in effect. Public assistance monies will continue to flow to the unemployed as they always have. Workers will continue to be paid at their current rate. Stores will remain open. As you will quickly see, we are perfectly capable of surviving without WestHem's assistance.

"The Martian Planetary Guard will be pulled out of the streets of the cities to commence training for the upcoming conflict. General Jackson will of course be in charge of future deployments and training sites.

"This is the time for all Martians to pull together towards a single goal. This is not the time for petty, insignificant differences to be aired. We must unite, we MUST! If we do not, WestHem will prevail.

"A declaration of independence will be sent to WestHem and EastHem later today. A copy of this will be available on the Internet for examination.

"Thank you for your time, and please, please, remember my words. Mars is now free. Let's keep it that way."

Chapter 8

Laura went directly from the media room of the capital building to the briefing room. It was but step two in a horribly busy morning for her. As she entered through the security-controlled door that was guarded by two of her MPG security force, the assembled briefers in the room stood from their chairs around the large table and applauded her. She actually flushed with embarrassment.

"Please," she said, smiling, holding up her hands. "Be seated."

They applauded for a moment more and finally sat down in their chairs once more.

Laura helped herself to a cup of coffee from the beverage computer. She took a sip as she moved towards her chair. The brew was smooth as silk, made from the best beans that the southern hemisphere of Earth had to offer. One thing that Martian agriculture did not produce very well was coffee. Soon the supply of Earth beans would run out and it was unlikely they would send any more. Oh well, she sighed, relishing the flavor. The cost of freedom.

"Good morning," she said to the assembled crowd. General Jackson was there of course. As was Matt Belting, their naval expert who had been working around the clock at Triad Naval Base, inventorying and analyzing what they had seized there. Five ranking loyal members of the planetary legislature were also present. They all mumbled variations of good morning in reply to her.

"Well, people," Laura said brightly, "we are an independent planet now. And as I said in my speech today, we need to make every effort to keep it that way. Now hopefully we'll be overwhelmed with volunteers for the military by the end of the day. I kind of suspect that we will be. General Jackson, are you prepared to deal with this?"

"Yes, Governor," Jackson said confidently. "I have directed recruitment to set up twenty-five additional induction sites, two in each city of Mars and a third in Eden. Those that sign up on the Internet will be directed to these sites in order of signing. They will be given their physicals and ASVABs there. Acceptable candidates will be processed immediately. We are already setting up three more basic training sites for induction. Based on their ASVABs, they will be sent directly to the appropriate division, skipping the usual process of tech school. All of the divisions will be up and training extensively anyway for the coming war."

Laura nodded thoughtfully. "What do you need the most of?" she asked.

"Two things, maybe three depending on other factors. We need tank crews to man those tanks onboard the marine landing ships at TNB. The tanks are going be the final, deciding factor in this thing after all. We also need special forces volunteers to attack the Earthlings at their landing sites and on their marches. I'll wait until I have preliminary numbers on the amount of volunteers I have for this job, but I plan to send as many teams as I can spare for this task. I want those bastards chipped away before they even get close to our city defenses. This planet has to be inhospitable to them if they're ever going to leave us in peace."

"I understand that tank crews are relatively easy to train," she said. "But what about these special forces troops? Will they be sufficiently prepared to both do us some good and keep themselves alive out there? I don't want kamikazes fighting for us. I want those troops' safety to be first and foremost."

"I have no intention of sending suicide squads out there," Jackson told her firmly. "Ever since the inception of the MPG I've made special forces a priority issue. I'm going to break up the current teams, promoting the members and forming new teams consisting of veterans and new recruits. I won't be sending any virgin teams out into the wastelands. Recruitment for special forces will consist mostly of already current MPG infantry and other troops. After all, you need to be in pretty good shape to join the forces and we don't have time to waste getting newbies in shape. Those that have to go through basic training can replace the infantry troops we'll lose that move to special forces and will augment the tank corps and the support services.

"My special forces teams will have orders to hit the marines only when they can retreat to safety. They will be small units tasked with ambush, armor harassment, and aircraft harassment. Their methods will be to hit fast on isolated targets and then pull back to safety before the WestHems can hit them with artillery or send a hover their way. Their biosuits in combination with prepared hiding places can keep them relatively safe. As safe as troops can be behind the lines anyway."

"And you will be able to support these troops efficiently?" Laura asked. "Re-supply them and extract the wounded?"

Jackson shrugged. "Pretty well. They will be dropped in, supported, and extracted by Hummingbirds, which, as you all know, are vertical take-off and landing craft that are able to sustain winged flight once in the air. The Hummingbirds can hug the ground virtually undetected by enemy sensors. They become very visible when they land and take-off due to the enormous heat that such maneuvers produce, but our troops and pilots both train extensively in order to keep these times to a minimum. A full team of special forces, that's ten troops, can exit a Hummingbird and get clear of it's take-off thrust in less than fifteen seconds. The Hummingbird can be back to winged flight in another twenty seconds. Extraction is even quicker. Our longest times are, unfortunately, when wounded are being taken aboard, and that is often when we encounter the worst landing zones. In any case, each special forces team will have a medic deployed with it."

"And our city defenses?" Whiting asked next. "How are they?"

"Excellent, Governor," Jackson proclaimed. "But also untested. As you know we've constructed a complex array of infantry entrenchments, tank shelters, and recon posts atop every conceivable hill on every conceivable approach to our cities. We have fixed artillery guns ringing the cities. We have interlocking anti-aircraft laser sites ringing each city. All we have to do is add the soldiers and the WestHems are going to find themselves with a whole lot of trouble on their hands once they get within fifty kilometers of any city."

"I see," Whiting said, nodding expressionlessly. "And what will you require of our industry to fight this battle? List in order of importance if you would."

"Biosuits," Jackson answered immediately. "Model 459s. Like I said, I don't have preliminary numbers on how many troops I will have to fight with, but in a worst-case scenario I'm going to need at least an additional twenty thousand of them, although one hundred thousand would be optimum. If we're going to win this war, it's going to be won out in the wastelands. We have to be able to outfit our troops to fight there. If we wait to fight the WestHems in the cities themselves, we've already lost the war.

"We're also going to need at least a million 155 millimeter artillery shells for city defenses. We have two million in stockpile at the moment but we will use them at a frightening rate when the WestHems near the cities in force.

"We will need at least ten million rounds of four millimeter M-24 bullets, three million rounds of ten millimeter M-95 machine gun bullets, four hundred thousand sixty millimeter grenades, one hundred thousand eighty millimeter mortar shells, and at least sixty-thousand hand-held fragmentation grenades.

"And Laura, I know you're working on it with EastHem, but I need to stress the most vital component here. Fuel. If we don't secure a supply of liquid hydrogen to run all of this machinery, we might as well throw down our arms and surrender."

"I'll be sending a message to the EastHem ruling council later today," Laura replied. "Are you sufficient in tanks, guns, artillery pieces, and so forth?"

"We are," he said. "We have enough in stockpile and onboard the Panama's at TNB to supply our forces sufficiently for the first wave of marines. What we could use more of is atmospheric aircraft, specifically Mosquitoes. If the people at the factory can make them in time for the war, I'll divert some of the qualified recruits from the volunteers to train in them. The more aircraft we have harassing the WestHem armor, the less armor we'll have to deal with at the cities."

"Okay," Laura said, "let's take your requests one at a time." She turned to Kyle Yee, who was an upper level manager at Environmental Supplies, manufacturer of the biosuit. ES, as it was known, was one of the few Martian owned corporations on the planet. Its primary function was the manufacture of civilian biosuits for use in construction, maintenance, and other jobs that required people to go outside. They also had the military contract for model 459 biosuits, the more advanced military version.

"Kyle," Laura asked, "you are effectively in charge of ES. So what do you think? Can you give General Jackson's forces a hundred thousand 459s?"

Kyle was a perfect example of the culture clash that would be going on on Mars if the revolution were eventually successful. He was a Martian to the core, but he was used to thinking of things in a certain manner.

"Governor," he said slowly, "I'm not sure we can do that."

"Oh?" Whiting asked, raising her eyebrows. "And why not?"

"The 459 is expensive to manufacture Governor," he explained. "It's a specialty piece of equipment. In order to obtain the supplies needed for production of the 459 — the extractors, the combat computers, even the storage tanks — that will require much more money than we have available in liquid assets at the time being. And under the circumstances I'm not sure that the other corporations would even extend a line of credit to supply them. And we still have our civilian obligations to fulfill. The bulk of our business is civilian suits as you're aware. We can't simply convert our energies to the manufacture of 459s. It's economically unfeasible."

"Economically unfeasible?" Laura asked him, her eyes appearing to burn into the executive.

"Yes, Governor," he agreed.

Laura rubbed her temples for a moment, as if massaging away a headache. When she dropped her hands from her head, she picked up her coffee cup and took a quick sip. When that was swallowed she bored into him. "Mr. Yee," she asked pointedly, "did you vote for independence?"

"What?" he asked, confused.

"Forgive me for being personal. But did you vote yes yesterday?"

"Of course, Governor," he said defensively.

"I'm glad to hear that, Mr. Yee. Very glad indeed. Now, will you agree with me that this planet, which is now independent, is in a state of war?"

"Well, sure," he answered.

"Do you foresee any particular need for a large supply of civilian biosuits in the near future?"

He considered this for a second. "Well..." he said at last, "no. Actually, I don't."

She continued to stare at him pointedly. "I did not ask you if you thought that the manufacture of one hundred thousand model 459 military biosuits was economically feasible, did I?"

"Governor, I'm not sure that I understand..."

"I asked you," Laura said, raising her voice a tad, "if it was possible for your factory to turn out one hundred thousand model 459 military biosuits for the coming war. I don't give a damn if it's economically feasible or not. Your factory, as of today, is Martian property dedicated to the betterment of the Martian people. Profits and economic feasibility should be the absolute last things on your mind. I do not ever want to hear you mention such things again. We are in a state of war, Mr. Yee. War! We need biosuits to outfit our soldiers so we can fight this war. What I want to know is, economics aside, is your factory capable of turning out this number of suits? Is it physically possible?"

Yee seemed quite shocked by her words, but he answered her. "If we are able to obtain the needed parts, and if we put on an extra four hundred workers or so, yes, Governor, we can have the suits available by the time the WestHems arrive."

"Good," Whiting said, her voice returning to normal. "Do whatever you need to do. Hire all of the workers you need. We have millions of unemployed on this planet you know. Get the supplies you need to get sent to you without worrying about cost. This is common sense government and cost is not an issue. Production is the issue. This is a needed supply and common sense dictates that it should be produced no matter what the cost. So do it! If any of the suppliers have a problem with sending things to you, let us know immediately and we will deal with the problem. Do you understand, Mr. Yee?"

"Yes, Governor," he answered, looking like he'd just gone a round with a heavyweight. "I do."

"Good," Laura replied. She turned to Jackson. "It looks like you can count on one hundred thousand 459s, General."

Jackson suppressed a smile. "Thank you, Governor. And you too, Mr. Yee."

"As for your other requests," Whiting went on, "I obviously do not have representatives of FlightCorp, Dow Chemical, or Shilling munitions here today. Those were Earth based corporations as you know and are probably going through a bit of a shake-up right now. I will touch bases with someone over at those corporations tomorrow and make sure they are getting back into productivity. I will discuss my needs with them and..." she glanced at Yee, who was blushing, "... and persuade them gently if needed."

"That will be fine, Governor," Jackson told her.

"Okay," she said, "next subject. Triad Naval Base. Mr. Belting, you are in charge of that particular phase of this war. What can you tell me?"

Matthew Belting was fifty-eight years old and a third generation Martian of American descent. He had served more than sixteen years in the WestHem Navy, the bulk of it aboard Owls and their predecessors. He was an expert in stealth space warfare and had achieved the highest rank of any Martian in history in the WestHem armed services; that of Lieutenant Commander. During the Jupiter War he'd served as executive officer on board an Owl that had been responsible for the destruction of two heavy battleships and four support ships. When the Owl in question was finally cornered and battered with laser fire, crippling it and killing it's captain, Belting had assumed command. With no hope of anything but destruction of the ship and its surviving forty-two crewmen, he'd surrendered the ship, subjecting himself and his crew to POW status. They'd spent the remainder of the war in a POW camp in Berlin. For this decision Belting was given treatment by WestHem similar to what General Sega was now experiencing. He'd been labeled a traitor, a coward, and worse by the media. Upon being released at the end of the war he was court-martialed in a staged, televised show trial and found guilty, spending three years in a federal prison outside of Phoenix. Upon release he'd returned to Mars, his homeland, his name forever in the history books as a cowardly traitor.

Belting had lived in the ghettos of New Pittsburgh for the next twelve years, drinking alcohol, smoking marijuana, and living among the jobless as a ghetto dweller. Five years ago when a firm plan began to come together for the revolution, Jackson had contacted Belting. Jackson had felt the man up for more than six months, satisfying himself that Belting could be trusted and that he still possessed the expertise he once had. When he was certain the time was right, he'd casually asked him if he felt like planning a little 'operation' that may or may not take place in the future.

Since then Belting had been a welcome though secret part of Jackson's staff. He'd taken to his part of it with vigor, researching modern naval techniques and tactics fanatically. He was perhaps the most knowledgeable authority on space warfare in existence. Though the Earthlings had convicted him of incompetence and had cussed his name so much since the Jupiter War that they now believed their own lies, Matt Belting was quite possibly the man who might insure victory in the coming conflict.

He looked at the Governor, the woman who, despite his reputation and record, had always treated him with respect and had always sought after his advice in regards to naval strategy. He would have flown an Owl on a suicide mission for her.

"The operations on Triad are going very well, Governor," he answered, sipping out of his own coffee. "Colonel Bright's men have been of great assistance to me in securing the base and inventorying its holdings. You already have been briefed on the numbers and variety of ships we have captured there, so I will not go into that unless you wish me to."

"You needn't bother, Mr. Belting," Laura said.

"Okay. All of the combat ships, with the exception of one, were captured in a combat-ready state. This means they were fully armed and fueled. The exception is an Owl, the Mermaid to be exact, which had just made port hours before Red Grab took place. In that case the only thing missing is propellant for the engines and masking system; something that can be rectified rather quickly. And of course, all of the ships are minus basic consumables, although again, the replacement of this is a minor affair.

"The fuel bunkers at the base are nearly full. Apparently there was a delivery of fuel less than a month ago. We have a total of one hundred and sixteen million tons of liquid hydrogen, which is enough propellant for two month's worth of sustained combat operations including long term Owl deployment. However, as General Jackson pointed out, if we're going to go to war for a length of time, we're going to need more.

"The consumables stock for the base is a little lower but that is not of concern. We have enough for another two weeks and those stocks can be replaced once the agricultural industry gets itself back together.

"Weapons stocks are more than I could have hoped for as far as quantity. We have over six hundred nuclear torpedoes onboard the ships and in storage. The problem is that while the base was under siege, the base security personnel wiped the programming for them. We will be unable to detonate them or even launch them as they are now."

"Will we be able to use those torpedoes?" Whiting asked, concerned. The torpedoes were a vital part of the planned Operation Interdiction.

Yes indeed," Belting said. "We just need to make new interfaces for them. SpaceLab Corporation on Triad manufactures the torpedoes. We can just have the people that work there make another six hundred detonator computers and then have them send some people over to install them on the torpedoes. Like every other industry here on Mars, it should not be a problem if they get themselves together and get to work now that their Earthling bosses are gone. However if Interdiction is going to work, it has to be initiated within ten days, fourteen at the most. I suggest you contact SpaceLab as soon as you can and get them moving on this. We will need a minimum of eighty interfaces installed in the torpedoes by that time."

Laura made a note of that. "I'll contact them first thing in the morning," she promised. "I'll make sure you have what you need, one way or the other."

Belting nodded and then went on. "The three Panama class, pre-positioned ships have been inventoried and their contents downloaded to General Jackson. As soon as feasible I will undock those ships and start sending the landing craft down to the surface for disbursement. This will of course be done at the General's discretion."

"How long until you have the people to start doing that?" Whiting asked.

"Should be soon," he answered. "It depends on the cooperation of the Martian citizens that were part of the navy. They will be the ones who know how to fly those landing craft and put them down where they're needed."

"You'll be given first crack at all volunteers with naval experience," Jackson put in. "I'll formulate the list and send it to your office hourly when the recruits start signing up."

"I understand," Belting said to the General. "And hopefully I'll be able to make use of many of them. But without the people that were captured at TNB, I won't need any of them. My greatest need is going to be current naval personnel. If Interdiction is going to work, they're going to have to be the backbone of it."

"And that brings me to the issue of POWs.

"We are still sorting through the personnel that have been captured at TNB. As you are aware, there were more than seventeen thousand of them. As of my last briefing, which took place three hours ago, we are fairly certain we have identified and released all of the civilian workers at the base. The majority of them, in fact, were probably able to vote yesterday.

"The military personnel are being held in the housing areas and we are slowly sorting through them one by one. The WestHem citizens are being placed on ships and transported down to the POW camps that are being set up. The Martian citizens that are active naval personnel are being sent to separate parts of the housing complex and are still, for the time being, kept under guard and treated as enemy POWs." He saw the look of distaste on the faces of Whiting and the legislative members.

"I understand your misgivings about this," he quickly put in. "I don't like it either. But under the circumstances it seemed a wise move. Until we establish the loyalty, or lack thereof, of these people to Mars, we must assume that they are WestHems."

"We understand," Laura said. "But please facilitate this process. It's bad enough that these people were not allowed to vote. Don't treat them as criminals any longer than you need to."

"I intend to begin making contact with the ones we have identified later today," Belting said. "I am developing a list of likely candidates for Interdiction duty. I will talk to these people personally."

"How many people capable of command have you identified so far?" Jackson asked.

"Well," Belting gave a crooked smile, "the requirements are rather stringent you know; more than three years service on the bridge of an Owl; and we've only gone through a little more than a third of the prisoners."

"How many?" Jackson repeated.

"Just three so far."

"Well," Laura said brightly, "three is better than none now, isn't it?"

Belting shrugged. "In any case, I will begin talking with these people shortly. In fact I have a 10:30 shuttle to Triad this morning and will make contact as soon as I arrive. If these people agree to go along with Interdiction I'm going to need their help picking crews. There's a lot to do and little time to do it in."

"It sounds like you have things well in hand, Mr. Belting," Laura said, and then paused, as if puzzled. "You know," she said, looking at him, "it just doesn't seem right calling you Mr. Belting. How does Admiral Belting sound to you?"

"Excuse me?" Belting said, confused.

Laura grinned. "I am proposing you be named commanding Admiral of the Martian Navy. You will given all the rights and privileges of such a rank and you will be subordinate only to General Jackson."

Belting was stunned. Admiral? Commanding Admiral?

"I second the nomination," General Jackson grinned.

"Well, Admiral?" Laura asked. "Do you accept?"

"Uh..." Belting stared at them, not knowing what to say. After years of disgrace, after being labeled a traitor, after living in the slums off of tax dollars, they wanted to make him an admiral? "I accept," he finally said. "And I thank you for this honor."

"It's no honor," Jackson said. "You've earned it and there's no one else on the planet as qualified for the job as you are."

"You will of course have to be confirmed by the legislature." Laura said. "Those of us them that are true Martians anyway. But I don't foresee any problems with that and in any case that is for after the success of Interdiction. Until then the very existence of the Martian Navy is to be kept a secret. That is vital to Interdiction, is it not?"

Belting nodded. "Yes."

"Then for now, you will be appointed commanding Admiral in lieu of full confirmation. Congratulations, Admiral. Do your best."

"I will," Admiral Belting, near tears promised. "I will."

Matt Mendez and Jeff Creek were sitting in Jeff's living room, both smoking cigarettes and both sipping from their first Fruity of the day. On the Internet screen at the front of the room the MarsGroup main channel was tuned in, the reporters still talking about the speech Governor Whiting had given and the ramifications of the vote that had been taken the day before. Belinda, who had already consumed three bottles of Fruity this fine morning, was hovering nearby, clucking her teeth at what she was hearing.

"The people on this fuckin' planet are crazy as that bitch Whiting," she was saying sadly, a cigarette smoldering between her fingers. "Don't they know what they just done? Don't they know what them fuckin marines is gonna do to us when they get here?"

"Shut your ass," Jeff said to her, irritated. "We know what we're getting into."

"You don't know shit," she said. "She promises you you're gonna get a job or some shit like that and you vote to have them marines come down here and kill us all. Didn't you hear what those WestHem fucks said last night?"

"They're talking out their ass," Matt spoke up, just as irritated with his friend's wife — who had been one of the minute percentage to give a no on the independence vote — as Jeff was. "As long as people stick together and fight them, we'll win. Don't you want to be free?"

"Free," she scoffed, taking another large drink. "There ain't no such thing in this universe. That bitch used you two and the rest of this goddamn planet to set herself up as a fuckin dictator. You ever think of that?"

"I guess it's just a chance we'll have to take," Jeff said, letting loose a loud and extremely foul fart into the room. He took a drag off his cigarette and then turned back to the screen, where a field reporter was standing outside the entrance to the Shilling Munitions headquarters in New Pittsburgh.

"Obviously this factory here," the reporter was telling the camera, "is one of those that Governor Whiting and the interim government will need to get operating at full capacity if we're going to be successful in fighting off the WestHem marines when they get here. But today confusion reigned as hundreds of unemployed showed up looking for jobs while the WestHem management structure showed up and tried to take charge as normal in an environment that is far from what they left last week before the vote. It is reported that the Martian factory workers and security guards forcibly ejected all of the managers from the building, telling them that they were no longer welcome. As to just who is running the operation at this point, that is completely unknown. In the meantime, thousands of patriotic Martians are waiting patiently and not so patiently out front for their opportunity to work here. From what we've heard, this same scene is taking place at industrial and agricultural facilities all over the planet in the wake of the independence vote."

"Jan," a newscaster back at the main office enquired, "we've heard that Governor Whiting is personally contacting each of the vital industries to ask them to work together to formulate some sort of command structure so that productivity can continue. Have you seen or heard any evidence of that?"

"I have heard that Governor Whiting has contacted some of the old lower level supervisory staff that used to assist on the factory floor," the reporter replied. "As to what was said and how effective it has been moving things along, I haven't been able to develop any information regarding that."

"They're never gonna get those fucking places running," Belinda predicted gloomily. "Everyone's gonna be fighting over who gets to give the orders and no one's gonna do the work. They'll be rioting in them places in two days."

"They'll send the MPG in to take over the place if they don't get their shit together," Matt said. "That's a munitions factory. We're gonna need the bullets and shells that that place makes."

"Hopefully it won't come to that," Jeff said. "The MPG has better things to do than babysit a bunch of fucking whiny employed fucks that want to be in charge."

"What about you?" Matt asked. "What're you gonna do now? You gonna just sit around and live off the unemployment some more or are you gonna go out and get one of them jobs that they're offering?"

"I don't know, man," he said with a shrug. "I'm kinda just enjoying watching the show go on, you know what I mean? If nothing else, we tweaked WestHem's ass pretty good with this one."

"Yep," Matt said. "We tweaked them all right. But if we want to keep tweaking them we're gonna have to do more than sit here and watch the show. This is the chance to get a real job, to earn some real money. I'm gonna take it."

"Yeah? What are you gonna do? Go work in the fuckin munitions factory? Or are you gonna go work in the greenhouses picking fuckin tomatoes or something?"

"Neither," he told him. "I'm gonna sign up for the MPG."

"The MPG?" Jeff asked incredulously. "You're gonna join the fuckin army? Are you dusted?"

He shook his head. "I want to help fight this war," he said. "I really think that we have a good chance of staying independent if we get enough people to sign up. I voted yes and I'm gonna go help fight those Earthling fucks. I want to be part of it."

"Part of it?" Jeff said. "You are fucking dusted. What if you get killed, man? Those WestHem marines aren't gonna be shooting training rounds when they land down here and try to take these cities back. They gonna be playing for keeps."

"And so will I," Matt told him.

Jeff shook his head, half amused, half disgusted with his friend's willingness to throw himself into the fray. "I just don't get you sometimes, man," he said. "After living in this ghetto all your fuckin life, you..."

"Don't you see," he interrupted, "that's exactly why I'm doing it. I've lived in this fucking neighborhood all of my life, without any hope of ever escaping it thanks to those WestHem fucks and their corporations. Only now, there is hope to get out of here. Somebody has to fight for it though or the hope is going to be gone in about twelve weeks or so. If we win this thing, this planet will be free forever. This war will go down in history as the Martian Independence War, something that they'll talk about in history for the next two thousand years." He paused, giving a little shrug. "I want to be part of that. I want my descendents to be able to say that their dad or their granddad or their great fucking granddad fought in it."

A change underwent Jeff's face as Matt explained himself, a subtle shift from disgust to understanding. It was a change that Belinda, even in her drunken state, instantly picked up on.

"Oh my fucking God," she said dramatically. "Look at this shit. He's got you actually thinking about that shit now, doesn't he?"

"He does make a very good point," Jeff admitted, almost reluctantly.

"So now you're gonna go out and sign up to get killed by the WestHems too? Is that what you're saying? You want to die alongside him, or end up in some shithole prison when they take this place back?"

"I didn't say anything like that," he said defensively. "I just said he made a good point."

"I got a news flash for you, moron," Belinda said, spilling a little bit of her Fruity down her arm she was so excited. "We're not going to win this war. There is no way that the Earthlings are going to let us keep this planet. We surprised them a little bit the other day, that's true, but they're going to jack this planet back from the MPG as soon as they land. This isn't going to go down in history as no fuckin Martian Independence War because we ain't gonna win. They're gonna say it's an uprising that they put down and no one will even remember it twenty years from now. And if you two don't fuckin know that then you're even stupider than you look."

"And so what are you going to do?" Jeff asked his wife. "Just sit here through the whole thing and drink Fruity?"

"Goddamn right that's what I'm gonna do," she said. "That's what my life consists of. I'm vermin, just like you two. Only I'm gonna be a living, free vermin when this little war is over and we have marines occupying our city. Nothing ever fucking changes around here. You're stupid if you think that it does."

Matt had heard just about enough. He swallowed the remainder of his own bottle and stood up. "Well you two can sit here and argue about it if you want, I'm going to sign up. Time's a wasting."

"Good," Belinda nearly spat, "and take your fuckin perfect world ideas with you. Maybe we'll come visit you in prison when this is all over."

He ignored her, heading for the apartment door. He didn't make it three steps before Jeff stood up from his own chair.

"Wait up a second," he told him. "I'll go with you."

"You'll do what?" Belinda screamed at him. "You are not going with him! You ain't gonna get your stupid ass killed before I get knocked up and have my baby! I ain't gonna live in this fuckin one bedroom apartment all my life!"

"That's why I'm going with him," Jeff said calmly, grabbing his PC and his cigarettes. "So you won't have to. C'mon, let's go."

The nearest MPG recruiting office was forty blocks away, in the south portion of Helvetia Heights. They rode the public transit train there, utilizing one of the transport tokens that came with their monthly welfare allotment. They stepped off at the nearest station nervously, knowing that they were now deep in enemy gang territory, an act that could easily lead to their deaths if they were discovered.

Sure enough, they made it no more than two blocks from the station before a group of Thrusters stepped out of the lobby of a public housing building and blocked their path. There were six of them, all young, dangerous looking, hardened veterans. They surrounded them menacingly, eyeing the Capitalist tattoos on their quarry's arms, their hands playing in their waistbands where their guns would be holstered.

"A little out of your turf?" one of them, the apparent leader of the group, inquired plainly, his face expressionless.

Neither Jeff nor Matt said anything, both knowing that they were caught, neither wanting to give their foes the satisfaction of hearing them whine.

The leader continued to stare at them, his hand continuing to fondle the concealed handgun. "You got a lot of balls just walking around over here like this," he told them. "A lot of fucking balls. Where you heading?"

They remained silent, both glaring defiantly at the faces around them.

"Let's take 'em around the back and pop 'em," one of the younger members suggested.

"Yeah," another put in, "then we'll drag their fucking bodies back to the border tonight and dump 'em."

"We might just do that," the leader said thoughtfully. He took a step closer to Jeff, fingering the tattoo on his arm. He then looked over at Matt's. "You're retired?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jeff grunted, since some reply seemed necessary.

"Over eighteen then?"

He nodded.

"Where you heading?" the leader repeated. "You didn't come all the way into our turf like this with only the two of you looking for a fight. And you ain't here sellin' dust either. So what the fuck you doing out here? Didn't you know that we was gonna find you?"

"We knew," Jeff told him. "We ain't here to make trouble. We're heading for 104th and Stevens."

The leader nodded. "The MPG recruiting center," he said. "You going to sign up?"

"Yeah," Jeff confirmed.

The leader looked over at Matt. "You too?"

"Yeah," Matt grunted as well.

He nodded again, his face remaining without expression or nuance. He turned to his people. "Let 'em through," he said. "They're going to sign up."

There was no argument, no hesitation. They simply stood aside.

"Get your asses on down there," the leader told them. "You have safe passage through our turf for that. We catch you anywhere except between here and there though, you're dead meat. Got it?"

"Got it," Jeff told them.

Their bodies flooded with nervous adrenaline, they started walking once again. They didn't look back. They were harassed no further on their trip.

The recruitment center had been hastily set up the night before in the lobby of a commercial building that catered to the welfare class retail industry. It was home to the welfare food mart, the welfare clothing store, welfare intoxicant shops, and many other stores that accepted government subsidy dollars. Like any such building there were thousands of square meters of vacant space. It was in the remains of a former rent-to-own establishment that had been closed the year before for lack of sufficient profit margin that the MPG had brought in desks, computer terminals, and recruitment specialists. A squad of infantry had also been brought in as a security measure.

Jeff and Matt did not get near the recruitment center or even the building itself for quite some time however. A line of people stretched from the main lobby doors for three blocks in both directions. There were males and females alike, most between the ages of eighteen and thirty years old, all of them wearing welfare clothing, most sporting gang tattoos on their arms. They stood patiently in groups of two and three and four, many smoking cigarettes, a few even sipping from Fruity bottles. Amazingly enough many of the former gang members were from rival gangs, some of the rivalries as bitter and long-lasting as that between the Capitalists and the Thrusters. They stood shoulder to shoulder in many places with no apparent conflict or strife. Some even seemed to be conversing.

"Goddamn that's a lot of fuckin' people," Jeff said as they approached the tail end of it. "How long is this shit gonna take?"

"Quite a while it looks like," Matt said. "Come on, let's get in line."

They got in line. It was a slow moving one and it took them nearly three hours before the building was even in sight. At last they made it to the front and were brought before a desk where a weary looking sergeant in standard indoor garb asked for their identification. They provided it for him and he ran their names through his computer.

"You boys have been in a little trouble in your lives now, haven't you?" he asked lightly, with the air of one who had already asked that more than a thousand times that day.

"Just the normal shit for the hood," Jeff responded. "Is that gonna keep us from signing up?"

The sergeant smiled a little bit. "If we eliminated everyone around here because they had a criminal record we wouldn't have anyone at all." He scrolled up and down through the screen for a moment. "Let's see what we got here... possession of dust, assault and battery, carrying a concealed weapon, possession of stolen property, possession of illegal chemicals. That's all the usual stuff all right. No murder convictions, no sexual crimes, no assaults against peace officers. Those are the big eliminating factors. Have either one of you ever worked before?"

"Naw," Jeff said. "Ain't too many jobs around here."

Matt shook his head in the negative as well.

"No job training skills or anything like that?"

Again they both answered in the negative.

"Ok then," the sergeant said. "If you two will head on upstairs for me you'll find corporal Jennings who will set you up on a computer to take the ASVAB test."

"The az-vab?" Jeff asked. "What the fuck's that?"

"Armed services vocational assessment battery," the sergeant explained. "It's an exam that tells us what your strengths and weaknesses are so we can determine what assignment would best suit you."

"Shee-it," Jeff said toughly, "just give me a fuckin' gun and point me to the fuckin' Earthlings."

"Well, we like you spirit," the sergeant responded. "But we still have to give you the test. So if you'll just head upstairs for me."

They headed upstairs. Once there they found another two-hour wait until a computer terminal was free.

The test itself took only an hour. The first section consisted of a series of multiple choice questions in such subjects as math, English, reading comprehension, spatial relations, and general knowledge. They both answered everything to the best of their abilities and then were automatically moved onto the second section, which was a standard psychological examination. The questions here were widely varied and many of them bordered on the bizarre but — in accordance with the instructions at the beginning — both did their best to answer truthfully instead of in a smart-ass manner, which was what their gang instincts cried out for.

Both finished at roughly the same time. The computer screens they were using thanked them for their participation in the process and gave them appointments with recruiters. Matt's was in six days at the very recruiting center that they were now sitting in. It included a free two-way pass for the public transportation system. Jeff's appointment however, was a little different. It was in two days at the MPG deployment center itself.

"Why do you think we have different appointment places?" Jeff asked as they headed back through Thruster territory to the train station. "And why would they send you back here why they send me all the way over to the other side of the city? That don't make no fuckin sense."

"Maybe it has something to do with that test we took," Matt suggested with a shrug. "They said it was for placement."

"Shit," he said, "if they try and make me clean out biosuits or something like that I'm fuckin walkin. That's not what I signed up for."

"Maybe they want to put you in tanks or something," Jeff suggested.

"I'd go for that," he replied, lighting a cigarette. "I ain't gonna clean out no fuckin biosuits though. They better not even ask me that shit."

Meanwhile, at the MPG deployment center, Lisa Wong was on duty behind her computer terminal in the administration part of the building. Her leg was healing up nicely from the shrapnel injury she'd received in the firefight at the main gate to EMB but she still had a bulky bandage wrapped around it, a bandage she wore with a certain amount of pride. She had been wounded in battle! In an actual, knockdown, drag-out battle with WestHem marines! After that the accounting and inventory tasks she was performing — even though the demand for them had quadrupled in the last week — were now unimaginably dull. She stared at her screen listlessly, looking at rows and columns that listed where combat equipment was stored and at what rate it was being used, vowing that she would not fight the war by doing this.

She looked at her watch, seeing that it was 1510, twenty minutes before her scheduled appointment with Captain Jennifer Stanley, the commanding officer of the accounting and receiving department. The appointment had been made the previous day, shortly after the vote count had been announced, in response to an email that had been distributed to all MPG members from General Jackson himself. The memo had stated that all MPG members requesting either removal from the MPG on grounds of non-support of the revolt or reassignment within it to move into or out of combat branches should contact their respective commanding officer. Lisa, obviously, was going with the latter option. Since Governor Whiting had banished the sexual barrier for combat branches, she sure as hell wanted in on it.

At 1518 she could wait no longer. She got up from her desk and made her way to the elevator, where a trip up three floors brought her to the main administration nerve center for the base. The doors opened on a spacious lobby furnished with plain but functional desks, couches, and chairs. Other MPG members awaiting their own appointments with their own commanding officers occupied most of the chairs. A civilian secretary sat behind a desk, answering computer calls and putting in an endless stream of appointments for others.

"Name?" the secretary, a young Asian descendent with a particularly thick Martian accent asked.

"Corporal Wong," Lisa told her. "I have a 1530 with Captain Stanley."

"Hold on a sec," she said. She completed the call that she was currently handling and then put someone else on hold. She then checked through another screen on her computer and tapped it with her finger. "Should be about another five minutes or so. Go ahead and grab a seat."

She thanked the harried looking secretary and then plopped herself down on one of the couches. The woman sitting next to her was someone she knew. She worked in the outfitting department a floor below hers and had been part of the makeshift platoon that had pinned in the marines. They chatted while they waited, talking of Lisa's wound and their hopes for reassignment.

"I want tanks," the woman told her, almost hungrily. "I want to be in the machine that blows those Earthling fucks back to their landing area."

"I just want someone to give me a gun to fight with," Lisa responded vaguely, not mentioning her real hope for fear that she would laugh it off.

Right on schedule Lisa was invited into the captain's office for the meeting. She walked through the doors a little nervously, into a small room with a standard plastic desk and a few potted plants. Pictures of a smiling girl of about twelve were displayed on the top of the computer terminal. Stanley was sitting in her chair, looking a little frazzled herself. She was a handsome woman of about forty years old, a ten-year member of the MPG and a low-level accountant for MarsTrans in her civilian life.

"Let me guess," she told Lisa as she took a seat before the desk. "You're here to request reassignment to a combat branch."

Lisa smiled. She had always liked her CO who, in the tradition set by General Jackson, was an approachable, personable leader to her troops. "You must be psychic, Captain," she told her.

"I must be," she said with a sigh. "You're the fifteenth member of accounting that's met with me today. From what I hear I have similar appointments taking up most of my time tomorrow as well. Not only am I not getting any work done, I'm losing all of my best people. I don't suppose that you'd reconsider and man that desk for me instead of an M-24?"

"Not a chance, Captain, sorry," Lisa told her.

"Can't say that I blame you," she said with a shrug. "I put in my own request for reassignment yesterday with Colonel Culligan. Unfortunately my request was denied. Seems they need me a little too much over here in accounting."

"Well... someone has to do it, don't they?"

"Just not you," she said with a hint of sarcasm. "I know the feeling, believe me. So, where can we put you? Do you want tanks? Infantry? Flight training maybe? I haven't checked your qualifications yet."

"Well... actually," she said slowly, hesitantly, "I was thinking of... maybe... uh..." she trailed off, unable to get the words out of her mouth.

"What?" Stanley asked patiently. "Spit it out, girl."

"Special forces," Lisa finally blurted, feeling herself blush.

Stanley raised her eyebrows a tad. "Special forces?" she said. "Wong, I know you're hot to get into combat and all but the qualifications for special forces are pretty stringent. Those positions are only open to existing MPG members that have combat unit experience. At this particular moment in time that only includes the men. Maybe in a year or so, after you..."

"Begging your pardon, Captain," Lisa interrupted, "but that isn't exactly what the requirements say. I read them very carefully."

Another raising of the eyebrows. "Oh?"

"Yes," Lisa confirmed. "They read previous combat unit experience or an equivalent experience. I think I might qualify under the equivalent experience umbrella."

"Equivalent experience? Are you talking about police work?"

"Exactly," she said with a smile. "I have basic police academy training, three levels of advanced weapons and tactics training, and almost eight years of street patrol time. I'm qualified as expert in the M-24 and the 4mm pistol as well as the MP-7 and MP-9 assault rifles. That is all in addition to my MPG basic infantry tactics training."

Stanley nodded thoughtfully. "That is pretty impressive," she admitted. "But as to whether or not that counts as equivalent training or not would not be up to me. I'd have to kick your request over to Colonel Bright's office for consideration."

"Could you do that for me?"

"I'll need a resume of some sort first," she told her.

Lisa smiled. "I just happen to have one already composed on my PC," she said. "I can download it onto your computer right now."

"Very good then," she said, turning her screen towards Lisa to allow her to access the download port. "Put it in. And for what its worth, I'll even send off a letter of recommendation."

"Thanks, Captain," she said gratefully. That was going to be her next request.

"Are you sure you know what you're getting yourself into if they accept you though? You would be one of very few women in special forces. God only knows what the men would think about that. Are you sure you can handle it?"

"I've worked Helvetia Heights, Collerton, and downtown in a police cart," Lisa said. "After that I can handle anything that they can throw at me."

Brett Ingram sat quietly at a chair, staring out the window at Mars floating below. He was in a bachelor officer's room on the outside wall of the base; a room intended for one occupant that he was sharing with three others. The surroundings were comfortable but the door was locked and armed MPG troops patrolled outside. Spacer Sugiyoto, one of the other Martians that had been stationed aboard the Mermaid was one of his roommates, as were two other native Martians he'd never met until two days ago when they'd been separated out from the rest of the WestHem naval personnel that were being held prisoner in the enlisted dormitory. The fact that they were all Martians did not escape them, nor did they think it a coincidence.

After all, they knew what was going on on the planet below. Even when they'd been crowded in with the other prisoners in the dorm, they had known about the revolution and the vote and the declaration of independence. Their captors had allowed them access to video terminals in their captivity, terminals that showed both MarsGroup broadcasts as well as WestHem big three broadcasts. In the room they were in now the main terminal mounted on the wall was available for their viewing pleasure twenty-four hours a day, on any network that they wished to view. The only capability that had been removed from it was transmission of information or email to the Internet.

The four of them had been watching MarsGroup almost continually since being placed in the room together. In between newscasts that showed MPG soldiers patrolling city streets and huge lines before recruitment centers and industries, they had speculated on just what the reason for their segregation might be. All four had come to the conclusion that the Martian authorities — namely General Jackson, Laura Whiting, and the small group of planetary legislature members that were loyal to them — simply didn't know what to do with them.

"They know we're greenies but they don't know if they can trust us because we're WestHem naval personnel," Sugiyoto had surmised on more than one occasion.

"They were nice enough to separate us from the Earthlings but not quite nice enough to just let us go," was Ingram's opinion on the matter.

"Or let us vote in the independence vote," added one of the others at this point in the conversation. "The most important fucking vote this planet has ever engaged in and we weren't allowed to take part in it."

These same points, as well as a few others, were what were being rehashed for the thirtieth or fortieth time when the door to the outside hallway suddenly slid open on its track. A pair of MPG infantry soldiers stood there, their uniform full battle gear, their M-24s cradled down low in a manner that was almost, but not quite, non-threatening.

"Mr. Ingram," one of them said politely, looking directly at him. "If you would come with us please?"

Brett looked at them a little nervously. "Where are we going?" he asked, making no move to get up from his small chair.

"Someone wants to see you," was the reply. "If you would come with us please?"

He went with them. After all, what else was there to do? They led him through a maze of corridors deep within the bowels of the base, through sections he had never been in before, through security door after security door, all of which opened with a touch of their hands. They passed several other MPG soldiers on the way to their destination, all of them armed, but no one else. The halls that had once undoubtedly teemed with WestHem officers and men were now virtually deserted.

"Where are all the Earthlings?" Brett asked them at one point, not really expecting an answer from them but unable to contain his curiosity.

To his surprise, one of the soldiers answered, his voice friendly. "Most of them have been moved down to the surface," he said. "The rest are still over in the enlisted dorms. They should be down at the POW camps by the end of the week."

"I see," Brett said thoughtfully.

Near the front portion of the naval base, nearly two kilometers from where they'd started, they came to the main control building, the building that Admiral Rosewood had surrendered to the special forces troops on the orders of General Sega. Signs of the battle that had taken place here were everywhere. Glass was missing from many of the doors and little holes, obviously made by high-velocity bullets, peppered nearly every surface. Two more soldiers guarded the front entrance. They pushed a button on a computer screen and the doors slid open.

Brett was led into the entrance foyer, where two more soldiers — one with a light machine gun — were standing guard. One of them got up and walked over to Brett, standing before him impassively. He held a standard issue police scanner in his hand and he quickly ran it over Brett's body.

"He's clean," the soldier said. "Go ahead and take him up. The admiral is waiting for him."

The admiral? Brett thought, confused. What admiral? Was Rosewood still on the base? And if so, why would they want Brett to talk to him?

He kept his questions to himself and the two soldiers that had accompanied him took him to a bank of elevators in the far wall. One of them was standing invitingly open and they entered it, the soldiers flanking him on either side.

"Top level," one of the men said and the machine began to rise, going non-stop to the tenth floor of the building. When the doors slid open again they were in a large hallway. Closed doors lined it on both sides.

"Right this way," the other man told him, heading to the left. Brett followed.

Shortly they came to a door marked with Admiral Rosewood's name and rank. Someone had taken red spray paint and drawn a circle around his title and then put a diagonal slash through it. Brett was still staring at this curiously when the door slid open, revealing a reception area. The desk that had guarded the entrance to the inner office was still there but empty, its computer terminal darkened. The two soldiers guided him around it to the inner door. One of them put his hand on the locking screen and the door slid open.

Inside was a large office, complete with a huge desk that appeared to be made of genuine oak. A middle-aged man in civilian clothes sat behind the desk, a man that looked vaguely familiar to Brett. He looked up at their entrance and smiled a little.

"Come in," he told the group at his door. He looked directly at Brett. "Go ahead and have a seat, my friend." He waved to a plastic chair before his desk.

Brett slowly went inside and sat in the offered chair. The two soldiers continued to flank him, their weapons clanking as they adjusted them.

"Thank you for bringing my guest, gentlemen," the man told the soldiers. "If you would give us a few minutes of privacy now I'd appreciate it."

The soldiers didn't seem to like this idea too much. "Admiral," one of them said, "he's still technically a WestHem POW. I'm not sure that..."

"I don't think he's going to try to harm me, are you, Mr. Ingram?" the man — the so-called admiral — interrupted.

"Uh... no," Brett said. "Not at all."

"But..." the other soldier started.

"If there's trouble I'll call you," he said. "I'd like what is said between myself and this young man to be private and confidential, okay?"

"Okay," one of them said doubtfully. Reluctantly they left the room, the door sliding shut behind them. Brett was now alone with the familiar looking man the others called admiral, who was looking across the desk at him, a small smile upon his face.

The man turned the computer terminal towards him and tapped a few keys. "Spacer First Class Ingram," he addressed him, paging through screens on the terminal. "You were born December 3rd, 2116, in Libby, Mars. The son of Jack and Lisa Ingram, second generation Martians." He looked up at him, his blue eyes probing. "That makes you a third generation Martian. You've grown up on Mars, you were educated on Mars, and you are without dispute, a Martian, correct?"

"Uh... yes," he said slowly, not knowing where this conversation was leading.

The man read a little bit more. "You were admitted to the WestHem Navy on January 4, 2136 at the age of nineteen. Trained in electronic systems at Triad Space Base and assigned to the Mermaid. There you have been ever since. Your fitness reports are marginal. They describe you as 'competent at your tasks for a Martian descended crewman'. There are several reprimands for not following procedures as prescribed in the manual." He showed him a cynical smile. "The WestHems don't like us Martians very much, do they?"

"Excuse me... uh... sir?" said Brett, tired of the mystery. "I'm not quite sure exactly what's going on here."

The man smiled politely. "No," he answered, "I guess you don't, do you? Perhaps we could start with an introduction. I already know who you are and I'm pretty sure that you know who I am; you just haven't recognized me yet. The pictures that they showed you back in your naval history classes were of a much younger me I'm sure."

"Naval history classes?" Brett said doubtfully, although that did seem to ring a bell in his brain.

"I'm the man who surrendered the Herring to EastHem during the Jupiter War. The first Martian descended naval officer to achieve command status."

Brett's eyes widened in surprise. Yes, he knew that story all right. Everyone knew the story of the Herring's surrender and the subsequent disgrace of acting captain Belting after the war. But Brett had thought him dead, either killed by the street gangs of New Pittsburgh or a victim of liver cirrhosis from alcoholism. What was he doing here now? And why were MPG soldiers calling him admiral?

"I can see by your eyes that you recall the face now," Belting said. "Good. That saves me the trouble of explaining that rather painful episode of my life to you. Let us move on to current events, shall we?"

"Sure," Brett said carefully.

"Governor Whiting has named me commanding admiral of the Martian naval forces," he told him.

"The Martian naval forces?" Brett said. "Mars doesn't have any naval forces."

Belting smiled again. "We do now," he told him. "I'm sure you're aware that we have revolted against WestHem, are you not?"

"Yes of course. We've been watching Internet ever since it happened. Its all we have to do."

"Very good. We haven't said much about it to the media and they've been kind enough not to push the issue too much, but here at Triad Naval Base we have captured ten Owl-class ships, twelve California class warships, fully equipped with fighters and bombers, five Panama class transport ships, and a variety of smaller vessels; supply ships mostly. We have also captured a total of 16,462 WestHem naval personnel. Of that number, 1340 are native Martians such as yourself. So we're faced with the problem of just what to do with you all. Should we condemn you to waiting out this war in a cell as a POW just because a couple of years ago you needed a job and took what was available? That doesn't seem hardly fair now, does it?"

"No sir," Belting answered, starting to sense what was coming.

"Indeed it is not. We have no reason to believe that you are any less a Martian than the droves of young men and women that are signing up for service all over the planet. So each of the native Martians that are among the POWs will be getting a speech similar to this one, though usually with a lower ranking officer. I took you because you are special. You served aboard an Owl and more than anything, we need to get those Owls up and running. But first I need to ask you a question; perhaps the most important question anyone will ever ask you in your life, so think carefully about it." He paused, staring at Brett. "Where does your loyalty lie, son?"

"I'm a Martian, sir," Brett answered immediately. "And I want to fight for us. I want in."

Belting, his face remaining expressionless, reached into his desk and withdrew an electronic note-pad. He turned it so that the script was facing Brett and slid it across the desk to him. "This is a resignation from the WestHem Navy. If you're going to fight with us you need to sign it and it will be transmitted to Earth along with any others we get. By signing it you will not only be giving up any rights to pay or benefits from WestHem after the war, but you'll be committing treason against them. If we lose, I can promise that we'll try to protect you from harm but I can't guarantee that we'll be successful. We don't know what's going to happen if we lose."

Brett skimmed the script which was brief and to the point. "Then I guess we'd better not lose," he said, placing his right index finger on the signature pad.

"Very good," Belting told him, holding out his hand for a shake. "Congratulations, you are now an officer of the Martian Navy. I think commander would be an appropriate rank for someone of your experience, don't you?"

Brett's eyes widened. "Commander?" he said. "But sir, I'm just a spacer first class."

"That's in the WestHem system," Belting told him. "Things are going to be different here under our system. In the first place I'm going to be forced to trust you at your word that you will be loyal to us and that you will fight for us. We simply don't have time to do it any other way. Second of all, you're going to be asked to do things for us that would more than likely be considered impossible under the WestHem system. I'm going to ask you to take command of your ship, the Mermaid, and get it up and running in the next two weeks."

Brett reeled from that one. "You want me to command an Owl? And get it running in two weeks?"

"You heard me correctly," Belting confirmed. "I have an operation planned for when our Earthling friends start heading for us, an operation that is designed to whittle down their numbers a little. I call it Interdiction, and those Owls figure quite heavily in it."

"You want to use the captured Owls to hit their transport ships," Brett said, although it was not a question.

"Correct," he said. "That's Interdiction in a nutshell. I want to get as many of those Owls operational as I can and I want to meet the WestHem marines when they come around the sun and I want to pick at them and harass them their entire trip here. What Interdiction will concentrate on will be the Panamas, where the marines and their equipment will be riding. For each Panama that we destroy on the way here, our chances of being defeated on the ground here on Mars will decrease by five percent at least."

Brett took a deep breath, excited at the thought of what Belting was suggesting but forced to examine the hard reality of the situation. "Sir," he said to his new boss, "how will we crew the Owls for this? And then there's the matter of command. Sure, I've been on the bridge for quite a while now and I like to think I'm a pretty good detection man, but I've never commanded a ship before. And you want me to do it against the WestHem navy? To sneak in and blow up their ships? It'll be a suicide mission at best."

"Well, let's take your concerns one at a time, shall we. How will we crew them? My hope is that they will be mostly crewed with former WestHem naval personnel of Martian descent. There are a number of such people on the planet you know."

"But most of them were cooks and cleaning people," Brett said. "What we need are engine room personnel and bridge personnel."

"We'll spread those with that kind of experience around as evenly as possible," Belting told him. "They will be the officers on the ships. The others will just have to be trained in their duties while you are enroute. How many people, after all, does it really take to run an Owl? They crew more than a hundred, but you can run a ship with thirty trained people, can't you?"

"I suppose," he said doubtfully. Sure it was theoretically possible, but...

"You won't be getting much sleep on your way to the battleground, but by the time you get there you will hopefully be able to function as a fighting ship, as a team."

"Hopefully," Brett said with no small measure of trepidation.

"And then there is your command concerns," Belting said next. "To tell you the truth, I don't think that is much of a concern at all. You've been on the bridge of Mermaid for years now. You've observed the command deck through several captains and executive officers. You know what the captain is going to do most of the time before he does it, don't you?"

"Well..." Brett said, "I suppose."

"I've been in the same position as you on that bridge, son," he said. "I've read your file over and over again and I've read through your reports and I've seen the ASVAB analysis on you. It would seem that I have more confidence in your abilities than you yourself do. I know you can command one of those ships and I would venture a guess that you would probably be better at it than many full captains of the WestHem navy. After all, you won't be afraid to deviate from the book now, will you? You will know how to get things done."

Brett said nothing. He just sat, thinking this mad scheme over.

"It's a dangerous job that I'm asking you to do," Belting told him. "I won't make any bones about that. You'll be out there in Earthling territory all alone, with nowhere to run, with only the capabilities of your ship to protect you. This is a voluntary war, Mr. Ingram. If you don't think that you're capable of doing what I ask, or if you feel that it is too dangerous an undertaking, then you are free to turn down the offer of command and I'll find you reassignment somewhere else. The decision is entirely yours."

He took another deep breath, his instincts screaming at him to refuse this suicidal assignment. But he didn't. Instead he said, "Will I be able to examine the records of those assigned to my ship?"

Belting smiled again. "Of course, commander," he told him. "Anything you want."

Salta, Argentina Sector — Southern WestHem

May 28, 2146

Lieutenant Eric Callahan and his platoon of marines had received their orders the previous day. They, along with the rest of the 314th Armored Cavalry Regiment, were being redeployed as part of Operation Martian Hammer, the operation to retake the planet Mars from the greenie terrorists that had assumed control of it. Since the word had come down the entire regiment had been in a constant state of motion as they prepared to ship more than 3000 men up to Departure for deployment onto the transport ships. Thankfully only the men, their bio-suits, and their light weapons needed to go up. The brigade's heavy equipment — the helicopters, the tanks, the APCs, the artillery guns — would all be staying behind as it would be worthless on the surface of Mars. Special extraterrestrial tanks, APCs, hovers, and self-propelled artillery pieces were being moved from warehouses and storage ships in orbit to replace them.

Callahan and his men had been at the Marine airport for the past twelve hours now, not so patiently awaiting their turn to board an aircraft for the two-hour flight to Buenos Aires, where the spaceport was located. They had spent most of that time in the waiting areas watching Internet broadcasts from the big three. Occasional MarsGroup blurbs were shown as well but they were carefully edited shots, meant to inflame the WestHem populace, not present a fair and impartial analysis of the Martian situation. Needless to say the marines — Callahan included — were outraged by the reports of what had occurred on the planet, particularly the reports about their brother marines, the fast action division.

It was said that the rogue elements of the MPG, who had captured EMB with the help of that traitorous bastard Sega, had already executed hundreds of soldiers, lining them up and mowing them down with machine gun fire and tank shells. These reports came from eyewitnesses who had managed to escape the base and somehow transmit their accounts over a side channel of the Internet.

"No one is exactly sure just how many of the marines on the base have been killed," a reporter, speaking live from Denver, explained to the audience, "but it is feared that the intention is to eliminate all of them to prevent an uprising."

"Motherfuckers," one of Callahan's sergeants spat, his eyes glaring murderously at the screen. "I can't wait until we're there, you know what I'm saying. I can't wait to smoke me some greenie ass."

"No mercy for those bastards," a corporal agreed. "No mercy. I say we put every last one of them down."

Callahan said nothing. He was too tired to be enraged any further. He sincerely hoped however, that the greenie forces wouldn't surrender in the next few days as was being predicted my most of the government and military officials that were being interviewed. He wanted to smoke some greenie ass as well and he wanted to do it by leading an actual armored assault, just like an ACR was supposed to fight. There would be no marching around in the mountains and trees, picking at an enemy that hid like a coward. They would be pitting tanks against tanks, APCs against entrenched infantry troops. And since they would outnumber the greenies by more than four to one it would be a pushover battle, something that would offer some valuable experience that would be helpful in the event a real war ever occurred with the EastHem fascists.

EastHem Capital Building, London

May 28, 2146

The Martian Declaration of Independence was a short document, less than a page in length. It contained no flowery speech, no legalese terms, in fact very few adjectives of any kind. It was a simple statement proclaiming that the Planet of Mars had forcibly broken ties with WestHem and now considered itself a free and sovereign nation, with all of the rights and privileges that went along with such a thing. It asked that the two governments of EastHem and WestHem immediately recognize the Planet Mars as such and that they publicly acknowledge it. The document was fingerprint signed by Governor Laura Whiting, the loyal members of the legislature, and General Jackson. Attached to it as a separate file were the certified results of the Independence vote. The declaration and the file had been digitized and sent over an unencrypted frequency to both EastHem and WestHem.

The upper echelon of the EastHem government had been following the events on Mars very closely over the past two weeks. They had watched with glee as the reports had come in regarding the takeover of the planet and the capture of a third of the WestHem navy at anchor. A certain trepidation had fallen over them when they'd received the text of Governor Whiting's address the night of the capture however. She had told the solar system that in order for their revolution to succeed that they would have to engage in trade with EastHem. She had admitted that on an open channel for all the people of both worlds to hear. That had forced the powers-that-be of EastHem into a frenzy as they tried to figure out how to respond to this.

Though EastHem was portrayed by the WestHem media as a fascist dictatorship, in truth the government there was very similar to the government of WestHem. Primarily EastHem was a capitalistic society in which huge corporations controlled the vast majority of the wealth. The official head of the government was a ruling council of nine representatives. Like on WestHem, these politicians were merely puppets for the corporate money that had purchased them and their votes.

Anthony Billings was the chief executive council member. A handsome, charismatic, fifty-five year old Londoner, he was owned quite thoroughly by A&C Hydrogen, the biggest producer of fuel in the hemisphere. He had called a special meeting of the council to discuss a matter of great importance in regards to the Martian situation.

"My fellow councilmembers," he said to his colleagues. "Forgive me for pulling you from your offices in the middle of a workday but I have received word from Mr. Jennings..." he pointed to Kelsey Jennings, the EastHem national security adviser, "... that an encrypted message from the Martian governor has arrived just thirty minutes ago. This is a message that has great bearing on the questions that we have been debating since the Martian revolution took place and one that needs a quick decision."

"Is she asking for trade?" asked Barbara Cassidy, another senior member of the council. Kiev Food Products, the agricultural giant of EastHem, owned her. Her sponsors, and therefore herself as well, were quite eager to participate in trade with Mars as it would easily increase their profits by more than a hundred percent.

"I will play the message for all of us to see in just a moment," Billings replied. "We will then open a discussion on the matter. I have taken the liberty of inviting Mr. Jennings to this meeting as well as General Hans, the chairman of our joint chiefs." He nodded towards a uniformed general sitting at his left. Like most of the EastHem military leaders, he was German in ancestry. "Both of these gentlemen possess some expertise that we will need in order to decide the next step in this process. And now, with no further ado, I will play the message for you."

He spoke a few words to the computer terminal, which caused the lights to dim down and the large view screen at the front of the room to come to life. Everyone watched attentively as Laura Whiting's face, a face that looked tired and drawn from the recent stress that the woman had undergone, filled the screen.

"Greetings, honored ruling council of EastHem," the image said emotionlessly. "By now I'm sure you're aware of the recent events on the planet Mars and I trust that you have received our declaration of independence — a document that was sent out two hours before this message — and had a chance to look it over. I am also confident that you have been monitoring the news broadcasts that have been generated, including the one that portrayed my Independence Day speech to the planet.

"As is the Martian way, I will get right to the point of what I want. Mars is going to have to go to war with WestHem in order to keep our independence secure. As I speak they are loading up marine units into naval ships with the intention of taking our planet away from us and putting it back under their control. We intend to fight them but in order to do that, we are going to need fuel, and lots of it. You folks have fuel and you have the means to deliver it. We would like to engage in straight trade with you for this commodity. In exchange we offer you the commodity that you are perpetually short of: food. We have the means of ending the famine that regularly plagues your nation and boosting your economy exponentially. We will exchange a large portion of our food surplus for your fuel. We require that the fuel will be shipped to our storage tanks at Triad on a bi-monthly basis and that your cargo ships arrive at the same destination in order to pick up the food products. The terms we will offer will be more than fair, in fact they will be quite extravagant.

"As I said in my speech, you hold our fate in your hands. If you refuse to do business with us, our revolution will die in the time that it takes the WestHem landing ships to arrive here. Mars will go back to being a WestHem possession and you will never enjoy Martian agricultural products on your shelves. If you do agree to trade with us you will be subjecting yourself to anger from WestHem. I don't think that that anger would lead to military action on their part but I cannot guarantee that. It is a question that you will have to decide for yourselves.

"Our terms for this deal are few but they are non-negotiable. If you accept our offer it must be done openly, without deceit. We require that you publicly recognize us as the legitimate government of Mars and that you acknowledge our independence. We will not engage in secret trade agreements or clandestine operations to secure this fuel. If you treat us as one sovereign nation dealing with another, you will reap huge benefits. If you are not willing to do that, than we would rather flounder. The decision is now yours. Please get back to us as quickly as possible with your response.

"Thank you, Laura Whiting, acting Governor of Mars."

The screen clicked off and the lights came back on. Everyone continued to stare at the screen for a moment, all of them somewhat taken aback by the briefness of the message.

"Well," said Cassidy, "she certainly doesn't mince words, does she?" As a third generation politician, used to being addressed formally, she was actually a bit offended by Whiting's brevity.

"No," Billings agreed with a sigh, "she certainly doesn't. But let us forgive her for this minor transgression, shall we? Martians are well known for their crudity with the spoken word. After all, look at their ancestry. They are the descendents of welfare recipients of a society that were once the lower classes from this hemisphere. It amazes me sometimes that they can speak coherently at all."

The assembled politicians and military leaders all had a laugh at this jest although, in truth, none of them really thought it was all that funny. But when the CECM made a joke, you laughed at it. That was proper etiquette after all.

"In any case," Billings went on, "I suggest we concentrate more on Ms. Whiting's message than the words she used to deliver it with. Though no firm terms have been laid out, she is offering us a portion of their food surplus in exchange for fuel and official recognition of their government. The question we need to be asking is: are these terms acceptable?"

"We can't recognize the Martian government as official," Cassidy said immediately. "There's no telling what WestHem would do in that instance. They have nuclear weapons pointed at our cities and millions of troops across the Bering Straight from us. It's simply too risky to change the status quo in that manner."

"So you're saying that we should ignore this offer?" Billings asked. "Ignore the strengthening of our economy that this influx of food resources could represent?"

She shook her head. "We don't ignore it completely," she said. "We officially condemn their actions and call for a return to WestHem rule. We then make clandestine shipments of fuel to them in exchange for the food."

"They said that the offer was non-negotiable," another member, a more junior one, pointed out.

"Everything is negotiable," Cassidy said confidently. "They need our fuel more than we need their food. Without shipments from us their entire revolution is lost. She admitted that herself. The worst that can happen to us is that we go on as we always have. It is we that are in the position of strength here."

"I tend to agree," Billings said with a nod of his own. "There is of course the question of whether clandestine fuel shipments are even possible. General Hans, perhaps you can answer that one for us?"

"It would be impossible to deliver anything to the Martians without WestHem knowing about it," he said immediately. "Fuel ships and cargo ships are huge machines, detectable from hundreds of thousands of kilometers away. Keeping such a thing strictly secret is out of the question."

"I see," Billings said thoughtfully. "I was afraid of that." He turned back to the rest of the council. "That leaves us with the option of open deceit in this matter. We refuse to acknowledge Mars as a government, we condemn their actions, but we ship anyway and keep it out of the public's eye. I don't think that WestHem would attack us for this. They would not be happy about it, but they wouldn't risk military action for such a thing, especially since they seem to think that they'll take their planet back with their military forces no matter what we do or don't do. Relations would be strained this way but they're always strained, aren't they? And in this way we'll be able to get the best of both worlds."

The other council members liked the idea. General Hans seemed to think it was something that would work as well, although he suggested that military ships escort any ships making pick-ups or deliveries. They all talked this and other aspects over and then took a vote. It was unanimous in favor of opening clandestine negotiations for clandestine trade.

"Of course we will not respond to Ms. Whiting ourselves," Billings said after the measure was passed. "We don't want her thinking that she and her planet are important enough to be brought directly to our attention. I'll have one of my staff members record the reply to her and we'll send it off within the hour."

Capital Building, Eden, Mars

May 28, 2146

"Who in the hell is this moron?" Laura asked General Jackson as the image of a power-suited man appeared on their view screen.

"He sure ain't one of the council members," Jackson responded. "I have full dossiers on all of them."

They were in Laura's office and it was late in the workday. They had sent their request for negotiations to Earth more than seven hours before. And now, when the reply had finally come in, they were not even looking at one of the people to whom they were hoping to negotiate with.

"Greetings, Ms. Whiting," the man's image said to them, a phony, corporate smile upon his face. "My name is William Warringer. I am a special assistant to executive council member Billings."

"Special assistant?" Jackson snorted in disgust. "I told you they were going to play games with us. They want us to think that our request wasn't even important enough to bother the council with."

"You gotta love Earthling politics, don't you?" Laura asked.

"... asked by my boss and his associates on the council," Warringer was saying, "to send a response to the offer that you presented to us earlier today."

"Let's hear the bullshit," Laura said with a frustrated sigh. Didn't these EastHem suits know that time was of the essence? Couldn't they dispense with the games for once?

"It is our understanding," Warringer told them, "that you are requesting recognition of your government in a public forum and that you wish to engage in a trade of fuel for food products. Unfortunately it is not possible for our government to condone the actions that you have taken against your mother nation. We cannot, in good faith, recognize your government or those actions as official or just. We must in fact condemn what you have done and speak out publicly against it. Grievances should be aired in courtrooms and on the Internet, not by force of arms or by the capture of a possession. It is our duty as a civilized nation to implore you to give up your illegal action before any more blood is shed."

"Jesus, this is pretty thick," Jackson said.

"Yep," Laura agreed.

"However," Warringer continued, "since we realize that you are unlikely to give up your ill-gotten gains at the present time and since we also realize that the welfare of the common people on your planet depend upon a steady supply of hydrogen fuel, we might be willing to engage in a limited amount of the sort of trade that you mentioned."

Laura and Jackson both had a sharp, cynical laugh at this statement.

"Beautiful," Laura said. "They'll do it for our common people."

"Of course such trade would have to be kept... shall we say... under the table," Warringer told them next.

"Of course," Jackson commented.

"We might be persuaded to arrange for some quiet shipments of fuel to your orbiting space dock in exchange for shiploads of food surplus. It would be imperative that such shipments be kept secret from the general public and from the WestHem government. Please respond at your convenience, using the same communication method as your original message. If these rather generous terms that we are offering you are deemed acceptable, and if the full council agrees, we can commence with some quiet negotiations of the terms of this trade.

"Awaiting your reply, William Warringer."

The screen blanked out, leaving the two of them two stare at it for a moment.

"Christ," Laura finally said. "I don't know why I'm surprised by this but I am. Those EastHem morons don't know the deal of a lifetime when it's staring them in the damn face."

"What now?" Jackson asked.

"Now," she said, "we send a reply back and lay our cards down on the table." She turned to the computer screen on her desk once more. "Computer, open mail program. Addressee, EastHem ruling council. Highest level of encryption."

The computer repeated what she had said and told her to record when ready.

EastHem capital building, London

May 28, 2146

They had all been on the verge of leaving for the day when Jennings informed them all that a reply had come in from Mars. This was surprising to them — they hadn't expected to hear from Laura Whiting for at least another twenty-four hours — but they nevertheless gathered back in the executive briefing room to view it.

"It's only been six hours since we sent our message," Cassidy said sourly as she took her seat near the head of the table. "When you account for the travel time of the radio signals, she couldn't have spent more than thirty minutes or so before she answered us."

"She's desperate," someone suggested. "She wants to open negotiations for our deal as quickly as possible."

They all informally agreed that that was probably the case.

"Open message," Billings told the computer once everyone was seated and paying attention.

The lights dimmed down once more and the screen came to life. Laura Whiting's face greeted them for the second time that day. She did not appear very happy.

"This message is in response to the insulting reply that you gave us to our offer," she said sternly, making everyone gasp a little at her insolence. The image took a deep breath and stared into the camera. "Look, people," she told them next. "We are in a very desperate situation here on Mars and we don't have time to play nice little political games and negotiate back and forth. Nor are we willing to accept clandestine shipments on your terms. I believe I made that point perfectly clear in my first message. This is the deal: We will trade one half of our monthly food surplus for three hundred million metric tons of liquid hydrogen per month. You will provide the shipping for both of these commodities and we will supply the labor needed to load and unload it. In order for this deal to be binding, we require public acknowledgment of our government and public acknowledgment that we are an independent nation. That is it. These terms are not open to negotiation or change. Take it or leave it. We require an answer within twenty-four hours. That answer will be either yes or no. If you fail to respond to us or if you send me a message from some political underling or if you send me a message that asks for some modification of this deal, there will be no deal. Half of our food surplus should be more than enough to compel you to do as we ask and it is well beyond fair.

"Awaiting your reply, Laura Whiting."

The first, instinctive reaction around the table was outrage. The council members erupted into a chorus of indignant exclamations, shocked words, and even a few utterings of politically incorrect profanity, the likes of which was rarely heard in such a setting. They could not believe that this Martian woman, this greenie, would dare talk to the ruling council of the most powerful nation in the solar system in such a manner. There was talk of simply abandoning the entire deal on that basis alone. The Democratic Republic of the Eastern Hemisphere certainly did not wish to do business with uncouth, uncivilized welfare scum who did not follow or apparently even know the most basic rules of propriety. It took several minutes for it to even occur to anyone just how magnanimous of a deal they were actually being offered.

It was one of the junior members of the council, the forty-five year old representative of the Zimbabwe region in Africa (though she had never actually been to Zimbabwe, which was one of the worst and largest slums on the planet), who finally ventured that maybe they should think about this for a second.

"They are offering us half of their monthly surplus," she hesitantly said during a lull in the blathering. She blushed a little as she said this. As the newest member of such a powerful group of people, she was not yet accustomed to adapting a stance that was different than the majority. "Maybe we should consider that factor for just a few moments."

The table grew silent and all eyes turned to her.

"Are you saying," asked Billings, "that you would actually consider engaging in trade with such barbarians? With a woman who sends a message to us demanding that we bend to her terms? That offers us... us, an ultimatum?"

"Well," she said, nervous but determined to stand her ground and make her point, "I will be the first to agree that the way in which we were addressed by this Whiting woman is reprehensible. But on the other hand, we can't really fault the deal that she is offering now, can we?" She looked up at the ceiling, towards the computer audio inputs. "Computer, what is the monthly food surplus from the WestHem colony of Mars?"

"On average," the computer answered, "the surplus amounts to thirty-six billion metric tons of various agricultural products. Would you like a breakdown by category?"

"No thank you," she said. "I believe I've made my point." She looked back at the council members, all of whom were already softening their expressions. "She's offering us eighteen billion tons of food products per month. Eighteen billion in exchange for a mere three hundred million tons of hydrogen. That is three tankers full of hydrogen in exchange for more than a hundred cargo ships full of food products. I don't know about your sponsors, but mine would certainly want me to give serious consideration to accepting this deal in light of the sheer amount that we're talking about. That is enough to boost our economy into the stratosphere. All of our national debt would be paid off, our deficit spending would come to an end, and of course our sponsors would benefit very highly." As an afterthought she added, "It would also serve to end much of the famine in the Africa and Middle East regions."

Nobody cared too much about the famine, but the other points she had made most definitely struck a note with them. Suddenly, dealing with such barbarians didn't seem all that bad of a thing. But there were still a few problems.

"What will happen if we recognize Mars as an independent planet though?" asked Cassidy. "There is still that issue to think about. Recognizing them and openly engaging in trade with them, especially for hydrogen, is likely to prompt military action by WestHem."

"Yes," agreed Billings. "While this trade offer is intriguing to say the least, the risk of open warfare and even a nuclear exchange is considerable. I think we're going to have to try to persuade our Martian friends to accept trade without recognition. Again I point out that, Whiting's pretentiousness aside, it is we who are dealing from the position of strength."

"They said they would not consider a deal without recognition," the junior member interjected.

"She was posturing," said Cassidy. "They will lose their entire revolution if they don't secure a fuel supply. Do you really think that they're willing to risk that?"

"But are we willing to risk the loss of this once in a lifetime deal if it turns out that she is serious in her threats?" the junior member, more confidant now, demanded.

That silenced the table once more.

"Look," she said, "how serious is this threat of war that we're worrying about? Is it more serious than risking the loss of this unprecedented trade agreement?"

Billings considered that thought for a moment. He looked over at General Hans. "General," he said, "I believe that this question is within your area of expertise. Suppose we do recognize Mars as an independent planet and suppose we do engage in trade with them. Would WestHem attack our supply ships? Would they be able to defeat our navy out in open space? Would they engage in a nuclear attack upon our cities?"

Hans, who was more or less neutral in the debate on trade, did not take long to answer. "The loss of a third of their fleet to the Martians would seriously hamper their ability to fight a naval war with us," he said. "And in addition, the loss of their fast reaction division, all of the equipment for this division, and the commitment of so many of their other troops to the Martian theater would severely hamper their ability to make war upon us in a conventional fashion. On a strictly numerical basis, our fleet would have them outnumbered and outgunned quite easily. They will know this as well as we do."

"I see," Billings said thoughtfully. "And what of nuclear attack upon our cities?"

Hans gave a slight shrug at this question. "The use of nuclear weapons on a strategic basis is a political decision made by political leaders. Blowing up each other's cities and annihilating the population of this planet is a rather drastic step that I do not believe would be undertaken over so petty a matter as recognition of the Martians and engaging in trade with them. But, since I'm a simple military man I would defer an official opinion on that to you folks here at this table. I would however, think that the WestHem would be much more inclined to move in that direction if we were to aid the Martians militarily as well as in trade."

"So you're saying," Billings said, "that you don't think that they would attack us in any way for simply recognizing Mars and trading food for hydrogen, but that they might if we send troops to help fight the WestHems off?"

"That is my opinion, Chief Councilperson," he confirmed. "For what it is worth."

They ran the question by the National Security Adviser, who concurred with Hans in this assessment of the situation.

"So what do we wish to do here?" Billings asked his colleagues. "Do we bow to the Martian demands and risk war with WestHem, or do we attempt to negotiate further with the Martians and risk losing the lucrative trade arrangement they are offering us? Which of these risks is the greater one?"

"I believe that we should take the deal that they are offering, on their terms," said the junior member, who could almost feel her influence with the council growing by the minute. "We stipulate to the Martians that the trade agreement will cover food for hydrogen only and that under no circumstances will we ever provide weapons or military assistance to them."

Billings looked at her, knowing that what he said next would likely decide the matter. Sure, there would be a vote taken but generally his opinion was the one that swayed the momentum of the others. It really was an easy decision to make. If he somehow managed to fumble this opportunity, his sponsors would be very upset with him and would engineer his defeat in the next election. "I believe that the lady from Zimbabwe is correct," he told them. "This opportunity for trade is simply unprecedented. There is very much to gain from accepting it and very much to lose by attempting to alter it. As we've seen by the events of the past few days on Mars, our greenie friends are unpredictable and do not always follow the rules of political logic. Though there is a risk of war with WestHem, both conventional and nuclear, that risk would seem to be small as long as we stick to the tenants of the agreement and do not stray into other areas. I move that we should accept the deal with the Martians as it stands, with the aforementioned stipulation of no military involvement."

"Second the motion," the junior member immediately said.

The vote was taken on the motion. It was unanimous in favor of it.

"Let it be recorded then," Billings said. "We'll send a reply off to Whiting immediately and then get our staff to schedule a press conference for tomorrow evening in which we will announce recognition of Mars as an independent nation."

WestHem Capital Building, Denver

May 29, 2146

"... and so it is with great pleasure that we welcome the planet Mars and all of her people to the brotherhood of independent nations in the solar system," the image of Billings, EastHem Chief Councilperson, said on the view screen at the front of the room. "We will begin working immediately to set up a diplomatic exchange within each other's capitals and to open the door to trade."

"Those bastards," spat Loretta Williams, her face actually red with anger. True, they had all been expecting this move on EastHem's part but it was still infuriating to have to witness the reality of the situation.

"Now now," said the Chief Councilperson, "this is not the time for useless emotional displays. This is the time to figure out just how this will effect our upcoming operations and just what our response should be. General Wrath? Perhaps you could help enlighten us."

Wrath was dead tired. He had been working non-stop ever since the Martian revolt getting Operation Martian Hammer organized. There were large bags under both of his eyes and if not for the amphetamines that the medical staff had been plying him with, he would have collapsed days ago. Nor was he none-to-happy to have been called down from Armstrong to give this briefing to the Executive Council. Why in the hell had they insisted he come her in person when he could have given them the information they needed via videoconference? Still, he kept his poker face on and smiled at his bosses as he began to speak.

"This action by EastHem will make our job a little more difficult if the Martians decide to fight us," he said. "I don't know what kind of deal the Martians offered them but it was obviously enough to convince them to take it. So what we have now is the reality that the Martians will not be short on fuel for their tanks and APCs."

"Will that affect the course of the battle?" Williams asked him.

"Not in the least," he said confidently. "When I planned this operation I planned for the worst case scenario of the Martians having a secure supply line. We will still outnumber them by more than four to one, we are still better trained and equipped, and we will still triumph in a matter of days. This move is meaningless. The only thing it will allow will be for EastHem to enrich themselves on our agricultural products for the duration of this crisis."

"I see," said Williams. "And what of that? Is there anyway for us to prevent EastHem from taking advantage of this situation? A blockade around Mars perhaps?"

"That would be more Admiral Jules' area of expertise than mine," Wrath said, although he knew damn well just what Jules was going to say.

Jules was, if anything, even more fatigued than his marine colleague. He had been up for nearly two straight days now trying to shuffle ships and get crews reassigned. The last thing in the solar system that he wanted right now was to have to tell the Executive Council something that it didn't want to hear. But that was exactly what he was going to have to do. There was no way to soft talk and ignore this particular problem. "Well, ma'am," he said carefully, "the fact of the matter is that it would be a very bad idea to challenge EastHem on a point such as this."

"A bad idea?" Williams asked, her glare burning into him. "The public is going to demand that we do something about this situation. The media are probably already in a feeding frenzy over this recognition and trade agreement. Are you telling me that our navy is not capable of preventing EastHem ships from docking at Triad?"

"Those EastHem ships will undoubtedly be escorted by superdreadnoughts and stealth attack ships," Jules told her. "And while we ordinarily would be able to put up an effective blockade and defeat the EastHem navy in any conflict, the loss of so many of our ships to the greenies would make such a venture unacceptably risky."

"Unacceptably risky?" Williams asked. "Are you saying that they'll defeat us?"

He wavered for a moment, knowing he was treading on very shaky ground. "Not defeat us necessarily," he finally answered. "But the advantage that our superior training and superior technology usually gives us will be somewhat negated by the numerical advantage that the EastHems will enjoy. We would still surely come out the victor if push came to shove but it is possible that we might take unacceptable losses of men and ships."

The council looked at him thoughtfully as they pondered his words. "So you're saying," Williams summarized, "that the possible losses we would take by challenging the EastHem navy is not worth simply allowing the trade to go unchecked?"

"As long as General Wrath is confident in his ability to beat the Martians while they are in possession of a supply line," he qualified, tossing the ball neatly into his counterpart's court.

All eyes turned back to Wrath, who, anticipating such a volley, had already put an expression of confidence upon his face.

"My marines will make those greenies wish they were never born," he told them firmly. "With or without a supply line, with or without utilizing the equipment that they stole from us, we will beat them soundly in any battle. It is a mathematical certainty. The only thing that would change this equation in any way would be the inclusion of EastHem troops and equipment into the battle. If they send a few divisions of their own marines in one of those ships... well... then we might have a little larger of a problem to deal with."

Williams nodded as she heard this, her face troubled but determined. "Well then, we'll just have to make sure that they don't do that now, won't we?"

Early the next morning the WestHem ambassador left the embassy in downtown London and was taken by private aircraft to the EastHem Capital building. After passing through the usual security checkpoints and scans he was brought immediately before the ruling council. The customary period of pleasantry exchange took place and then the ambassador, following the instructions given to him by his own ruling council the night before, lodged an official protest on their behalf for the recognition and trade agreement with Mars.

"It is regretful that your government chooses to stand in the way of a new democracy," Billings told the ambassador. "In any case, our recognition of the Martians as the legitimate government of that planet will stand, as will our agreement to engage in trade with them."

"My nation regards this act with great displeasure," the ambassador told them.

"Nevertheless," Billings returned, "our decision will stand. Is it your country's intention to try to stop us?"

"I have not been told of any exact plans," he replied. "What I have been told is to inform you that we consider this to be an unfriendly act and to protest it in the strongest terms."

"I see," Billings said, suppressing a smile. In the nuances of diplomatic language, he had just been told that WestHem would do nothing to prevent the trade between EastHem and Mars.

"I have also been told," he continued, "to inform you that if your country were to give any military assistance of any kind to the Martians — supplying them with weapons, ammunition, and especially troops — we would consider that to be an act of war against us and we would respond accordingly."

"We have no plans in that direction," Billings said.

"That is fortunate," the ambassador said. "Because to do so would invoke the gravest possible consequences."

Billings and the rest of the council nodded solemnly at these words. The gravest possible consequences was an allusion to nuclear war. The ambassador had just told them that WestHem was willing to allow the trade of hydrogen for food, but that they would start tossing warheads across the border if troops or weapons were sent.

"We understand," Billing informed him, "and you have the word of this council that no weapons or troops will be sent to Mars. Our interest is in the purchase of food products from this new member of the international community, not in arming them up."

And with that, the ambassador had what he needed from the council. Though no contract was signed, an agreement had been forged and his job was complete. They spent another thirty minutes going through another exchange of pleasantries and then the ambassador headed back to the embassy to report his success on a secure Internet link.

The agreement was of course not made public in either nation. Most of the citizens of WestHem and EastHem were not even aware that their respective countries even maintained an embassy in the opposing country, had no idea that there even was an ambassador. The armed forces of both sides were put on a considerably higher level of alert than was the norm. All along the Alaska/Siberian line, search radars and infrared scanners came to life. Among the line troops, vacations were canceled and extra staffing in the entrenchments and monitoring centers were ordered. Air patrols were increased and a few reservists were called up. On the Internet of each country, the news was of the crisis between the two antagonists, a crisis that was called the worst since the Jupiter War.

Meanwhile, at Victory City, the orbiting platform that circled above the Jovian moon Callisto, which the EastHem marines had successful occupied and held during the Jupiter War, three supertankers were pumped full of liquid hydrogen that had been collected from the atmosphere of Jupiter. One hundred million metric tons of the compressed gas went into each hold, enough to sustain extensive combat operations for a month with plenty to spare. When the pumping was completed the ships used their maneuvering thrusters to move out into the transit corridor. They waited there, their crews nervous about their mission but thrilled about the doubling of the pay they would get for this hazardous duty.

Soon, other ships began to arrive from the EastHem naval base that was attached to Victory City. Two Colonial class superdreadnoughts, each with a wing of space fighters aboard, took up position front and rear. Two destroyer escorts, their tasks long range detection and fighter suppression, took up positions on each side. Finally, two Henry class stealth attack ships fanned out to the sides, their sensors in passive mode, their job to quickly get lost in space.

When the ships were all formed up the admiral in charge of the task force gave a command. Fusion engines were ignited and the ships began to move at .25G of acceleration, their destination Triad, Mars. They would reach there in less than two weeks if nothing got in their way.

Chapter 9

Martian Planetary Guard Base, Eden

June 6, 2146

It was the third day of the basic training program and Jeff Waters was once more seriously considering just giving up. It was 0700 hours, the sun barely up in the eastern sky, and instead of soundly sleeping in his bedroom at home, he was out here on this exercise yard, dressed in a pair of red shorts and a white MPG T-shirt, a twenty kilogram pack on his back and an unloaded M-24 rifle in his hands, running around a damn track. Sweat poured off of his face in rivers, staining the cotton of his shirt. His breath heaved in and out of his lungs, lungs made inefficient by years of cigarette and marijuana smoking. They were only a kilometer into the run and already he thought he was going to die. Nor did he seem to be alone in this predicament. Of the fifty-six recruits partaking in this particular training class, at least forty were badly sucking wind in response to the physical exercise. They were supposed to be running in a tight formation, five abreast and no more than a meter between the fronts and backs, but in practice they were scattered all over, several people actually holding others up.

"Let's keep up the pace here, ladies and gentlemen," intoned Sergeant Woo, the infantry squad commander who was their drill sergeant. He was jogging along to the side of the formation, his own pack and rifle resting easily upon his fit body. He, like his two assistant instructors, had hardly broken a sweat, did not in fact even seem to be breathing hard. "You can't go outside and fight the Earthlings if you're not in shape enough to keep your suit from discharging on you. We need to get you folks up to three kilometers by the end of this week."

Nobody answered him. In part it was because the screaming of "yes sir" or "no sir" in response to a drill instructor's words, while common in the WestHem training system, was just not customary in the MPG. Mostly however, it was because no one had the energy or the breath to answer.

Jeff dragged himself onward, a sharp pain stitching through his side, his fingers starting to feel numb and tingly around the plastic stock of his weapon. He was about halfway back in the pack, running next to Steve Gallahad, a stocky retired gang member from the north downtown part of Eden. Gallahad was the closest thing to a friend that he had made so far in this nightmare. An intelligent, though crude, young man, he had talked Mark out of quitting three times so far and Mark had talked him out of quitting about six times.

"I can't take this shit no more," Jeff grunted out between breaths now. "This running is killing me, man."

"Keep it up," Gallahad grunted back. "You pussy out now and I'll kick your ass."

"You'll kick my ass in your dreams," was the obligatory reply.

Gallahad gave the obligatory laugh in response and they ran on, their sports shoes lifting up and pounding down on the neatly manicured grass. Soon the phenomenon of the second wind kicked in, easing Jeff's suffering a little. Endorphins flooded into his body, quieting the stitch in his side and imparting him with a gentle sense of well-being, a sense that was almost, but not quite, powerful enough to override the misery that he was in.

As they approached the two kilometer mark the majority of the recruits seemed to experience the same effect. The formation tightened up a bit, although it was still a far cry from anything approaching military standards. Even the opposing personalities of the group - and there were many of those in this bunch - seemed to drop their animosity for one another at the moment and run in peace.

Presently the misery came to an end. One by one the group passed the three kilometer mark and were ordered into a gentle walk by Sergeant Woo.

"Very good, people," Woo told them encouragingly as they made their slow-paced trek around the track one last time for the cool-down period. "We didn't have any drop-outs on this one. That's quite an accomplishment for this bunch. Another week or so, you'll be pounding out that 3K in no time."

A few of the mouths of the bunch made a few smart-ass remarks to his words but with the endorphins still flooding their bodies they were mostly good-natured and Woo actually chuckled at one of the funnier ones.

"Let's go hit the water fountain and then the showers," he told them. "And then it's back to the rifle range."

They broke the loose formation that they had been maintaining and started heading in mass towards the bank of water coolers near the entrance to the crew building at the far end of the compound. The recruits swarmed them, grabbing the small hemp paper cups and filling them with the lukewarm liquid and swallowing it down greedily. Jeff waited patiently in a small line at one until it was his turn and then filled a cup. Before he could even put it to his lips a hand grabbed his shoulder and pushed him roughly to the side.

"Out of the way, Capitalist fag," a contemptuous voice told him.

It was Recruit Hicks, a former Thrusters gang member from Helvetia. Though Jeff had never met him before the first day of their training, Hicks had brought the traditional animosity that had existed between the Capitalists and the Thrusters into the MPG training ground with him. He never let pass an opportunity to make some snide remark whenever he ran into Mark in the classroom or on the range or on the exercise yard. Jeff of course, in the great tradition of the Capitalists, had never failed to return an equally hostile remark. Nor were he and Hicks the only members of the class engaged in such behavior. On the contrary, Woo and the other instructors constantly had to break up verbal and physical altercations between former gang members or between gang members and non-gang members. A few of these confrontations had been quite heated, to the point where it was a good thing that the M-24s that they were carrying were not loaded with ammunition.

Up until now Hicks, who was always the aggressor in the confrontations, had kept them on the verbal level only. But now that he had carried things to the next step by putting his hands on Jeff, the code of the Capitalists demanded a suitable response. Jeff didn't think about what he did, he just reacted as his upbringing told him to. He dropped his rifle and his pack on the ground, took two steps forward, and swung a roundhouse into the side of Hicks' face, snapping his head to the side and causing it to slam into the wall. Hicks grunted with the impact and charged at him, grabbing him around the middle and forcing him to the ground. He began to punch at Jeff's face, most of the blows deflected by Jeff's blocking wrists or elbows but two of them getting through. The crowd of recruits immediately surrounded them, like kids on a playground, shouting encouragement to one or the other of the fighters.

Jeff absorbed three more blows to his face before he managed to buck Hicks off of him and onto the ground. He rolled upward, pulling himself to his knees just as Hicks tried to rise. A straight armed punch sent Hicks reeling back to the ground once more and opened up a small cut on the side of his face. Jeff then stood quickly to his feet and prepared to give a kick to his body, a kick that would fracture a few ribs and maybe puncture a lung or lacerate a spleen. Before he could do so however, he was grabbed roughly from behind at the elbows and twisted around. A second later he was facedown on the ground, his arm twisted painfully up behind him. He struggled for a moment, trying to rise and pressure was put on the arm, increasing the pain and compelling him to give up the fight in a second.

"Keep your ass down there, Waters," he heard Woo say calmly from above him. "If I break your arm I have to fill out paperwork."

Meanwhile Hicks, sensing a chance to renew his own attack, got quickly to his feet and started forward. Before he made it two steps Corporal Vasquez, one of the assistant instructors, appeared as if by magic behind him and circled an arm around his neck. With a seemingly effortless maneuver, Vasquez pulled him backward and dumped him neatly onto his back, his arms splayed out to the side. Vasquez's boot then came to rest on his throat, keeping him from rising.

"Are you two done with your little high school scuffle now?" Woo asked conversationally. "If not, Vasquez and I could maybe show you how real men fight. You want to learn that?"

Neither Jeff nor Hicks said anything. Nor did any of the other recruits.

The pressure was suddenly released from Jeff's arm. The boot was removed from Hicks' throat. The two instructors took a step backwards.

"Get your dumb asses up," Woo told them. "And if you lunge at each other again, you're gonna be right back down there and this time you're gonna be visiting the infirmary."

Jeff, panting from the adrenaline of battle, his face flushed with anger and embarrassment, slowly got to his feet. Across from him, Hicks did the same.

"What the hell is the matter with you morons?" Woo asked, although it seemed he was addressing the entire class instead of merely the two combatants. "What the hell are you fighting about?"

Again, like kids in a schoolyard, they stared ahead defiantly, refusing to answer.

"Goddammit," Woo said, stepping forward and putting his face inches from Jeff's, "I asked you a question! Waters, tell me what you two were fighting about!"

"He pushed me off the water cooler," Jeff said.

"He pushed you off the water cooler?" Woo repeated.

"He put his fuckin hands on me," Jeff confirmed. "I ain't lettin him get away with that shit!"

"I see," Woo responded thoughtfully. He turned towards Hicks. "You pushed him off the water cooler? Is that true, Hicks?"

Hicks shrugged. "He was standin in my way. I ain't gonna let no Capitalist faggot keep me from getting a drink."

Woo looked from one to the other, his face showing mild disgust at what he was hearing. "A gang rivalry huh?" he finally said. "That's what you two idiots are fighting over? That's what most of the fights I've broken up these last three days have been over. A fucking gang rivalry."

"They never said they'd be putting me in training with no fuckin Capitalist!" Hicks said.

Woo stepped up to Jeff and grabbed him by his hair, not quite violently, but not quite gently either. He twisted his head so that his face was looking at Hicks.

"Look at this man, Hicks!" Woo yelled at him. "Look at him. What the hell does he look like to you?"

"He looks like a fuckin Capitalist bitch!" Hicks shot back angrily. "And I ain't gonna train with none of them faggots!"

"Why did you join the MPG, Hicks?" Woo asked next. "Why did you put your fingerprint on the line and agree to put on this uniform? Why?"

"To fight the Earthlings," he said defiantly.

"To fight the Earthlings," Woo said, nodding his head. "Tell me something, Hicks. Does Waters here look like an Earthling? Does he sound like one?"

Hicks said nothing, just continued to stare forward defiantly.

"Waters," Woo said, still holding onto his hair. "Where were you born?"

"In the heights," Jeff told him.

"That would be in Eden, right?"

"Right."

"And where was your daddy born, Waters?"

"In the heights," Jeff said.

"And where was your daddy's daddy born?"

"Heights."

"So your family has been on Mars for at least three generations then, right?"

"Right."

Woo looked at Hicks again. "You hear that shit, Hicks?" he asked. "Waters and his family have been on Mars for three fucking generations. I'd say that makes him a Martian, wouldn't you?"

Hicks continued to say nothing.

"Wouldn't you?" Woo repeated, raising his voice a little.

"I guess," Hicks finally responded.

"And how long has your family been on Mars, Hicks?" he asked next. "More than three generations as well?"

"Yeah."

Woo finally let go of Jeff's hair. "So what in the hell are you two morons fighting each other for? Because Hicks was a Thruster? Because Waters was a Capitalist? Give me a fucking break. You assholes are both Martians! You both have Martian blood flowing in your veins. And neither of you are each other's enemies!"

The two young men said nothing. Woo stepped back away from them, so that he was facing the entire group of recruits.

"People," he said, "we're here to learn how to fight the Earthlings. The Earthlings! They're gonna be here in about ten weeks or so and they're gonna have guns and tanks and hovers and they're gonna outnumber us by at least four to one. The cards are already stacked against us. We cannot waste our valuable training time picking at each other and fighting with each other. We need to work together. We need to be a goddamned team, don't you understand that? If we're not, a lot of you are going to die out there and this planet is going to fall to the WestHem marines. This is our best and only chance for freedom and I don't want to blow it because our soldiers can't put aside their stupid-ass gang rivalries and learn to fight the real enemy!"

Everyone stared at the ground at his words, a few of them shamefaced, most at least thoughtful looking. Even Hicks seemed to be pondering the words he had just heard.

"So here's the deal," Woo went on. "The next time that any of you assholes start fighting with each other over some stupid gang shit or any other petty difference of opinion or philosophy, you're out of here. I've been given the power to dismiss anyone who is not cutting it from the MPG and I will start using that power effective immediately. You hit each other, yell at each other, do any fucking thing at all with each other that cuts down on the efficiency of my training program and I will kick both of your stupid asses out of here. And don't think I'm bluffing because I'm not. I need to get the people who really want to take on the Earthlings through this program. I don't have the time to be acting like a goddamn playground monitor. Do I make myself clear?"

Again, in keeping with the practices of the MPG, there was no return of "yes sir" or anything else. But all the same they seemed to get the message.

Woo looked at Waters and Hicks contemptuously. "You two," he said, "will be my test of the program. I'm reassigning you, Hicks to fourth squad. Congratulations, lovers, you just became teammates."

Both Hicks and Waters opened their mouths to protest this but Woo held up a hand, silencing them.

"Uh uh," he said. "That is my decision and it will stand. If you two want to stay around here long enough to graduate from this training class, I'd suggest you learn to get along with each other real quick."

Less than a kilometer away at that very moment, Jeff's best friend Matt Mendez was struggling not to vomit. His stomach gurgled in a most unpleasant manner as his inner ears and sensory organs insisted that he was falling. He was sitting in the rear seat, the gunner's position, of a Mosquito that was idling in the airlock of the base. Just seconds before he had undergone the experience of lightening for the first time in his life.

"Not as pleasant as a blow job, is it?" asked Lieutenant Mike Dwyerson, who was strapped into the pilot's seat.

"No," he burped, closing his eyes and desperately trying to fight off the nausea and vertigo.

"Just breathe through it," Dwyerson advised as the outer door of the airlock began to slid upward on its track. "And keep your eyes open. The sooner you can convince yourself that you're not really falling, the sooner you'll start to feel kind of normal again."

"Right," Matt grunted into his throat mic, not even offering one of the smart-ass remarks that were his trademark. He tried to stretch a little in his seat but the biosuit that covered his body and the tightness of the restraining straps prevented any motion that would be therapeutic.

The door finished its upward motion and Dwyerson throttled up the aircraft, bringing it out onto the taxiway. It bumped and swayed a little as it rumbled away from the base at a sedate forty kilometers per hour, it's engine humming along at barely over idle. Matt continued to take deep breaths and to focus his eyes on the outside scenery and gradually, little by little, the vertigo and the nausea faded away. By the time they made it to the head of the runway, he felt almost normal except for a last lingering gurgling in his troubled stomach that was probably more from nervousness than anything else.

"I'll keep this first flight as sedate as possible for the mission," Dwyerson told him over the intercom. "We'll work our way gradually up to the more extreme turns and maneuvers. Still, we're gonna have to do some turning and burning when we get to the target area. It's the only way to do it, you know?"

"Static," Matt said sourly.

"Chances are you're gonna puke. Don't be ashamed of it. Almost every sis does on their first flight. But cleaning that puke out of your helmet when we get back will make you fight like hell not to do it on the second flight. Gradually, as you put in more and more hours in these things, you'll hardly be sick at all."

"Hardly?" he asked.

Dwyerson managed a shrug despite his restraining harnesses. "They tell me that it never goes away completely. Looking at a computer display while we bounce up and down all over the place has that effect I guess. What can you do?"

"Static," he repeated, depressed at the thought that he would always be sick when he flew. For the thousandth time since being told what his MPG assignment was going to be he wondered if the powers-that-be had really analyzed his ASVAB test correctly. They had told him that his learning skills, psychological profile, and reaction times were ideal for the position of Mosquito weapons and navigation system operator, or "sis" as the term went. His medical exam had confirmed this supposition as well. And so, while Jeff, whom he had hoped to serve with out in the field, was on the other side of the base learning to shoot M-24s and anti-tank lasers, he had been sitting in a classroom being taught the finer parts of the Mosquito's navigation and weaponry equipment. He had played with the systems in the simulators for no less than two hours of each day. Now it was time for his first flight in an actual aircraft.

"Give me a rundown on your take-off checklist," Dwyerson told him as he positioned them at the end of the runway for take-off.

Matt swallowed a little and looked at the display screen in front of him. He read from it aloud. "GPS is synchronized. Mapping software operational. Main guns discharged and on standby. Cockpit depressurized."

"Excellent," Dwyerson told him. "We have clearance for take off. What is my route to the target area?"

"Turn right to two-three-four upon lift-off," he told him, looking at the map. "ETA to first waypoint is twenty-one minutes."

"How many minutes?" Dwyerson said, his voice with just a touch of sternness in it.

"Uh, two-one minutes," he corrected, utilizing the proper phonetics this time. "Two-one."

"Very good," Dwyerson told him. "Let's do it then, shall we?"

"Light it up," Matt said, bracing his head against the back of his seat as he'd been taught. "Let's get this shit over with."

Dwyerson throttled up the engine sending a dull roar and more than a little vibration thrumming through the cockpit. He released the ground brakes with a pull of a lever and the boomerang shaped aircraft suddenly shot down the runway, accelerating quickly. Matt was pushed roughly backward as the ground outside became a blur of motion. His body flooded with adrenaline. He had never ridden in any vehicle that did not have an inertial dampener system installed and the sensation was very unnerving. It took less than six seconds for stall speed to be achieved. Once they were there Dwyerson pulled back on his control stick and they rotated off the runway, still accelerating.

Matt watched nervously as the ground dropped away from them and they began to climb into the sky. His eyes kept darting back and forth between this and the laser altimeter display on his screen that showed their altitude above the ground. When they passed through four hundred meters Dwyerson suddenly banked sharply to the right, putting them into a forty-five degree bank. Instinctively Matt wanted to close his eyes, to not look at the ground directly out the right side of the cockpit. He fought through the urge, knowing that he would have to get used to this sort of thing.

When the digital compass display neared 230 degrees Dwyerson smoothly rolled out of the turn, bringing them back to horizontal exactly at 234 degrees. They continued to climb into the reddish sky, the ground receding ever more beneath them, their airspeed indicator winding upward before finally settling on 720 kilometers per hour.

"How we doing back there, sis?" Dwyerson asked.

"I'm fine, Lieutenant," Matt answered, actually starting to enjoy the sensation of flight now, looking in fascination at the features of the ground from high above.

"I'm glad to hear that," Dwyerson told him, unmistakable sarcasm in his tone. "But I was not inquiring into your health and well-being. I was asking for a status report on my navigation."

Matt felt the familiar flush of anger that he felt when someone talked to him in that manner. As a product of the streets, his instinct was to strike out at anyone who condescended to him in any way, even if they were right in doing so. He resisted the impulse. "Sorry, Lieutenant," he said. "We're right on the line. One-nine minutes to first waypoint. From there you'll turn left to one-eight-zero."

"Thank you," Dwyerson said. "Try to remember to give me that update every time we change course. I know that I have the same display on my HUD but when we're flying low and ducking and running from anti-aircraft fire, I don't always have time to ponder that display."

"Got it," Matt said.

They leveled off at two thousand meters above the ground, their course taking them towards the mountain ranges to the west. As they flew on Dwyerson talked to Matt about the various aspects of their mission and the gunnery skills that would be needed to complete it.

"Your skills on the sim gun were pretty good if I recall, weren't they?" he asked him.

"Yes," Matt said with a certain amount of pride. "Number two in the class so far."

"That don't mean shit out here," Dwyerson told him, unimpressed. "The sims can't reproduce the G-forces and the inertia that we're gonna be dealing with. All they can do is give you the basic mechanics of gunnery. You're gonna have to learn how to hit your targets all over out here in the real world."

"Right," he agreed, although he couldn't really see how much difference a little inertia could possibly make. The name of the game was acquiring and striking a target quickly, so that the aircraft would be exposed to potential enemy fire for less than five seconds, which was the amount of time it was generally agreed it took an anti-aircraft system to acquire and shoot at a moving target.

"I can tell by your voice that you think I'm talking out of my ass," Dwyerson told him. "Trust me, I've been flying these things for six years now and I've been in training for two. You're gonna have problems."

Matt said nothing, he simply continued to monitor the instruments before him and take glances out at the passing landscape far below. He had already decided that, terrified or not, he was really starting to like flying in an aircraft. The view, something that he'd never given a second thought to before, was inspiring. The sensation of acceleration, the bouncing of the craft in the Martian air currents, the vibration of the engines, the taste of manufactured air from the bio suit, the thought that they were hundreds of kilometers from the safety of the city all conspired to give him a thrill unlike anything he'd ever experienced before. And soon they would be shooting at actual armored vehicles with their laser cannons. True the armor belonged to MPG units that were performing training of their own and the laser would be set to a level just low enough to activate the training sensors on the vehicles, but none of that mattered. It was if he were playing an incredibly realistic video game. Had he been told three weeks ago that he would be doing this, flying high above the surface of Mars in a Mosquito, a duel laser cannon under his command, he would have believed the person mad.

"Tell me about the ejection system of this aircraft," Dwyerson asked suddenly, about five minutes from the next waypoint.

"It's a modified ET-7 ejection system," Matt replied dutifully, reciting what he had learned and been tested on in the classroom lectures. "It's kind of like what the Earthling marines use in their hovers, only a little better. It blasts us free of the plane in an emergency and uses a rocket pack to set us softly on the ground."

"How does the rocket know how to do that?" Dwyerson asked, continuing his impromptu quiz.

"It uses a gyroscope and computer assisted attitude system," he answered. "The computer knows our altitude from the GPS system."

"And if the GPS system is down?" was the next question.

"A laser altimeter will shoot out of the ass of my seat," Matt responded.

"Fuckin aye," Dwyerson said. "And what activates this system?"

"It's automatic in the event of heavy damage but can be overridden with a command from either the pilot or the sis. It can also be activated by pulling the handle under our seats."

"Very good," Dwyerson told him. "You're a quick learner, Mendez. I think you got what it takes to do this job."

"Thanks, Lieutenant," he said, feeling pride at these words, an emotion that he'd hardly experienced in his life.

"I must admit that I was against including the uh... you know... the unemployed class..."

"The vermin," Matt told him. "You can say that in front of me. I know what I am."

"The vermin if you prefer then," he said. "I was against that at first. Most of us instructors were. But I have to admit that, aside from being a bit cruder in speech and mannerisms, and a little less educated, you and the others that have been assigned to me are no different from the other recruits. We've been taught to think that you're a bunch of animals. But that was the WestHem system teaching us that, wasn't it?"

"I guess," he said, a little embarrassed by the openness of his teacher.

"It was," Dwyerson said. "I see that now. I used to hate all the vermin, every last one of you, and I'd never even met any before. That's because I was taught to hate you. And you were taught to hate us, weren't you?"

"Yeah," he agreed, thinking of the lessons he'd been given in school, the literature that was distributed by the big three media companies in the ghetto, all of it explaining how the employed class was keeping the vermin down, was oppressing them and keeping them from getting jobs. "I guess we were," he said. "You really think that all that will be different now that that Whiting bitch is in charge?"

"You have a job now don't you?" he asked.

Matt had to nod. "Yeah, I guess I do, don't I?"

"Looks like we're coming up on our waypoint," Dwyerson said, abruptly changing the subject. "You ready to go to work?"

"Hell yeah, bring it on."

"What's my status?"

"Still on the line. Waypoint in two minutes, twelve seconds."

"What am I gonna do when I get there? You're in charge of this aircraft, remember? I'm just flying it."

"You're gonna turn left to one, eight, zero and descend to angels point five. Waypoint three will be six minutes from there."

"Excellent," he said. "Let's get ready to turn and burn."

Exactly two minutes and nine seconds later, they reached their waypoint and the computer beeped out a course change command. Dwyerson banked them around in another forty-five degree turn, this time to the left, and spun them back to horizontal on 180 degrees, so they were facing directly towards the northern slopes of the mountains.

"On course," Matt told him. "Time to descend to penetration altitude."

"Takin' it down," Dwyerson said, reducing throttle a tad and pushing down on the stick. The aircraft nosed downward, the altimeter spinning rapidly in reverse.

Matt once again felt the unnerving sensation of falling. Only this time, he really was falling, at a rate of more than a hundred meters per second. He felt the return of the nausea almost immediately and, as he saw the ground growing beneath them and the looming peaks of the mountains, the fear as well. When they reached 500 meters above the ground level Dwyerson suddenly pulled up, leveling them back out and sending Matt's stomach down to his feet.

"Status, sis," Dwyerson said as the mountains grew closer. "Give me some status here. The bad guys are right on the other side of these mountains. Can they see us or what?"

"We're well below the peaks," Matt answered, his voice a little broken. "I'm not getting any signals on the ESM. If they have active scanners up and running they're not getting a hit on us."

"Good enough," Dwyerson said, flying on.

A few minutes later they reached their next waypoint, their last one before the mountain range itself. The peaks were now directly before them, towering into the sky above their heads. Dwyerson banked them around to the new heading and then dove down even further, until they were less than 300 meters up. A minute later they shot neatly into a narrow pass between two of the peaks. He dove down even further as the ground dropped away beneath them. Soon another peak was directly before them, it's reddish shape growing rapidly in their windscreen and moving towards them at 680 kilometers per hour. It looked like they were going to smash directly into it in a matter of seconds.

Matt tried not to look at this and instead kept his eyes on his screen. They were eight seconds from the next turn, which would hook them around into yet another gap between two peaks. He wondered if the computer calculations that he and Dwyerson had used to plot this course were wrong. They surely didn't have eight seconds of time left before they hit that mountain, did they?

They did. The seconds ticked off one by one and when they reached zero the aircraft was still a kilometer and a half away from the side of the mountain. Dwyerson banked them sharply to the right, spinning them out on the new heading. They shot through that gap and then made and immediate left bank, which brought them into another valley. Matt's stomach gurgled some more as waves of nausea rippled through him.

"We're on the line still," he choked out, his voice now very sick sounding. "Thirty seconds to next waypoint. You'll turn left to three-four."

"Left to three-four," Dwyerson said calmly. "How's the stomach?"

"About to come up on me," he admitted.

"Try to hold it as long as you can," he advised him. "Start learning to fight it down. Whatever you do, even if you're puking your ass out, don't stop doing your job."

"Right," he said, swallowing, feeling himself starting to sweat.

They banked and turned for the next five minutes, the aircraft climbing and descending as Dwyerson kept them a consistent 300 meters above the ground. When they finally made it to the initial point, or IP, Matt's stomach finally lost the battle. His breakfast of bacon and eggs and toast and orange juice came back up, spraying forcefully over the front of his biosuit helmet, running down in a warm, foul smelling mess that pooled just under his chin.

"Feel better now?" Dwyerson asked him, having heard the distinctive sound come over the intercom.

"Not really," Matt told him.

"You'll feel worse when it comes time to clean it up," he promised. "We're at the IP, are we not?"

"At the IP," Matt dutifully reported. "Target area in four-zero seconds. I'm arming the cannons now."

"Very good."

Still battling the nausea and the disgust at having his vomit resting against his face, Matt turned the indicator switch on the weapons panel to TRAINING and then hit the charge button. "Weapons charging," he said. "Twelve seconds to full charge."

"How many seconds?"

"Sorry, one-two seconds, actually one-zero now."

They banked back and forth, pitched and dove and climbed for another thirty-five seconds. By that time the lasers were both fully charged and Matt had the targeting system fully on line. Their targets for the day were elements of the 33rd Infantry Battalion, which had been out practicing maneuvers for the last two days. Since the object of today's lesson was nothing more than gunnery practice for new recruits, they already knew exactly where they would be located.

"Five seconds to target area and exposure," Matt reported as they neared the last ridge before the plains beyond.

"Copy," Dwyerson said. "Get ready for some hard flying. I'm gonna bank hard right and parallel the ridgeline and then dart back in after you get your shots off."

"I'm ready," he said, his hand gripping the firing stick.

They cleared the ridge and the ground dropped away beneath them. The entire aircraft banked severely to the right, slamming Matt with nearly 3Gs of force. He grunted under the strain of it, feeling fresh vomit come rising up from his stomach and splattering the inside of his helmet. His hand was jerked off the firing button and slammed against the far panel hard enough to sting. Meanwhile the computer automatically scanned the ground below and turned the camera and the gun towards the zone where most of the armored vehicles were. Matt fought the G-forces, trying to force his hand back onto the firing button while his eyes peered over the glowing shapes of the vehicles in his view screen. He tried to turn his head to put the recticle on target but his head wouldn't turn either, so harshly was it being forced to the left.

"You're not shooting," Dwyerson said mildly as he straightened out his bank, throwing the G-force in the other direction.

"My hand slipped!" Matt yelled. He could now move his head and cover one of the targets but his hand had yet to reacquire the firing button. Finally he got eyes and hand in the right place but it was already too late.

"Egressing," Dwyerson said, cutting sharply to the right once more. A second later they had disappeared back into the ridges and hills. The targets on Matt's screen disappeared from view.

"Goddammit!" Matt cried in frustration. "I didn't get a fuckin shot off."

"I told you it was a little different in real life," Dwyerson said. "Let's make another run. Just remember though, now they know we're here. They'll have their guns ready for us the next time we pop out."

Dwyerson flew them in a broad circle, once again darting and dashing over hilltops and down into gullies, hiding the plane from the infrared and radar targeting systems that their ESM could now detect coming on line from the targets.

"What's doctrine for exposure on the second run?" Dwyerson asked him as they neared the entrance to the plains once more.

"Less than three seconds with enemy weapon systems active," he reported, gripping the firing button with increased strength now.

"Right. That's not a whole hell of a lot of time, is it?"

They flitted back out over the plains and banked hard left this time. Matt was slammed to the side once again by the G-force but this time he was expecting it and managed to hang on. On his screen the computer once more aligned his targeting system with the heaviest concentration of armored vehicles. His eyes, trained by hours in the sims to look for the distinctive shapes of armored personnel carriers and target them first, quickly found a group of them near the top of the screen. He moved his head in that direction, which in turn moved the cannon under the belly and the targeting crosshairs on the screen. In the sims he had learned to smoothly set the crosshairs over an APC, unleash a shot, and then repeat the process with the other barrel of the cannon, all in relation to the movement of the aircraft and the targets themselves, and all in less than three seconds. Here, with the wild pitching and turning and the battering of the centrifugal forces, something that was not present in the sims, his fine motor control was thrown all to hell. Try as he might, he could not get the crosshairs to slide smoothly where he wanted it to go. Presently, the targets disappeared from the screen again as Dwyerson banked the aircraft back into the safety of the hills.

"Fuck!" Matt screamed as they dove down over the top of the first hill and banked hard to the right again. His mood was not improved by the sound of Dwyerson laughing over the intercom. "How the fuck does anyone hit anything out here?" he demanded.

"Practice, newbie," Dwyerson said. "That's what we're doing out here. Let's make another run. You don't get to go back to base and clean the puke out of your helmet until you hit something."

And while Jeff Waters was learning to get along with his new playmates and his best friend Matt Mendez was getting first degree burns on his neck from the stomach acid in his vomit, Lisa Wong was enduring a tribulation of her own.

She, along with fifty-nine other members of the special forces training class, were eight kilometers outside the safety of the base, in the wastelands, all of them dressed in full biosuits, their M-24s slung over their shoulders, and all of them lugging large equipment packs that weighed twenty kilos in the reduced gravity. They had been in the training class for two days now and this was their first physical training run. Since the primary job of the special forces teams was to operate outside, far from the protection of the pressurized environment, that was where they were doing it. Since all of the recruits had been regular soldiers before the training all of them were already in better than average physical shape. The eight kilometer run over the sandy hills and rough terrain of the Martian surface had been tiring of course and had been quite a bit more than most of them were really used to, but no one had been forced to drop out of formation. Their oxygen levels however, were all getting low. The physical exertion they were under was causing them to use more out of their reservoirs than the extractors could replace. Even the most physically fit of them had been in a constant state of discharge since kilometer number two.

Lisa's suit was currently at 38 percent in the reservoir, about enough for another thirty minutes of running at the rate she was consuming it. Her legs were sore and her face beneath her helmet was sweaty but otherwise she felt good. She was glad that they were starting them off slowly in the physical training department. The reputation of the special forces school was somewhat notorious for being grueling in this particular category. Perhaps, she thought hopefully, the horror stories about running the recruits into the ground were just rumors.

The run ended a few minutes later at the base of a large hill that rose up from the red soil. It stood about six hundred meters above the ground and the mapping program in their combat computers listed it as a defensive emplacement for infantry troops. Its slopes were about forty-five to fifty degrees. A winding, twisting trail that snaked between boulders and outcroppings of rock could be seen leading to the top.

"Okay folks," said Lieutenant Wilton, the primary instructor of this particular training platoon, his booming voice coming through their tactical radio earpieces, "in front of you you will note a large piece of rock and soil known as a hill. Specifically, it is Hill 607, which is part of the inner defensive perimeter for Eden. On top of this hill is a large trench in which there are ammunition storage containers and mounts for heavy machine guns. You will also note that the hill is quite steep and that it is accessed via a foot trail. Your task now is to climb this hill and enter this trench. You will climb quickly, as if enemy forces are moving in on you at this very moment. Stillwell," he barked, calling out the name of one of the trainees, "let's go back to basic infantry training here for a moment. When climbing a hill to position yourself, do you want to do it quickly?"

"Yes, Lieutenant," Stillwell answered immediately, his voice somewhat breathless.

"Correct," he said. "Wong, tell me why that is."

Lisa took a deep breath of the manufactured air in her helmet. "Because you're vulnerable to enemy fire while ascending," she answered. "Your movement and cover are limited and the enemy can see you and engage you from a long way off." Out of the corner of her eye she saw several of her teammates casting contemptuous looks at her, obviously unimpressed by her military knowledge. There was little she could do or say to impress them. She was the only woman among them, indeed the only woman in special forces planetwide and they had already made it quite clear that they did not think she belonged there.

"Very good," Wilton said tonelessly. "And that is why you will all proceed up that hill immediately and as quickly as possible. You will not stop along the way to rest. The first person to make it to the top will earn himself or herself a twenty-four hour pass and a one hundred dollar intoxicant credit at the club. So lets get going. Up, up, up! Right now! Everyone! Move it out!"

Lisa moved with the others towards the base of the hill, her suited legs and heavy boots treading carefully over the rocky, sandy terrain, utilizing the shuffle step which was how one walked in the reduced gravity. Several of the others pushed in ahead of her. One of them, Stillwell as a matter of fact, deliberately nudged her shoulder with his, almost throwing her off balance.

"Sorry, ma'am," he said contemptuously as she struggled to remain on her feet. "I wouldn't want you to fall down on your little behind now."

Lisa glared at him, a task that was a little difficult to accomplish through the helmet and combat goggles but which she somehow managed anyway. "Do it again, fuckface and you'll be picking pieces of your faceplate out of your nose," she told him, her voice level and softly threatening, the same voice she used when addressing troublesome vermin out on the streets while on patrol.

"Wong, Stillwell," said Wilton, "enough of that shit. Keep the frequency clear for tactical communication."

Stillwell glared back at her for a second and then started up the path to the top of the hill. After a moment, she followed him.

The going was rough as she picked her way between rocks and up the incline. Before she even climbed twenty meters up she realized that there was no way in hell that she could possibly make it without stopping to let her oxygen extractor catch up with the demand she was putting on the reservoir. Each step under the load she was carrying, with her center of gravity shifted about half a meter behind her and the need to twist and turn between the rocky obstacles, was making her heart pound in her chest, her legs scream out under the strain, and her breath tear in and out of her lungs. The discharge warning indicator reappeared in her visor, blinking on and off rapidly. The percentage meter that showed how much oxygen she had remaining dropped from forty percent down to thirty-seven percent in the blink of an eye.

She tried to slow her pace a little bit but it did no good. Each step upward was a concerted effort and an exercise in coordination. The bar graph and the numerical display continued to drop. It fell to thirty percent by the time she was thirty-five meters up the hill and down to twenty percent by the time she made it fifty meters up. She wasn't going to make it up there. She was going to have to stop when she reached five percent in order to keep from suffocating. She would have to stop and the rest of the platoon would all shake their heads at her and tell each other that the woman couldn't hack it out here. And maybe she couldn't. If she couldn't climb a simple hill, maybe she didn't belong in the special forces in the first place.

Nevertheless she pushed on, climbing higher and higher while her oxygen level fell lower and lower. When it reached eighteen percent is when others around began to stop their ascent. One of the larger men - Lavenger was his name - was the first of them. He simply stood next to one of the larger rocks and held in place, his body still, his limbs held limply to his side.

"Lavenger!" barked Wilton's voice over the headset. "What the hell are you doing, boy? You were told to climb that hill! Why the hell are you just standing there?"

"My oxygen level is down to five percent, Lieutenant," he said, his voice shameful and scared. "I'm discharging and I'll run out if I keep moving!"

"Are you saying that you're stuck up on the hill, Lavenger?" he asked, sounding quite incredulous.

"Yes, Lieutenant," he replied, more shame in his voice now. "I have to wait until my tank gets more air in it."

"Bullshit," Wilton said. "You're a dead man now. The enemy spotted you and killed your out-of-shape ass. Hold in place until you get twenty percent built up and then get back down here."

"Yes, Lieutenant," he said, sounding like he was about to start crying.

The rest of them continued to climb, their pace slowed down considerably now. Lisa was about ten meters behind Stillwell, about a third of the way towards the front of the pack. She wondered for the first time what their reservoir readings were. She knew that she was going to have to sit down as Lavenger did in about another three minutes or so.

Corporal Benning was the next to go. He was near the front of the line but had dropped back considerably in the last few minutes. Now he simply stood in place, bent over and unmoving, his profile partially hidden from Wilton's view by a boulder, as if he didn't think their lieutenant would notice that.

No such luck. "Benning?" Wilton asked reasonably. "Are you out of oxygen now too?"

"Yes sir," Benning admitted. "I'm at five percent with my discharge warning still showing. Sorry, sir. I couldn't make it."

"You're a dead man as well. Hold in place until twenty and then get your ass back down here."

Two other men went a minute later. Two more quickly followed. A group of four then dropped out one after the other. Wilton had contemptuous words for all of them.

Lisa's level slipped down to ten percent and then to nine. The warning light began to flash even faster in her vision. She continued trying to take slow, deep breaths, to conserve her air as much as possible, to reduce her pace upward even further, but no matter what she did the discharge stayed on and the percentage continued to drop. Two more people were forced to drop out before she reached five percent and the critical oxygen level indicator began to flash. She took one last deep breath and then brought her forward motion to a halt.

"Wong? Don't tell me that you're running out of oxygen as well?" came Wilton's voice in her ear. "You who challenged the admission standards based on your police experience?"

"Yes, Lieutenant," she told him resignedly. "I'm down to five percent."

"And you told me that you were in shape for this training, Wong. You lied to me, didn't you?" He didn't wait for an answer to his question. "Well, you've no doubt heard what the drill is, right? Hold in place until you reach twenty percent again."

"Yes, Lieutenant," she told him, feeling herself flush, feeling like a failure.

As soon as she stopped her motion, forty-three of the others - Stillwell among them - stopped within five seconds of each other, so many that Wilton was not able to scold each and every one of them. It occurred to Lisa that they had all been running with a critical warning light blinking but that none of them had wanted to stop before she did. Now they could all say that they'd outlasted the female in the group. Wilton noticed this as well.

"All right," he said to the group at large, "you idiots have proved that you could climb longer than Wong. Hold in place until you get back to twenty and then come down."

That left only four men left in the running for the top. One by one they too were forced to come to a halt. None of them had made it even to the halfway point on the hill.

It took the better part of fifteen minutes for Lisa's reservoir to fill back up to twenty percent. Once it did she started back down, her steps gingerly and easy. Her discharge warning light did not come back on. Soon everyone else was able to come down as well. Wilton gathered them around him in a circle, himself standing in the middle.

"You people thought you were in shape, did you?" he asked, spinning slowly around so that he could look each one of them in the eye. "You thought you could just come into special forces and that we'd teach you how to shoot better and do all those sneaky little things that we do and everything would just be static, right?" He shook his head sadly. "Wrong. As you can see by my little demonstration here, not even the fittest of you are even close to being special forces standard. Not even close! Any SF member would be able to run ten kilometers out here with full packs without causing a discharge warning on their suits at all. And any of them would be able to climb that hill immediately after that run and be on top in less than ten minutes and still have better than ninety percent levels in their tanks. That is the standard that we are going to achieve here and that is the fitness level that you are going to have to maintain to be a part of this particular team. It has to be that way because, as you were able to see up there on that hill, once your oxygen reservoir gets down to critical levels, you are effectively stuck where you're at. You cannot move, you cannot fight, you cannot do anything. You are, in effect, as useless as a cock on a cow. We're going to run your asses off twice every day and we're going to come out to this hill three times a week until every last one of you can climb it with oxygen left to spare. Whoever doesn't think they can handle that amount of exercise, drop your biosuit and your weapon off in supply when we get back and go back to whatever assignment you were in before you came here."

He paced around in the circle for a moment, shifting his weapon from one shoulder to the other. He then went back to his slow turn, his looks in the eyes. "Now that was my normal speech for this part of the training," he told them. "Every class that I bring through gets run out here and told to climb that hill and every time they fag out one by one. Never have I had a new SF recruit make it to the top on the first day. Never!" He took a few deep breaths, as if considering what he was going to say next. "This time however, something a little bit different happened. This time we had Wong among us, a woman in a place where no woman has ever tread before. And what I saw in response to her presence here today was very disturbing to me indeed.

"I was watching your oxygen levels on my combat computer," he told the class. "I had a graph that drew from the feeds in your suits, a little tool that the commander of a platoon has to help keep track of his troops." He stepped forward a few steps, his gaze falling directly upon Stillwell, who seemed to shrink back from it. "Stillwell," he said, his voice reasonable, "perhaps you could tell me what the minimum safety standard is for reservoir depletion. What is the absolute lowest that you are allowed to run your tank to before doctrine commands that you cease all activity and let it refill?"

The gulp from Stillwell was clearly audible over the frequency. "Uh..." he stammered.

"How low, Stillwell? How low?"

"Five percent, Lieutenant," he finally was able to blurt out.

"Five percent," Wilton said reflectively. "That's correct. I thought that I'd mentioned that number fifty or sixty fucking times during my lectures. I thought that that was what was common knowledge among every MPG member, among every fucking outside civilian worker who wears the fucking biosuit! So, Stillwell, with that in mind, perhaps you could explain to me why you let your reservoir go all the way down to two and a half percent before you stopped?"

"Uh... well... I didn't really... I mean, I thought that I could... you know..."

"Didn't want to fag out before Wong huh?" he asked. "You just couldn't stand to think that Wong would be able to go further up that hill than you could, right?"

"No Lieutenant," he said sternly. "I just thought I could bring it back you know. That if I conserved..."

"Don't you fucking lie to me," Wilton nearly screamed. "You brought yourself far below safety standards, put your stupid-ass life at risk out here, just so you wouldn't have to admit that Wong is in better shape than you."

He didn't wait for a reply. Instead, he glared at the rest of the troops. "And he's not the only one, is he? I counted thirty-seven of you who were well below four percent on your readings. Thirty-fucking-seven of you! And there were another five of you who were below five percent. And holy Jesus, all of you just happened to decide that enough was enough about twenty seconds after Wong finally had to give it up. You stupid idiots! Do you think we pulled that five percent figure out of our asses? Did it occur to you that you were putting your lives at risk? What would have happened if your bodies didn't recover from the exertion quickly enough to stop the discharge of your suits? You would've died of suffocation out here and there wouldn't have been a goddamn thing we could have done about it!"

The men who had been involved in this all hung their heads in shame at this lecture.

Wilton continued to glare and then shook his head in disgust. "If anyone in this platoon ever lets his or her tank drop below five percent again for any reason whatsoever, you will be dismissed from this training and returned to your regular assignments. I will not tolerate stupidity! Is that understood?"

It was understood loud and clear. Lisa, uncomfortable with all of the chaos that her presence had caused, looked around and saw that looks of hatred were being directed at her from all quarters. Waves of resentment were radiating off of her colleagues almost visibly. What had she done to deserve this? Just because she had signed up for the position that she thought she was best suited for, they all hated her.

"Let's get back to our feet," Wilton told them. "We have a long jog to the gunnery range. I want everyone to shoot off a thousand rounds today before we break for lunch."

One by one they got to their feet and formed up. Soon they were trotting off across the red landscape once again. They kept to a pace that was slow enough that no one discharged their oxygen tanks and thirty minutes later they arrived at the outside gunnery range, a one square kilometer area, ringed with small hills, upon which a variety of holographic targets could be activated and shot at.

For the next three hours they practiced various maneuvers and shooting drills. Lisa, who had qualified as expert with her M-24 ever since joining the MPG, quite easily showed up most of the men in marksmanship. Indeed a few of them were forced to grudgingly accord the smallest amount of respect towards her in this as she placed clean head or body shots on target after target, without benefit of her combat computer, from ranges up to half a kilometer away.

One person who did not give her respect was Stillwell, who was still quite stung from being publicly humiliated by Wilton because of her. His own shooting was near expert and well within the top ten in the class, but it was still short of her own. He took every opportunity to make snide remarks towards her, saying things like, "So she can hit a target with a gun. She still hasn't been in a combat unit before". Or he would remark to another student, "Do you really want a woman backing you up in a firefight? What if there's some icky blood around? She might get sick". Lisa, for her part simply ignored him and went about what she had been told to do. Wilton too, though he could hear every transmission that was made, chose not to say anything to either of them. Lisa wasn't sure what to make of his silence. Was he waiting for her to handle things on her own? Was he perhaps hoping that Lisa would quit of her own accord? She just didn't know. Wilton was a difficult man to read.

At last the shooting session wrapped up and they spent the better part of an hour picking up the expended shell casings that littered the range. Wilton then made them run back to the base at triple time, once again discharging their tanks.

By the time they made their way through the airlocks and back into normal gravity and pressurization, all of them were exhausted. Wilton told them to hit the locker rooms and get their biosuits off and back into their normal clothes so they could spend another three hours in the classroom learning the finer points of movement and tactics.

Lisa followed the men into the locker room that had been set aside for the use of the special forces teams. Wilton and the other instructors had given her access to a small storage room adjacent to the locker room for the purpose of changing her clothing in privacy but she had adamantly refused it, not wanting to have any difference between herself and the other SF troops in training. So far she had only put her biosuit on over her shorts and T-shirt. Now however she would have to strip completely naked and shower in front of them.

The locker room was quite large, large enough for an entire company to dress and shower in at once. A long plastic bench sat before each row of metal lockers. She found the locker that Wilton had reluctantly assigned to her and opened it by placing her fingerprint on the locking mechanism. She released the seal on her helmet and pulled it off, setting it on the bench before her. Her short hair was damp with her perspiration. She took a few deep breaths of the stale air, glad to be breathing anything other than the manufactured variety, and then began undoing the clasps that held her biosuit body in place. She slid it off so that she was standing only in her sweaty shorts and T-shirt. She looked around and saw that the men within view were moving slowly at removing their own equipment. Some were casting glances at her, others were trying their best to ignore her, all seemed very uncomfortable with her presence.

She thought of saying something to them and then decided not to. To hell with it. The sooner they got used to her being among them, the better. She reached down and pulled her shirt over her head, dropping in into a laundry bag in her locker. Her ample breasts were now covered with nothing more than a nylon work-out brassiere. She pulled this off as well, baring them for anyone to see. She could plainly hear the gasp of surprise from those around her. It was apparent that they hadn't thought she'd really go through with this. She continued to ignore them and dropped her shorts and underwear as well, leaving her completely nude. She stuffed the rest of the clothes into her locker and then picked up a clean towel and a bottle of liquid soap. Strolling almost casually she headed for the lockers, passing between groups of men.

"Better hurry up," she said flippantly, speaking to no one in specific. "We only have twenty minutes until we're due in the class. Wouldn't want to be late."

No one moved, no one replied.

She stopped and looked at them, amused to see that many of them - these tough, macho guys who fancied themselves the best of the best - were actually blushing. "Oh come on, you assholes," she said, just a hint of challenge in her voice. "Are you afraid of a naked woman? Surely a few of you have seen tits and ass before. Are you afraid to shower with me?"

She walked off towards the community shower area. Here were a series of showering stations situated above tile floors with drains in the center. Each station held a fixture that featured six nozzles in a circular pattern. She hung up her towel and then stepped up to the first one.

"Shower on," she told the computer that controlled it. "Thirty-eight degrees."

The spray activated, sending a stream of droplets out at moderate pressure. She stepped under it and sighed as the warm water caressed her tired skin. She turned this way and that under the stream, thoroughly wetting herself. Finally she picked up her body wash and poured a generous amount into her hand. She picked up a washrag and began soaping herself up, cleaning the sweat and the grime from her body.

Soon, one by one, the men began to come into the shower area as well. All were naked, carrying towels with them. They took up positions at the other shower stations and turned on the heads. None came over to the station that she was using and all went to pains to keep their front ends turned away from her. She looked straight ahead, at the water spraying out of the tap, keeping her eyes to herself, not caring if they looked at her or not. She was determined that they were just going to have to get used to this situation, like it or not.

Once her body was clean she put some of the body wash in her hand and soaped up her hair, closing her eyes while she lathered up with her fingers and then rinsed all of it back off. When she opened her eyes up she noticed a form standing next to her. It was Stillwell, his naked, well-formed body dripping with water from his own shower, his eyes looking her up and down appreciatively.

"You want something, Stillwell?" she asked, her eyes burning into his.

He offered a lascivious smile towards her. "It looks like you're the one who wants something," he said. "Why else would you come into a locker room full of men and get naked?"

She looked at the shower fixture for a moment and said, "Shower off." She then looked back at him, her face putting back on the glare that was becoming her trademark. "I think you'd better step away from me in the next two seconds or you're gonna find your face kissing that drain," she told him.

He chuckled. "Now don't be that way, baby," he told her. "You sucked your way into SF so you could bang for the gang, didn't you? Well here we are, ready to bang. Why don't we stop all the bullshit and get down to it?" He reached out his hand towards her breast, intending to stroke it.

As quick as lightening she reached out and grabbed the hand while it was still more than half a meter from her. She pulled sharply on it, as if to twist his body around. Instinctively he pulled back, trying to remove himself from her grip. When his back-pull was at it's strongest she let go of him, which caused him to slingshot backward, his body off balance. While he was struggling to keep from falling over backward her foot shot out and neatly kicked his left leg out from beneath him. He crashed down quite comically, his butt landing in a puddle of soapy water that had accumulated around the drain and throwing up a large splash. A startled "oomph" came from his mouth. Laughter welled up from all the men who had witnessed this, good old derisive, contemptuous laughter at the man who had just been sent to the ground by a naked woman.

This infuriated Stillwell. "You fuckin bitch!" he yelled, jumping to his feet, his fists raised and ready for combat.

Lisa raised her own fists up and widened her stance. "You think you can take me, you little prick?" she asked him calmly. "Come and get some if you think you can. Make your move."

He didn't move towards her. "I ain't gonna hit no woman," he said, as if proclaiming some deep religious leaning.

"Why not?" she asked. "I just put your wimpy ass on the floor, didn't I? Made that little dick of yours shrivel up like a slug with salt on it. Come and get me back. Take me out! If you think you can."

The other men had abandoned their showers and had gathered around them in a circle, none of them making any motion to interfere, their eyes watching the development carefully. Stillwell looked at them for a moment, from face to face, searching for an ally, waiting for someone to yell at them to put a stop to this. But no one did.

"Look at this, guys," Lisa said, shaking her head in amusement. "He's afraid of a woman. And a naked one at that. He wants to go fight the Earthlings but he won't even take a swing at little old me."

"You better shut your ass, bitch or I'll give you some of what you're asking for!" he yelled.

"Give it to me, baby," she said. "I'd love for you to try it. I'm begging you to try it."

"I'm warning you, bitch!" he growled.

"Stop warning and start fighting," she said. "Let's see what you got, Little-Dick. Come on!"

That pushed him over the limit. He stepped towards her and jabbed out at her face with his fist, a well-timed punch that, had it struck, would have been devastating to her nose. But it didn't strike. Lisa, anticipating just such a move, dodged to the left, letting it whiz through thin air. She could have easily hiked her foot up into his exposed testicles at that point in the fight but she chose not to, wanting to end this particular confrontation in a much more decisive way, in a way that left no doubt who had the biggest set of huevos. Instead she let out a yell and shot the heel of her hand straight out, catching him directly on his nose. She felt it mash beneath her hand, felt hot blood go spraying out of it, felt a jarring pain radiating up her arm like an electric jolt. Stillwell's head snapped back with the force of the blow, a high-pitched cry of surprise and pain squeaking from his lips. He staggered back two steps, stunned, unbelieving.

Lisa didn't give him a chance to recover. She spun around and threw a back-kick that caught him directly in the stomach. The air whooshed out of his lungs, sending a huge glut of blood and snot from his damaged nose at high speed. He flew backwards, out of the shower area where he slammed into the corner of one of the banks of lockers. He bounced off and crumpled to the floor, gasping and trying to breathe.

Lisa was on him in a second, before he could even begin to recover his senses. She grabbed one of his arms and pulled sharply, snap-rolling him onto his stomach. She then twisted the arm up behind his back, wrenching it painfully up into his shoulder blades and twisting the hand inward. Her knee came down onto the back of his neck, pinning his bleeding face to the tile. This was a classic police move, designed to quickly subdue a combative suspect so he could be handcuffed. Instead of handcuffing him however, she pushed the arm up even higher, threatening to dislocate the shoulder. He held out for almost ten seconds before finally screaming out in pain.

"Get the fuck off me, you bitch!" he nearly cried.

She released the pressure just the slightest bit. He tried to struggle and she put it back on, eliciting another scream.

"You move and I'll tear your fucking arm off," she told him. "Do you understand me?"

"Fuck you!" he said defiantly, earning him another wrench upward and another scream.

"I asked you if you understood me," she said. "Do you, bitch? Am I speaking clearly enough for you?"

"Yeah," he finally grunted.

"Good," she said, satisfied. "I just kicked your fucking ass. Kicked it royally and well. And if you ever treat me with anything less than respect again, I'll kick it again and next time I'll put you in the fucking hospital. Do you get me?"

He said nothing, just coughed, expelling another spray of blood from his nose.

"I said, do you get me?"

"Yeah," he agreed.

She released his arm and stood up, stepping back a bit in case he decided to rush at her again. "Good," she said calmly. "I'm glad we've come to this understanding with each other."

She turned and looked at the crowd of men, most of them naked and dripping. They were looking at her in a different way now, no longer seeing a frail woman who had finagled her way into their midst.

"That goes for each and every fucking one of you," she said to them. "I'll take any of you on if you think you got what it takes. Any fucking one of you! I'm here to stay, gentlemen. I'll be working out with you, showering with you, shooting with you, and killing fucking Earthlings with you. Get used to me and don't fuck with me."

With that said she looked down at herself, at her still naked body that now had droplets of blood and snot scattered across her breasts and stomach. She walked back through the crowd of men to the showers and turned one on, stepping back beneath the spray. No one fucked with her as she did this. No one would ever fuck with her again after that day.

Triad Naval Base

June 18, 2146

The wardroom of the Mermaid was just below the officer's berthing, two decks below the bridge of the ship. It took up the majority of the deck and featured a large steel table that was bolted to the floor. Foldout chairs were permanently attached to the table, ten of them, which was how many officers an Owl class stealth attack ship typically crewed. Bolted to the center of the table was the inevitable Internet screen which could be turned in any direction, depending upon who was using or watching it. A sealed coffee maker system, designed for use in reduced or absent gravitation, was installed on one wall. A larger Internet screen, fully two meters across, was mounted on the far wall, near the ladder that led to the higher and lower decks. Along the outside walls of the room ran several sets of pipes, for steam, for hydrogen, for electrical connections, all of them painted different colors depending upon what they carried. The smell was of steel and lubricating oils and stale ventilation.

Brett Ingram, appointed captain of the Mermaid, looked at the group of five officers that he had selected to help him carry out his portion of Operation Interdiction. There was Lieutenant Sugiyoto, who had served with him on this very ship when they had been part of the WestHem Navy. Then he had been assigned to the kitchen. Now he was in charge of navigation and detection. In charge of the engineering section of the ship, and the man who had perhaps the greatest challenge of all, was Lieutenant Mike Bellingraph, a fusion specialist who had served aboard an Owl eighteen years before as an engine assistant. He had been given a crew of twelve, only one of whom had ever been aboard a naval vessel of any kind before. They would be responsible for keeping Mermaid's two fusion engines operating and maintained throughout their trip. In charge of weapons systems was Lieutenant Chad Hamilton, who had never been in the navy before at all but who had worked on the various weapons that they carried as a civilian contractor. He had a crew of seven who would be responsible for maintaining and hopefully firing the twelve nuclear torpedoes that Mermaid carried - torpedoes that had been revamped and fitted with fresh navigation/detonation computer packages in the last week. The other three officers aboard were Tony Jenkins, Allen Nguyen, and Bob Valenzuela. They were in charge of all other aspects of running the ship on a war mission. These latter three all had Owl experience, which was why they had been made officers, but that experience was in places such as the galley, the laundry room, and on the cleaning staff. Still, experience was experience, which was more than could be said of the vast majority of the forty-eight enlisted rank men and women who had volunteered for this most dangerous assignment.

"Mike," said Brett, who had already adapted a policy of informality onboard his ship, "how is your engine room crew doing at their new jobs?"

Until three days before Mike had been a senior fusion technician at the main Eden power plant. At fifty-two years old he was the oldest person aboard. A robust, jolly man with a large beer belly, the younger crewmembers had already taken to calling him "Dad". He gave a semi-sour look at the question. "We need a lot more training time," he responded. "But I think that over the past week I've been able to teach them enough to get this thing moving. Both engines are lit and at idle right now. We can move out whenever you give the word."

"How about emergency procedures and safety?" Brett wanted to know. "Have you been able to cover that?"

He shrugged. "We've mostly been focusing on basic operations. We touched on safety a bit just as a natural course of that but as far as emergency procedure, we've hardly started."

Brett nodded. That was about par for the course on this particular ship. They were attempting to crew the Owl with less than half of its normal complement and well over three-quarters of those soon-to-be-overworked crewmembers had never been aboard a naval vessel before. Brett had interviewed each one of them personally before allowing them aboard his ship. About the only thing that they were strong in was enthusiasm. He knew that they desperately needed more training time but he also knew that time was of the essence in this particular mission. The WestHem marines were going to be shoving off from Earth any day now and if the Mermaid wanted to be waiting for them as they came around the sun they would have to leave today.

"Do what you can, Mike," Brett said. "I'm forced to have utmost faith in you."

"The drills will continue until we achieve something like efficiency," Mike promised. "I'll keep them awake day and night."

He smiled his approval at this and then turned to his weapons officer. "Chad, how are things going on your end? Will your people accidentally blow us up with those nukes or what?"

Mike was a twenty-nine-year-old nuclear technician at Farmington Laboratories, the semi-private, semi-government operated facility that produced all nuclear material and weaponry. With his doctorate in physics, he was the best educated of the crew, indeed of most Martians in general. "Well," he said, "we got those new detonators and guidance packages installed without blowing anything up." He chuckled a little. "Who knows? The odds are better than even that the things will even work when we fire them."

Brett, who was experiencing stress unlike anything he'd ever imagined before, didn't find this remark all that funny. "I trust that the actual odds of the weapons working as they're supposed to is a little higher than that," he said, his voice somewhat icy. "I'd hate to travel all the way inside the orbit of Mercury, sneak into a WestHem naval formation, and then fire off a torpedo only to have it fail."

Mike's face grew more serious. "They'll work, Brett," he assured him. "And my people will be tip-top at their jobs by the time we get out there. I promise."

Brett offered a strained smile. "As with Mike," he said, "I'm forced to take you at your word. I'll get us to the WestHems. You make sure those nukes do what they're supposed to when we get there."

The pre-launch briefing continued for another ten minutes, with Brett asking for status reports from the rest of the newly frocked officers under his command. In each case the story was pretty much the same as Mike's and Chad's. Their men (and women - more than a quarter of the enlisted personnel were female) were eager to learn, eager to fight, but still quite lacking in a complete understanding of their jobs. Training would need to be intensive and frantic on the three-week trip to the interception point.

"Sleep is going to have to be a luxury on this voyage," Brett told them. "I want full training rotations for all departments covering every conceivable operation on this ship. I want every person on board cross-trained in at least two other department's responsibilities. And then there are the damage control and firefighting drills. Those will need to be fit in there somewhere as well. And that's not even to mention the general quarters assignments and training. We'll be working on that one at least twice a day, maybe more depending on how much they suck at it."

His officers looked at him solemnly, none of them speaking but most of them nodding in agreement at his words.

"Okay then," Brett said. "We have our consumables loaded and stowed, our propellant tanks full, our reactors turning and ready to burn. What do you say we get this thing moving? Get everyone to his or her stations. I want to leave this dock in two hours."

Thirty-two thousand kilometers away, in a high equatorial orbit of the planet, the Marlin, an Owl under control of WestHem, drifted silently, her engines on idle, her maneuvering thrusters quiet. Marlin had been the ship that had been heading home from the Jupiter system when the revolt had occurred. On orders from Admiral Jules she had taken up position where her crew could surreptitiously keep an eye on the events taking place on Mars. As she slowly orbited around in an elongated arc her sensors alternately recorded the radio transmissions and infrared signals from Triad on the outbound leg and the Martian surface cities on the other side. She was now in a direct line of sight to Triad and the huge naval base. Less than twenty minutes before Commander William Warren, her captain, had sent off a secured, encrypted transmission to Jupiter, where it would in turn be relayed to Earth, regarded the primary course of concern: the pre-positioned marine landing ships. They were still safely in dock, their tanks and weapons and fuel still presumably aboard.

Commander Warren, strapped lightly into the captain's chair on the bridge to keep from floating upward in the zero gravity condition, yawned and stretched his arms, more than a little bored with this assignment, particularly since they had already been out in space for more than four months. Morale among the crew was strained to say the least, a fact that was augmented by the strict rationing of their remaining consumables. And they were also short fifteen crewmembers, mostly the cleaning and cooking staff. Those fifteen had been the Martians on the crew and they had all been confined to their quarters under guard for the duration of the mission. As such, the meager meals that were produced with the dwindling rations were now tasteless as paste and the halls and storerooms of the ship were now cluttered with debris.

"John," Warren said to Lieutenant Commander Lovington, his executive officer, "do you think you can handle the shots of Libby on the next orbit? I need to go to my cabin for a bit and meditate." By which he meant that he was going to masturbate to stored pornographic pictures on his computer terminal and then take a nap.

"Sure, cap," said Lovington, who was perhaps the most frustrated person on board. After all, it was he that was in charge of dealing with the crew problems. The numbing routine of spying on their own possession coupled with the knowledge that they would not be relieved for more than six weeks had caused more than its share of fights over petty matters. "Are we running the full spectrum on the MPG base there again?"

"As always," Warren told him. "We have to see how our little greenie friends are playing with their toys, don't we?"

"Of course," he said with a sigh. Making tapes of the MPG units going through training rotations for the upcoming confrontation was a major part of what they had been tasked to do. Admittedly the greenies were taking to this with gusto. But one could only watch so many tiny infrared signatures of tank and armored cav units driving around the Martian wastelands before one was driven utterly batshit by it.

Warren was just about to unbuckle when Spacer Second Class Pebley, who was manning one of the tracking centers, suddenly spoke up. "Captain," he said slowly. "I think there's something going on at the naval base."

Warren looked at him in irritation. "Something going on?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Pebley said cautiously, his tone that of one who is not quite sure weather he believes what he is seeing or not, "I'm getting what looks like maneuvering thruster activity from the docking area where the Owls are being stored."

"Maneuvering thrusters?" Warren said, his fingers going to his own computer screen to call up the display that Pebley was looking at. "Those greenies aren't playing with those Owls are they?"

"It looked like a test fire to me, sir," Pebley said. "Right in the high spectrum. Completely consistent with a chemical hydrogen burn."

The display came to life before him. It was a wide-angle, infrared shot of the docking area of Triad Naval Base. Centered in the display were the three landing ships, which were dark and cold, just as they always had been. Near the upper corner was the area where the Owls were kept. The Owls could not be seen on the display, not directly anyway, since they were designed not to reflect heat, but the hole they created in the image against the warm backdrop of the docking area showed that they were there.

"Which one gave you the reading, Pebley?" Warren asked, seeing nothing amiss before him.

"Let me center it and zoom in," he replied, his fingers manipulating his own screen now.

A moment later one of the Owls in the center of the parked ships grew larger and moved to the middle of the screen. No sooner had this happened than the bright white flare of heat showed from the fore end of it.

"There!" Pebley said. "They're doing it again. I mark that as definite maneuvering thruster activity. They're really gunning it, sir for us to be able to pick it up this clearly."

Warren nodded thoughtfully. "Just like a test firing prior to deployment," he said. "What the hell do they think they're doing?"

"You don't suppose that they're going to try to take that thing out of dock do you?" asked Lovington, who had floated over and was hovering over Pebley's shoulder to watch.

"You wouldn't think so, would you?" Warren responded. "Unless..."

"Unless what?" Lovington wanted to know.

"Maybe they're forcing one of the commanders they've captured to maneuver it for them."

"They'd have to have the entire engineering and navigation crew in there as well," Lovington said. "I don't think that would work very well. There is no way that an entire Owl crew would voluntarily do that. And what would be the point of it anyway? All of the torpedoes were wiped when they took over the base. What good would putting an Owl out into space do them?"

"Maybe they think they can use the lasers as a point defense for our landing ships," Warren suggested with a shrug.

"That's absurd," said Lovington. "Even the greenies would have to know that we'd send fighters to sweep our orbital path before we bring in the heavy ships. It would be a pointless suicide mission."

"Nobody ever said greenies were smart," countered Warren, half seriously.

Mermaid had no one in the official position of executive officer. There simply were not enough officers to go around for that designation. The closest that they had was Lieutenant Sugiyoto, the navigation and tracking officer, who filled the role if it was needed by virtue of being second in command.

"Green light on all exterior doors, Brett," he said now, checking a panel on his display.

"Thanks, Sugi," Brett said absently, looking at his own display board. He was now sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge, his restraints applied. He was careful not to let his voice show any of the anxiety that he felt. He was really about to try to take this ship out of dock with an understaffed, inexperienced crew. They were really going to try to fly towards the sun and attacked heavily armed WestHem vessels. Were they all mad?

He took a few deep breaths and then opened the ship's intercom system. "All personnel, this is Ingram on the bridge. All stations report your readiness for zero gravity conditions."

One by one the stations checked in. Engineering, navigation, weapons. All loose objects had reportedly been stowed and all of the men were sitting strapped into their chairs. The majority of them, at Brett's advice, had vomit bags with them since they would be undergoing the sensation of lightening for the first time.

"Let's do it then," Brett told the intercom. "Disconnecting from TNB's gravity generation system in five, four, three, two... one." He pushed a button on his panel, shutting off the flow of current to the conduits in the ship's hull. In an instant everyone became weightless. Brett himself easily absorbed the sensation. He had been through it hundreds of times before. Others weren't so lucky. From all over the ship came the sound of people moaning and retching. On the bridge itself three of the six people deployed had to vomit.

"Let's all take a few minutes to get used to the sensation," Brett said over the intercom, suppressing a sigh. "It'll go away shortly but then you'll have to get used to the zero gravity conditions. That one takes a little longer."

Little by little the ship seemed to settle down. Vomit bags were sealed and stowed. Foreheads were wiped clear of perspiration. Brett asked for another status check and received readiness reports from all stations once again.

"Okay, let's get this thing out of here then, shall we?" he said to the bridge crew. He turned to the young woman who had been chosen as the helmsperson. She was twenty-two years old and a previous ghetto inhabitant. She had scored remarkably high on her ASVAB, particularly the computer interface portion. "Mandall," he told her. "I'm releasing the docking clamps."

"Okay," she said nervously, her fingers hovering above her panel.

With a push of a button on his own screen, Brett released the magnetic clamps that held them to the dock. There was no sound or motion associated with it, only a red light that appeared on the panel. "We're free of the dock," he said. "Mandall, give us ten percent on the starboard thrusters and move us away."

"Ten percent on the starboard thrusters," she repeated, as she had been taught. She touched the screen in front of her.

On the outside of the ship the four maneuvering thrusters on that side of the ship flared to life, slowly pushing the Mermaid away from the dock. The gap between the two structures stretched out to one meter and then two and then five and then ten.

"Increase starboard thrusters to fifty percent," Brett ordered when they were sixty meters away. "Let's move out in the departure corridor."

"Increasing starboard thrusters to fifty percent," Mandall repeated, doing as she was told.

"Sir, they are definitely moving away from the dock," reported Pebley. "The aspect of the vessel is changing and I have what appears to be thruster activity on the side facing the docks."

"Christ," Warren said disgustedly as he watched the display screen. "They're going to crash that thing into the naval base."

"You suppose they're just playing around with it?" asked Lovington. "Trying to see if they can move it from one place to another? After all, they might have some greenie that used to serve on the helm doing it for them."

"Maybe," Warren said, liking the way that sounded. "Although I still can't imagine what good they think that'll do them. They can't break orbit without burning the fusion engine and I know goddamn well they don't have anyone who would know how to do that."

"Should we make a report to CINCFARSP?"

Warren thought that one over for a moment. They had just sent one of their thrice-daily reports to Jupiter via an encrypted communication laser. The next one wasn't due for another six hours. "Let's just wait until the next report goes out," he finally answered. "There's no sense in sending off a special report because they're playing games with one of our ships. We'll just keep our eye on them."

"Understood," Lovington replied.

"Sir?" said the navigation officer.

"What is it?"

"If we're going to keep tracking this target we're going to have to maneuver soon. Our orbit will take us out of range of Triad in another twenty minutes."

"Very well," Warren said. "Plot us a burn that will keep us in the vicinity. Remember, minimum G. There might be a Henry out here somewhere and we don't want to give away our position to them. There's a good chance that they're feeding information to the greenies."

"Yes sir," he said, bending to his computer screen. It took him less than a minute to give the computer the parameters he needed and get an answer from it. "Burn info is on your screen, captain," he said when it was done.

A minute later the order was given and Marlin's fusion engines began to burn, pushing the ship closer to its target at .15Gs.

Mermaid was now three kilometers out from TNB and nearly two downrange, far enough away that her fusion engines would not cause damage to any structure. Her nose was now facing nearly ninety degrees away from the planet. The navigation computer had taken over thruster activity to stabilize them in this particular inclination.

"We are in alignment for our burn," reported Sugiyoto, who had lit a cigarette and was puffing on it nervously.

"All right then," said Brett, who was puffing a smoke of his own. He touched his screen, linking his communications with the engineering spaces. "Mike," he said to Bellingraph, "we're aligned for our burn. Is everything ready to go back there?"

"The engines are turning and ready," Mike reported. "They'll burn at your command."

"Thanks, Mike," he said, shutting off the link and then turning on the ship's intercom. "All personnel, this is Ingram. Prepare to break orbit. I repeat, we will begin our burn in twenty seconds." He shut off the intercom and then looked at Sugiyoto once more. "Sugi, sound the acceleration alarm."

"Right," he replied. "Acceleration alarm sounded."

When it had sounded for twenty seconds it automatically shut off. Brett looked at Mandall. "Helm, commence burn. Point two G."

"Point two G," she repeated. Her finger trembled as it reached down to the control and pushed the button.

Everyone on board was holding their breath. Half expected nothing to happen. The other half expected the ship to explode in a fury of ignited hydrogen fuel. All of then were wrong. The fusion engines lit just like they were supposed to, expelling a stream of uncooled, white-hot plasma from the rear. The ship was pushed forward at two tenths the force of gravity, pushing everyone down in his or her seats. A collective sigh of relief was breathed as they felt the motion.

"How we looking, Sugi?" Brett asked, unsnapping his seat belt now that there was acceleration produced gravity in the ship.

"Right on the line," he reported after taking an extra long drag of his cigarette. "We'll have enough velocity to break orbit in forty-five minutes."

"Thanks, Sugi." He flipped to the engineering link again. "Mike? How are we looking back there?"

"Both engines are operating within parameters," he replied at once. "Was there ever any doubt?"

Brett laughed. "Of course not, Mike. Keep up the good work."

"Holy shit!" blurted Pebley as he saw the flare of white from his tracking computer.

"What the hell did you just say?" asked Warren, who was a notorious stickler for military courtesy.

"Sorry sir," Pebley apologized. "It's just that the greenies just lit off the fusion engines on that thing!"

"They did what?" Warren and Lovington said at the same time.

"No mistaking, sir," Pebley told them. "They've initiated what looks to be a fusion burn. They're accelerating at a rate of one point nine-six meters per second. That's point two G. They're trying to break orbit."

Lovington broke free of his chair and floated back over to Pebley to look over his shoulder once again. Warren called up the display on his own screen. Both stared intently, seeing the white flare before their eyes but still not believing it.

"Son of a bitch," Warren said quietly. "They got the fusion engines lit. They must have a crew aboard that they're forcing to work for them."

"No question," Lovington agreed. "But where the hell are they going with that thing? What could they possibly hope to do? It doesn't make sense."

"Sir," Pebley spoke up, "I have a positive identification on the vessel from the engine signature. It's the Mermaid."

"Stan Hoffman's ship," Warren said reflectively. "And I think Jack Braxton is his XO. The greenies must have one or both of them on that bridge. Helm, maneuver to keep tracking them. I want to figure out just what their post-orbital course is going to be and I don't want to lose them if they throttle down those engines."

"Plotting tracking course," the helmsman said, bending to his computer.

"That's going to put our own engines fairly high in the infrared," Lovington pointed out. "If there's a Henry out there they might catch a whiff of us."

"A chance we'll have to take," Warren responded. "It just occurred to me what those greenies might be up to with that thing."

"What's that?"

"What if they're delivering it to the EastHem military? Selling it to them in exchange for that fuel that they're planning to use? Those fucking fascists would love to get their hands on one of our Owls. They haven't had a chance to examine one since that traitorous greenie handed a C model to them during the Jupiter War."

"Damn," Lovington whispered fearfully, frightened by the very thought of the EastHem's learning the various secrets of the modern Owl. "I think you might be right. And they might hand the crew over to the EastHem's as well."

"We need to stay on their ass," Warren said. "If the EastHem's take possession of one of our Owls it will be an act of war."

"Course plotted, sir," the helmsman said. "It's on your screen."

Warren looked down, noting that they would have to increase their acceleration to three tenths of a G in order to keep close enough. That was a little bit high for maintaining stealth mode but he really had no choice. "Initiate," he said. "And let's start preparing a report for CINCFARSP. I guess we'll break the communications routine after all."

"Sir," the communications officer suddenly spoke up, "I'm afraid that we won't be able to send a message by laser for a bit."

"Our alignment?" Warren asked with a sigh.

"Yes sir. Our path puts the planet between the receiver and us. We won't be able to lock on for another hour at least. There's always the radio of course, but..."

"No, maintain radio silence," Warren ordered. "I don't want the greenies or the EastHem's knowing that we're out here if we can avoid it. We'll just wait until the receiver is back in sight and send the report then."

"Aye sir," the communications officer said.

Mermaid's velocity continued to increase as the fusion engines burned and pushed them higher and higher above the planet. Mike in the engineering spaces continued to report a good status and gradually the crew began to relax a little.

Brett was still sitting in his chair, sipping out of a cup of coffee and chain-smoking cigarettes as he tried to work out some sort of drill schedule for the first week of their deployment. He needed to get everyone up to speed on the general quarters and damage control drills first and foremost. But there was also the abandon ship drill, the emergency deceleration drill, and half a dozen others that they needed to perfect before they went into combat the first time. And then there was the fact that most of the crew didn't know how to maneuver in low G's. Already there was one person in sickbay from falling down a ladder.

"Brett," said Sugiyoto, who was monitoring the detection and navigation computers, trying to run some tracking drills, "I know this sounds strange, but..."

"But what?" he said, looking up and glancing over.

"Well, I think I'm detecting something."

"What do you mean?" he asked, not terribly interested yet. They were after all, still in orbit. He figured that Sugi was maybe getting a reading on a communications or a research satellite in high orbit. The passive sensors that he was using were very receptive to that sort of thing after all.

"There are some white lines showing up at bearing 133 mark 42. Didn't you tell me that white lines could be a stealth ship exhaust?"

"Yes," Brett said thoughtfully, becoming a little more interested now. True, it was probably nothing, but that was the spectrum that an Owl or a Henry's plasma exhaust would be in. And it had been agreed that there was a better than even chance that one or both of those entities would try to put a stealth ship into orbit around Mars. "Let me take a look." He called up a duplicate of the display and saw immediately what Sugi was talking about.

"What do you think?" Sugi asked. "Am I just seeing things?"

"Oh, you're seeing things all right," Brett said, standing up. Moving carefully he walked across the bridge until he was standing next to him. "Try to clean up that image a little," he told him. "Fine tune it with the contrast dial and then turn the array directly onto it."

"Right," Sugi said, putting his hands to the screen. He fumbled with the touch sensitive screen controls for a moment and the image suddenly sharpened, showing a lot more white and even some blue. "Wow," he said. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Damn right," Brett told him. "Designate that contact and get it on the display." He walked back to his chair and pushed the general quarters alarm. He then turned on the intercom. "General quarters everyone," he told the ship. "This is not a drill, which is a good thing because we haven't drilled in that yet. Everyone get your emergency suits on and report to the area of the ship where you were told to go when we went GQ. Do it as quickly and as safely as possible and report in to your officer as soon as you get there. In the meantime, I'll tell you what we've got going on up here." He took a deep breath, wondering how his cherry crew was going to take this. "People, we've detected a stealth ship in an orbit just higher than ours. We don't have a positive identification yet, but my instinct tells me that it's another Owl. Whoever is driving it is running dumb, flaring his engines much hotter than he really should this close to another target. I'm going to maneuver us to get a better lock on him."

"Target is designated, Brett," Sugi said, pointing to the holographic screen before him.

"Good. Keep a lock on it, just like I showed you."

"Right," he said, nodding nervously.

"Helm," Brett said, "cut engines to point one G."

"Cutting engines," Mandall told him, her fingers going to her controls. A second later the gravity on the bridge suddenly reduced to near nothing.

"Bring us to new heading, 100 mark 20."

"One zero zero mark two-zero," she repeated, making more manipulations. Everyone felt the shudder of centrifugal force as they turned on their axis.

"The picture is tightening up," Sugi announced excitedly. "I getting some readings in the low spectrum now as well."

"Run an ID check on the signature," Brett told him. "Let's see if we can figure out who we're dealing with here."

"I don't remember how to do that," Sugi told him. "Sorry, Brett, but I..."

"It's okay," Brett assured him, getting out of his chair again and moving gingerly across the floor. He nearly fell once since they were still in the midst of a turn. Finally he reached the terminal. "Right there," he told Sugi. "The window on the bottom will open up a new screen for you. Just highlight the contact and drag it over there."

"Right." He did as he was told and the computer instantly gave a reading.

"The Marlin," Brett said, shaking his head in amusement. "I should've known. That moron Warren got command of it because his family has connections with the builder. He would be stupid enough to come chasing after us with his engines firing like that. Let's see if we can get a few more bearing readings and pin down a location."

"Right," Sugi said.

"Sir," said Pebley, "the Mermaid is maneuvering! Engine thrust has been reduced and I'm getting some thruster activities. Bearing is slowly changing left to right."

"What the hell are they doing now?" Warren asked, looking at the display on his own screen. "It almost looks like they're maneuvering to prosecute us."

"If they have a detection watch operating," said Lovington, "they probably picked us up. We're awfully close to them and we're burning our engines pretty hard."

"Do you really think that a captured crew would have reported sighting us?" Warren asked. "That would be traitorous."

"Didn't Mermaid have a greenie detection operator?" Lovington said. "I seem to remember Hoffman going on and on about him once at a party."

"Yes, you're right," Warren said, shaking his head. "He said he was pretty competent for a greenie. I bet that fuck is on board that ship right now, looking at us." He sighed. "Goddamn it. We spend a million dollars training that ungrateful greenie and look how he repays us."

"What do we do now?"

Warren though it over for a few moments. "Cut engine power to a tenth of G," he finally ordered. "That should bring our signature out of detection range."

"Cutting power to point one," the helmsman answered.

"I lost the signal, Brett," Sugi said. "It just died!"

"That's okay," Brett said. "I was kind of expecting that. He figured out that we were tracking him and cut his engines."

"What do we do now?"

"We have a rough course plotted don't we?"

"Yes, but we don't have a range."

"Fire up the active sensors but keep them on standby for now," Brett ordered. "We'll find him again when we need to." He looked at the communications terminal. "Frank, get me naval operations on the screen. Use radio signals but encrypt them."

"Right," Frank replied.

"And how many stations have reported in manned and ready for GQ? It's been nearly five minutes now."

"Only engineering," Frank answered.

"Damn it, not fast enough," Brett said. He turned on the intercom again. "Listen up, crew. I really hate to rush you guys and I know we haven't done this before, but I really need you to move your asses getting to your GQ stations. We need to get the airtight doors shut and the weapons manned. We've identified the contact as the Marlin, which is a WestHem Owl. We might be shooting it out with them in a minute." He flipped the intercom back off and reached down for his cigarettes. "Why does this shit have to happen in the first hour out?" he asked the air.

Admiral Belting himself answered the emergency hail. His face appeared on Brett's screen looking worried. "Is there a problem, Brett?" he asked anxiously.

"Nothing with the ship, Admiral," Brett told him quickly. "But it seems we have some company out here. We detected the Marlin in a high orbit just as we were accelerating to break our own orbit. It appeared that she was tracking us and maneuvering to stay with us. I ordered a maneuver to prosecute them and they cut their engines down. We lost her at that point but I think she's close enough for us to pick up with an active search."

"Did you get a course and range?" Belting asked.

"Approximate course. Not enough readings for a range though and my people are still trying to get to GQ positions so I didn't want to go active until that was done. To tell you the truth, I don't think we're really up for a fight with them just now."

"Understood," Belting told him. "Stand by on your active search for now. I'll get some A-12s out to you."

"Copy that," he said. "Standing by."

"Keep me updated if there are any changes."

The A-12 was a saucer shaped craft, highly maneuverable, capable of accelerating at nearly 4Gs, and was specifically designed for going after orbiting spacecraft. The MPG's space wing had maintained a full wing of them at their base on Triad ever since the inception of the guard. Their crews were among the most highly trained in the service and they just lived for chasing away stealth ships from Mars orbit. Eight of the craft launched within five minutes of Brett's report to Belting and streaked across the empty void at top speed, heading directly for the reported vicinity of the Marlin.

In less than ten minutes they were approaching Mermaid's position, their lasers charging, their nuclear torpedoes on standby. There approach was immediately noticed by Pebley aboard Marlin.

"Sir," he told Warren nervously, "a flight of F-12s are coming towards us at full acceleration."

"I see them," Warren said from his chair, looking at the white-hot streaks from the chemical engines. "Let's sound the general quarters alarm."

While the alarm was sounding on Marlin, Brett on Mermaid was giving his own orders. All of his crew had finally reported manned and ready at their positions, the airtight doors had been shut, the lasers were all charged and pointed at the last known position of the enemy vessel, and they were as ready for combat as they could possibly be.

"Go active, Sugi," he said. "Let's pin those fuckers down."

"Going active," Sugiyoto responded with a tinge of fear in his voice. He activated the appropriate controls on his board and the active sensors of the ship came to life and began sweeping back and forth with infrared lasers and radar beams. It took less than ten seconds for results to be produced. "Got them on the radar and infrared sweeps," he reported.

"Range and bearing?" Brett asked.

"Uh... it says 3215 kilometers, bearing 129 mark 21."

"Lock it up and send the information to the gun crews. Have the computer get a solution ready for the torpedo crew. Nobody fires anything though without my express order."

"Got it," Sugi said.

Brett turned to the communications terminal again. "Frank, open a channel to the A-12s and send the targeting information to them."

"I don't know how to do that!" Frank protested.

With another sigh Brett got up and walked over to his terminal. He pushed the young operator to the side and began pushing buttons and changing screens. Soon the information was flying through space and into the computers of the eight F-12s, who were now turning on their own active tracking systems.

"Red flight one, this is Mermaid," Brett said on the encrypted channel. "Do you copy my download?"

"We got it, Mermaid," a slightly scratchy voice replied. "Good job finding them for us. We'll be all over their ass in about two minutes."

"We're standing by on our weapons systems in case they get frisky before then," Brett said. "Mermaid out."

They didn't get frisky before then. Noting the active systems slamming energy into their hull, Warren couldn't help but conclude that he and his ship was caught in enemy space. He ordered a full engine burn to break orbit. "Let's get our asses out of here," he told his crew. "God only knows what these greenies will do if we hang out."

Marlin's engines lit up on full power and she began heading for her own orbital break. But her velocity increase was no match for the attack fighters that were tracking her and the heat from her engine only served as a beacon towards her position on their scopes. The A-12's shot past Mermaid and then turned their asses to Marlin and began a deceleration burn at 3Gs. They used their maneuvering thrusters to break formation and soon they were surrounding the ship on all sides, their laser cannons locked onto the engine compartment and the bridge, their active systems probing it. The commander of the group, who had his own orders from Admiral Belting, hailed the ship on the emergency channel, a frequency that all space going vessels routinely monitored.

"Marlin, this is Captain Roger Freeling of the Martian Planetary Guard Space Defense wing. You will maneuver immediately to return your vessel to a stable Martian orbit. I repeat, return your vessel immediately to a stable Martian orbit and prepare to be boarded."

No response came from Marlin. Freeling let two minutes go by and then he hailed again.

"Marlin, you are surrounded by armed A-12 attack vessels. I'm sure that your sensors have detected us out here. If you do not do as I say we will fire on your vessel. Begin maneuvering immediately!"

Onboard Marlin's bridge Warren ordered his communications officer not to acknowledge them. "They wouldn't dare fire on us," he said confidently. "They're just trying to capture another one of our vessels."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Lovington nervously. "They fired on the naval base and the marine barracks didn't they? Don't you think we should do as they say?"

"I'm not going to be taken prisoner by the goddamn greenies," Warren said defiantly. "Helm, keep us at full power and start plotting a course for Jupiter. Communications, it's time to break radio silence. We need to send a report off to Earth."

"Yes sir," the communications officer and the helmsman both muttered. Both of them were quite terrified at what was going on but it never occurred to either to question their orders.

Marlin continued to streak away, gaining more velocity by the second. She continued to ignore the hails from Captain Freeling. Finally, with nothing else left to do, Freeling ordered his flight to open fire.

Three of the attack planes fired simultaneously, their large bore cannons sending out pulses of highly concentrated laser light that tore into the engine compartment of the ship, slicing through the hull and penetrating the fusion reactors and the propellant tanks. The entire back of the Marlin exploded in a brilliant flash of light, ripping the ship virtually in two. More than a third of the crew, including all of the Martian prisoners under guard, was killed instantly, vaporized by the explosion. Another third died within seconds as they were asphyxiated when their compartments were opened to space. Only the bridge and torpedo room crews survived, saved by the airtight doors that sealed them into their respective positions. The front half of the ship went spinning lifelessly off into space, with not enough velocity for an orbital break, with no power or lights or heat.

"Fucking idiots," muttered Brett, who had watched the entire episode on the sensor screen.

"Target is dead," reported Captain Freely to Admiral Belting. "I repeat, target is dead. I suggest we launch some search and rescue vessels to get the survivors."

"I concur," agreed Belting over the encrypted link. "Red flight one, stay in position and help the SAR teams when they get there. Mermaid, you still there?"

"Still here, Admiral," Brett said.

"Continue with your mission immediately. Good work with the detection, but let's get you back on schedule, okay?"

"I understand, Admiral," Brett said. "Continuing with our mission." He turned to his bridge crew. "Well, you heard the man. Helm, start plotting a new burn for us, I'm sure we're a bit off course by now."

"Right, Brett," she said, her voice more than a little shaky by what she had just witnessed.

"Sugi, lets secure from general quarters. I'll let the crew know that we just logged our first assist."

An hour later, while the search and rescue vessels were docking with the remains of the Marlin and pulling the dazed and freezing survivors free, Mermaid was free of Martian orbit, her engines burning at full power, pushing her faster and faster towards the red orb of the sun.

Armstrong Naval Base — Earth Orbit

June 18, 2146

Admiral Jules, also known as CINCFARSP, was giving his daily news briefing in the pressroom of the base. He was dressed in his class A uniform, his hair carefully styled, his face powdered with make-up. A gaggle of Internet reporters, all of them belonging to affiliates of the big three, were gathered before him, their digital cameras recording his image and his words as he briefed them on the what the naval forces involved in Martian Hammer had done this day.

"Nearly all of the marine heavy equipment has been loaded onto the transports and all of the brave fighting men that will be taking part of the operation to liberate Mars are in quarters on the various ships now. All we have to do at this point is finish loading up some of the fuel that will be needed in the landing craft. It is conceivable that we will begin to assemble our convoy within the next six days. After that, as you are all aware, it is a seven week trip across the solar system to establish our combat orbit around the planet."

There were questions from the reporters, both for him and for General Wrath, none of them original of course, none of them even particularly intelligent in nature. But the planet was caught up in the drama of the coming operation, just as had been planned, and the reporters had to fill the time each day to keep the issue at the forefront of the public's mind. So on and on the questions went, way beyond the time that had been allotted for the briefing. Jules and Wrath answered everything as politely as possible, even if it was the most asinine enquiry imaginable, and kept smiles on their faces. Neither showed the impatience that they felt.

The sight of his aide waving at him from the corner of the room made Jules finally put a stop to the briefing. Pleading some important work, he excused himself. Wrath chose that particular opening to excuse himself as well. Both men walked away from the podium that had been set up for them and through the corner of the room where Captain Baker waited.

"Thanks, Baker," Jules said gratefully to his aide. "Nice idea, getting me out of that fucking briefing by pretending you had something important coming in. You keep that kind of thinking up and you'll move up the ladder in no time."

"I agree," said Wrath with a grunt. "Maybe tomorrow I'll have my aide pull that one off. How long do you think we can get away with that, Jules?"

"With those idiots, maybe forever," he replied, causing both of them to chuckle.

"Begging your pardon, sir," Baker cut in, "but I really do have something important to tell you. We just got an encrypted message from the Marlin in Mars orbit."

"Is it just one of the daily reports?" Jules asked. "What's so important about that? Are the greenies up to something new down there on the flying shithole?"

"It wasn't the routine transmission," Baker said. "It was an emergency broadcast on the radio frequency. And the transmission was cut short."

The smile fled from Jules' face. "An emergency transmission?" he said. "What did it say?"

"Well, as I said, it was cut short. They reported that the greenies had managed to get an Owl out of dock and that they had lit off the fusion engines. It appeared that they were trying to break orbit."

"Break orbit?" said Wrath, who was listening in. "They can't do that. They don't have anyone capable of running those ships."

"What else did they say?" Jules asked.

"That's it," he said. "The message said that they had been tracking the vessel as it accelerated and then the transmission suddenly died. There's been no contact with them since."

"Why in the hell would they transmit that over the radio frequency?" asked Wrath. "There have to be Henry's out there monitoring everything that is going on and feeding the information to the greenies. Why didn't they use the communication laser?"

"I don't know," Jules said thoughtfully. "The only reason that they would break radio silence would be because they had been detected already or were in danger."

"Do you think maybe a Henry attacked them?" Wrath asked. "Maybe they picked your ship up while it was maneuvering to track the ship the greenies were playing with."

"That's a possibility," Jules said. "If that is the case then the EastHem's just declared war on us."

"They might try to land troops on Mars if they're willing to go that far," said Baker.

Jules shook his head, as if to clear it of unpleasant thoughts. "Let's not go jumping to conclusions here. We'll wait for the next scheduled report from Marlin and hopefully they'll be able to update us on the situation."

"I concur," Wrath said. "In the meantime, we'd better keep this tight."

They kept it tight. The communications department knew about the transmission of course but they were all top-secret cleared personnel and not prone to blabbing about the things they heard and saw in the course of their employment.

Six hours went by, and then twelve. Still there was no further word from the Marlin.

"We can only conclude that they have suffered some sort of catastrophic event," Jules told Wrath on a vid-conference the next morning. "There is no other conceivable reason why they would not check in with us."

"The EastHem's," Wrath said. "They have to have done some sort of sneak attack on the ship. If not that, they might've detected it and told the greenies about it. The greenies could have launched some of their A-12s and blown it up."

"But we have no proof of what happened. We won't know until we take that planet back and interrogate some of their people."

"If EastHem is responsible they'll be made to pay for it," Wrath said icily. "We'll bomb their Jupiter installations into dust!"

"I think we should worry about one thing at a time here. What do you think about this report of the greenies flying one of our Owls? That's what started this whole thing in the first place."

"I think that maybe your men were tracking a Henry and just thought it was one of the Owls. I don't believe for a second that those greenies were able to operate a fusion powered stealth platform and break orbit with it. Not for a second. They haven't even gotten those landing ships down from Triad yet."

"Those are my feelings on the matter as well. Commander Warren, the captain of that particular vessel, is not exactly, shall we say... competent at his job. He is more of an appointee based on his connections."

Wrath nodded knowingly. "I have more than my share of those as well," he said.

"I could easily imagine him making such an error and ending up losing his ship because of it."

"So you think this report of greenies flying Owls is just conjecture?"

"I do. I'll wait a few days and then I'll list the Marlin as missing and inform the families of the crew. I'll say it was in the vicinity of Mars and that we have no idea of what might've happened. After that I'll give a rundown of this on the morning press briefing."

"Sounds good, Tanner," Wrath said. "So we'll depart as scheduled?"

"As scheduled."

Mermaid accelerated for nine and a half hours at .2G and then cut her fusion engines back to idle, using them to power the lights and the computer systems and the environmental controls only. She flew through space at a velocity of 240,000 kilometers per hour, her active sensors turned off, her crew observing a strict radio silence and checking in twice per twenty-four period via secure, undetectable communication laser to Admiral Belting's makeshift headquarters at Triad Naval Base.

The crew of Mermaid, drifting in zero gravity conditions, drilled almost endlessly as they went, learning the basics of shipboard firefighting, hull breech repair, evacuation procedures, and a hundred other things related to operating and fighting the complex piece of machinery. The weapons crews drilled on how to load and fire the torpedoes. The bridge crews drilled on how to track and prosecute enemy targets, and how to evade them once that was done. Sleep was severely rationed, with no crewmember getting much more than six hours per day. Little by little, they became more competent at their tasks. More importantly, a sense of camaraderie was forged among them, a sense of teamwork. They began to gain more confidence about their mission and their chances of actually pulling it off.

Two days after Mermaid left Triad Naval Base, the Swordfish, another Owl under the command of newly promoted Lieutenant Commander Ron Bales, left the dock as well. Swordfish was crewed with 46 officers and enlisted men and armed with twelve thermonuclear torpedoes of her own. Her mission was to stage herself between the orbits of Mercury and Venus and to hit the WestHem ships that had escaped the attacks of Mermaid.

The day after Swordfish's departure, the Barracuda left the dock as well, heading for the area just beyond the orbit of Venus.

Two days after that, Hammerhead left the dock, her destination the area between the orbits of Earth and Mars.

Operation Interdiction had begun in earnest.

One week later the ships of Operation Red Hammer, amid much fanfare and media coverage, broke orbit one by one and assembled into a broad formation between the Earth and the moon. The core of the armada was the twenty-five Panama class transports. They were each more than a thousand meters long, with a beam of more than two hundred meters. Each was loaded with 20,000 combat and support marines and all of their equipment. Each held sixteen huge landing craft, twelve of which were loaded with armor, fuel, and weapons, the other four of which were loaded with the marines themselves, 5000 combat troops per ship. The landing craft containing the troops did more than merely provide a ride to the surface. They were also set up to function as a self-contained housing quarters for them, both in transit aboard the ship and while parked on the ground of an enemy planet.

The Panamas were the focus of the convoy and they took up position in the middle of the formation. Keeping a minimum of one thousand kilometers distance between them, they formed up in two lines — twelve ships in one line, thirteen in the other. Taking up positions on the front and rear of the armada were the California class superdreadnoughts, each one of which carried a complete wing of space fighters, space attack craft, and atmospheric attack craft that could operate within the upper reaches of the Martian atmosphere if they so desired. The Californias were the main defense of the formation, both during the transit period and after establishing orbit. Each one of these huge ships was escorted by several anti-stealth destroyers, missile armed capital ships, ammunition and fuel carriers, and a hospital ship that was not expected to be used during the coming operation (except maybe to treat captured greenie prisoners of course). Owls, one for each far corner of the group, would be joining up in a few days. Since they could not accelerate as fast as the other ships they had already left twenty-four hours before.

Onboard the WHSS Nebraska, the flagship for the operation (tagging in the rear, as flagships tended to do) were both Admiral Jules and General Wrath and their entire staffs of advisers, secretaries, and servants. Also aboard were more than two hundred members of the WestHem press, representing all three of the big three.

In all, more than 50 ships containing more than 700,000 people, both military and civilian, were formed up, the largest such fighting group ever assembled. At a command from Admiral Jules, who was of course in the view of the cameras when he made it, the entire fleet lit up their fusion engines and began to accelerate towards the planet Mars nearly three hundred and seventy million kilometers away. The ships moved slowly at first, accelerating at a rate of .4Gs, which was the maximum acceleration of the most lumbering members of the group: the Panamas. At this rate of acceleration it would take almost five hours to reach their cruising velocity of 240,000 kilometers per hour, at which point the engines would be shut down and they would coast until it was time to decelerate. Their course would take them directly towards the sun, which they would pass within ten million kilometers of before starting the final leg towards their destination. It was assumed that there would be EastHem Henry's station along the way to keep an eye on the fleet and report the movements and composition to the Martians (not that the Martians really needed this information since the media were reporting absolutely everything about the fleet's composition and plans for the entire solar system to see). None of the ship commanders, none of the admirals, none of the divisional commanders of the marines, and certainly none of the line soldiers themselves had been advised of the possibility that there might be an armed Owl in the possession of the Martians waiting for them out there. The very thought was assumed to be ridiculous.

Chapter 10

During this period of time, while a huge armada of ships and marines were heading towards their planet, intent upon taking it back from them, the Martians went through several varieties of turmoil as the fact that they had really broken ties with WestHem and made themselves independent gradually sank into the collective consciousness. That they had disconnected themselves from their economic system was a major worry. WestHem owned all of the banks, all of the financial institutions, and controlled all of the money. Did that mean that the money circulating on Mars was now worthless? If WestHem didn't approve of the transactions now occurring independent of them — and it seemed that they most certainly did not — didn't that mean that no one on the planet no longer had any money?

This fear led to a brief work slowdown in the vital factories and agricultural fields as the rumor that everyone was, in effect, working for nothing spread like wildfire across the planet. This occurred just as the various workplaces were just starting to get themselves into something approaching optimum production, just as the issues of who was going to run things began to hash out. In this instance the workers had, in almost every instance, done exactly as Laura Whiting had suggested they do. They had gotten together and had appointed supervisors and managers from among their own ranks, for the most part electing people to the position that it was mutually agreed would do a good job of it. But the thought that no one would get paid for his or her labors was almost too much. Work suddenly became shoddy and even non-existent in a few places. Newly hired workers, and even some of the veteran workers, started not showing up for their jobs, leaving holes in the various production lines.

Laura Whiting, with her gift for putting things into perspective, was able to ease the situation with one of her speeches.

"People," she told her citizens during a live broadcast on MarsGroup, "I'm afraid that you are all caught up in WestHem economic thinking here and you are missing the big picture. What is money? Think about that for a moment. Money is nothing more than a notation in a computer somewhere. It does not exist anywhere else. This is not the old pre-colonization days after all. We do not have pieces of paper or metal coins to represent dollars and cents. We have notations in computers telling you that you have this much money, that you owe this much money, that you are paid this much money. This money has value because WestHem says it has value.

"Well I'm here to tell you that the money still has value because we of the interim Martian government now say it has value. Each one of you will be paid for the work you do at the rate that has always been paid for that work. You will have these computer notations deposited in your accounts, just like always, and you may use that money to pay your rent, buy food for your tables, buy intoxicants at the shops, or do whatever else you wish with it. All prices on everything have been fixed in place at the level they were at the day before we took this planet from the WestHems. Your money is still good and will continue to be good until such time as we come up with a new economic system under our new constitution.

"In fact, there are some distinct advantages to you now that we have taken WestHem out of the equation. Most of you were horribly in debt, the result of credit lines with outrageous interest rates that were given to you by various WestHem financial systems. My understanding was that the average Martian citizen, like the average WestHem citizen, was more than sixty thousand dollars in debt to these thieving schemers. The payments on these amounts were set up so that the interest was the only thing that ever got paid. The principal never seemed to get any smaller. Well I for one see no reason to continue to pay on these particular bills. When we are triumphant in this upcoming war, such debts will become uncollectable anyway since we will be setting ourselves up on a different system of currency than WestHem. So my suggestion is that you keep your money for yourselves and pay nothing to any WestHem corporation of any kind."

This speech did just the trick for the sagging faith in the currency. The Martians were made to believe that the money still had value and, as such, it did. Workers returned to their jobs and production reached an all time high days later.

As that particular crisis was going on however, another, more serious one was taking place as well. It was a crisis of confidence. Since the very first day of the revolution, Laura and the legislature that was loyal to her had allowed WestHem Internet broadcasts to continue to be seen on Mars uncensored.

"It is not our intention or our wish to block out information from the other side of this debate," Whiting had been quoted as saying on more than one occasion. "Let the people hear presentations from all concerned parties, evaluate them for what they are worth, and make their decisions based upon that."

And so the big three Internet and media providers information was widely seen throughout the planet during the preparations for Operation Red Hammer. Every day the Martian citizens, many of whom were enlisted in the MPG and preparing to fight, watched dissertations on the composition of the forces that were being assembled to take them on. They listened to General Wrath and Admiral Jules give their briefings each day, explaining how they would outnumber the Martians four to one and how they would destroy the MPG if they did not peacefully surrender the moment that the landings were made. They watched the news briefings of the huge numbers of marines being loaded onto the Panamas for the trip. They watched the thousands of pieces of WestHem armor being loaded up as well. They listened to WestHem military experts in the employ of the various media corporations explaining how a force the size of the MPG could not possibly stand up against the might and sheer numbers that were being deployed against it.

Many of them could not help but lose their nerve in the face of this information. None of the Martians knew about the existence of Operation Interdiction and even if they had, it probably would have made very little difference. A reverse exodus of volunteers from the MPG took place as thousands of people resigned their positions in order to escape the fate that was being promised. It was a mass resignation that threatened to undermine the entire revolution if something was not done to stop it or at least staunch the flow a bit.

It was General Jackson, making a rare appearance before the MarsGroup cameras, who managed to bring things back under control in this instance.

"The MPG is a volunteer fighting force," he told the planet. "It always has been, and always will be. If you don't think you can take the fight, if you don't think the independence of the planet and the ability to carve out our own destiny is worth fighting for, than get the hell out. I don't want you. But know this, citizens of Mars. The only way that we'll get to be free is to fight. I wouldn't have started this fight if I didn't think we had a damn good chance of winning it. We'll be fighting on our home ground, using equipment that has been specifically designed to fight here, and I have more than a few tricks up my sleeve. I'm not sending people to the slaughter here. I have more than thirty years of experience as a commanding soldier and I think I know what I'm doing and I have always made sure that my officers in charge know what they are doing as well. If we stick together, I'm confident we will beat these Earthlings. And if it looks to me at any point like we will not be able to beat them, then I will order hostilities to cease immediately. But if I keep losing people at the rate I'm losing them now, if my soldiers keep resigning on me, we're going to reach that point before the Earthlings even make their landings and everything that we've done so far will be for nothing. So do me the favor of thinking about that for a minute before you resign and hope that others will do your fighting for you."

Over the next week the resignations trickled down to nearly a halt and a sharp spike in the number of enlistments was registered as well. The pace of training, particularly of infantry crews and special forces soldiers, continued.

Triad Naval Base

July 1, 2146

Admiral Belting and General Jackson sat side by side in the control room of the naval base, their eyes watching the live pictures on the Internet screen, their ears tuned into the radio transmissions that were being beamed back and forth. The camera view was a long pan of the WHSS Tripoli Harbor, one of the four pre-positioned Panama class transports. The shot was being taken from an A-12 that was hovering thirty kilometers above it. This was the day that they were to try to bring down the landing craft within it and unload the combat equipment on the surface. In all more than a hundred people were involved in the operation, not a single one of whom had ever performed such an act before.

"Test fire of thrusters is within parameters," said the voice of Lieutenant Kipling, who had been placed in command of Tripoli Harbor herself. In his former life he had been the second officer on board a civilian cargo ship that had done the Triad to Earth route. He had spent the past three weeks studying up on the systems of the Panama and training a crew to help fly it.

"I copy the thrusters are within parameters," Belting told him in reply. "Proceed when ready."

The ship was undocked from its clamps five minutes later, the first time it had free from its moorings in more than six years. Only one of the four fusion reactors had been lit and that was only to provide power and environmental controls to the ship. The fusion engines themselves would not be needed for the operation.

"Thrusting away," Kipling's voice said once they were free. The flare of white appeared from the fore and aft sides and the massive ship slowly began to move away from the dock. It took nearly thirty minutes for it to move out into the departure corridor and stabilize its orbit once again.

"Good job," Belting congratulated once they reported that they were in position. "My compliments to your crew."

"My crew thanks you, Admiral," Kipling responded. "Now lets see if those pilots you hired can do their stuff. Opening the cargo door now."

On the top of the ship a massive door began to swing upward, powered by a set of thirty hydraulic arms. This was the main cargo off-load door. Immediately beneath it were the sixteen landing craft in which one quarter of a fighting division's gear was stored. The landing craft were connected to a system of airtight access tunnels and airlocks.

"Which ones are you bringing out first?" Jackson asked Belting as the door reached the top of its climb. They could only launch four landing craft at a time because they only had four pilots that could fly them. Or at least it was hoped that they could fly them. All of those recruited had come from the civilian spaceports at Eden and New Pittsburgh, where their jobs had been flying the cargo lifters that delivered food products and steel to Triad. None of the four had ever flown a Panama lifter before except in the simulation programs that they had activated at the TNB training center.

"The A through D will come out first," Belting said. "They have the tanks and the APCs on them. Once the pilots land we'll have a C-12 bring them back up again and we'll start working on the next four."

"So a couple of days to get everything down?"

"Assuming that nothing goes wrong, yes."

Jackson nodded thoughtfully, sipping out of his coffee.

"LS-A is reporting a good engine start," Kipling reported over the radio link. "He's beginning the pre-flight checks now."

Within a minute the other three ships reported successful engine starts as well. The pre-flight checks on the landing craft took the better part of forty minutes to complete. Belting and Jackson passed the time by discussing Operation Interdiction. So far the secrecy of the operation appeared to have been maintained despite the fact that Marlin had managed to get out a brief radio message before being destroyed. Both men concluded, based upon the arrogant attitudes of the Marlin's commanding officers, who had been pulled from the wreckage by the rescue crews, interrogated at length by Belting himself, and then shipped down to the POW camp in Libby, that even if the Earthlings received the message they would have a hard time putting stock in it.

"They're arrogance is what is going to lose the war for them," Jackson said with a sad shake of the head. "Just the way it happened in the Jupiter War."

"Thank God for their arrogance then," said Belting.

The pre-flight checks were completed a few minutes later with no problems or reasons to delay being found. Lieutenant Carrie Sing, the pilot of ship A was the first on the radio to announce she was ready to separate from the Panama.

"Go with separation sequence LS-A," Kipling's voice told her. "Releasing docking clamps on your order."

"Release the clamps," she said, her voice not showing so much as a trace of the nervousness she had to have been feeling.

The clamps were released and a moment later the first craft began to rise from the hull of the massive Panama, drifting slowly upward, meter by meter, until it was well above the arc of the loading door.

"I'm one hundred meters above the door," Sing said. "Beginning to maneuver."

"Beginning to maneuver," Kipling acknowledged.

The thrusters on the front of the ship came to life, slowing it just a bit and allowing it to drift backwards in the corridor. The top thrusters fired a few times as well, stabilizing the ship and keeping it from drifting any higher. Once the ship was well away from the Panama the front thrusters went quiet and the opposing corner thrusters lit up, slowly turning the ship around, so that the main engines on the rear were facing towards the direction of orbit. Just as it got turned around and positioned for the de-orbit burn, the second of the landing craft began to rise out of the Panama.

It took another twenty minutes for all four landing craft to exit the ship, get turned around in their orbits, and get stabilized for their burns. Everything went as smoothly as could be expected, with all four of them ending up in a line about two kilometers apart.

"Okay LS-A," Belting said into the radio. "Looks like you're first. Initiate your de-orbit burn whenever you're ready."

"I'm as ready as I'll ever be, Admiral," Sing responded. "Main engines are ready for ignition, navigation data is programmed. Initiating burn sequence now." She paused for a moment. "Burn sequence initiated. Ignition in ten seconds."

The seconds ticked off agonizingly slowly and then a bright white light flared from the rear of the landing craft. It seemed to accelerate rapidly out of the camera's view though it was actually slowing down at a tremendous rate. The A-12 that was recording the event lit its own engines up and began to chase after it. Soon the ship was back on their screens, it's engines burning brightly.

"Burn is initiated," came Sing's voice. "All systems operating within parameters. Course is on the line. Termination of de-orbit burn in four minutes."

"Copy that, Sing," Belting responded. "You're looking mighty pretty from here. LS-B, you're next. As soon as her burn is completed, go ahead and initiate yours."

One by one the landing ships burned their main engines for a specific amount of time, slowing the ships down so that the Martian gravity could pull them downward to a controlled entry into the atmosphere. The speed of their descent was carefully timed so that they would drop neatly into a window that would terminate their final re-entry right over the city of Eden on the other side of the planet. Different computations and different angles of entry would have allowed them to land at any other Martian spaceports.

Ninety-three minutes went by before Landing Ship A started the final re-entry sequence. Lieutenant Sing used the maneuvering thrusters to turn the ship around once more, so that its nose was angled upward and its belly, where the heat shield was located, was poised to take the brunt of reentry. Five minutes later the ship made its first contact with the thin atmosphere. The underside began to glow as the heat of friction was generated, softly at first but then with increasing fury until nothing more than a fiery streak was visible. The ship gradually decelerated from orbital speed to a relatively lackadaisical 1100 kilometers per hour. It continued to fall out of the Martian sky like a rock, it's forward velocity carrying it over the equatorial plains and mountain ranges.

"All systems still on the line," reported Sing. "Course is still steady. I'll begin landing maneuvers shortly."

As she approached the city from the west she was still at an altitude of more than 20,000 meters. She employed the powerful forward thrusters to slow her speed while the ship continued to fall. When her forward speed was only 150 kilometers per hour, the greenhouse complexes were below her and her altitude had dropped to 6000 meters. The landing ship was far too large for wings to have any effect on its flight path. To slow the descent to a speed that was not lethal, more thrusters were used, these ones on the bottom of the ship. They lit at Sing's command and the fall became more controlled, gentler.

"Spaceport in sight," she reported when she was ten kilometers out. "Lined up on the landing path. All systems operating normally."

She began to manipulate the bottom and the front thrusters more, adjusting her speed and descent as the landing strip grew nearer.

"Deploying landing gear," she said, and a moment later eight sets of wheeled gear slid out of slots on the bottom, their locations well clear of the landing thrusters, which would have melted the synthetic rubber and the steel alike.

The ship drifted down on jets of fire, coming to a soft touchdown less than ten meters from the middle of the runway. The bottom thrusters were turned off, allowing the ship to settle, but the rear one remained lit, pushing the ship along the concrete surface towards a huge loading area on the far side of the spaceport.

"We copy good touchdown," Admiral Belting said with relief as he watched the MarsGroup camera image of the lumbering ship rolling out. "Excellent job, Lieutenant Sing."

"Thank you, Admiral," she replied, her voice registering that she was quite pleased with herself.

One by one the other three ships came in as well, all of them touching down gently, all of them rolling out to parking slots. Their engines were shut down and their cargo bays were opened, allowing the MPG troops that were standing by in their biosuits to start the job of unloading.

Jeff Waters was one of the troops standing by. With basic training over he was now a full-fledged private first class in the newly formed 17th Armored Calvary Regiment of the Martian Planetary Guard. The 17th had been put together with about one quarter newly trained combat troops, one quarter existing MPG members who had been assigned to non-combat branches before the revolt, and the remainder seasoned combat troops who had been broken up from other units. Matt was assigned to third squad of second platoon of Alpha Company and his unit's armored vehicles were located in Landing Ship B from Tripoli Harbor. Their job today, one of the first that they had been assigned, was to unload those APCs and transport them to staging areas outside of the main MPG base. They were of course dressed in their model 459 biosuits — brand new ones that had been shipped from Environmental Supplies less than a week before — since they were outside the safety of the pressurized building.

"That's a big motherfuckin ship," Jeff said, looking at the huge behemoth of steel that rose more than sixty meters above him and stretched for more than two hundred down the loading area. Hell, even the tires on the landing gear were huge, each one more than three times as tall as he. The two massive front doors had been opened and a loading ramp extended from the inside, down to the ground.

"Shit, Waters, why don't you go lay under one of the tires when it moves and see how heavy it is too?" a voice said in his radio set.

That was Hicks of course, his nemesis from basic training. The two of them had managed to make it through the remainder of their training together, while assigned as squad mates, without entering another physical confrontation. They had been side by side as they'd learned to shoot their M-24s, to load and fire anti-tank lasers, mortars, heavy and light machine guns, and, of course, as they'd run for hundreds of kilometers, both in and out of the biosuits. Verbal confrontations, however, were quite another matter. It had become almost routine for them to badmouth each other at every opportunity. And when they found themselves assigned to the same squad after training, it only became worse.

"And miss out on seeing you get your stupid ass killed when you walk in front of a cannon or shoot yourself with your own fucking gun?" Jeff returned. "Naw. I can't die before that. My life wouldn't be complete."

"In your dreams motherfucker," Hicks told him. "If you think that I'm gonna..."

"Hicks, Waters," cut in Sergeant Walker, their squad leader. "Will you two shut the fuck up for once? Christ, all I ever hear on this tactical channel are you two flapping your goddamn lips at each other. Give it a rest."

"Right, sarge," Jeff said. "Sorry. I keep forgetting everyone else can hear us talking."

"Sorry, sarge," Hicks echoed.

"Why don't you two meet after training some night, go out to a fuckin intox club, and insult each other all fuckin night. Get it out of your system."

"Shit," said Hicks. "I'd rather smoke out with a fuckin Earthling."

"Amen to that," Jeff put in.

Walker shook his head in disgust, wondering what the hell kind of squad he'd been given to work with. He, like all of the NCOs and all of the officers of the 17th ACR, was one of the ones with combat unit experience (although no actual combat experience, since the MPG had never fought anyone before). He had been given a squad that consisted of three former gang members, three females (two of whom had never been in uniform before, one of whom had been a procurement clerk in supply), two men reassigned from non-combat branches, and only two others, the two corporals of the bunch, who had actually been combat assigned before. He was doing his best to get some sort of camaraderie and fighting spirit going but it was an uphill battle.

"Lets start lining up to unload these things," he told his group now. "Remember, they are to be driven slowly down the ramp and directly over to the staging area. This is not the time to play with them and see what all the neat little buttons do. You go in, you climb in, you start it up, and you bring it down. That is it. Is everyone clear on that?"

Everyone was clear.

"Let's start lining up then."

The unloading began a few minutes later. An entire battalion had been tasked with this particular project and one by one they marched up the steep ramp on one side and entered the bowels of the massive ship. Jeff was one of the first to go up. He stepped awkwardly on the steel grating, almost falling more than once. He was still not quite used to walking and moving in reduced gravity, particularly not on a sloped surface.

The inside of the ship was well lit in the cargo area, the power supplied by the auxiliary power unit, which was still running. The APCs were secured nose outward, up against the walls, two meters separating each vehicle from the sides, ten meters separating them from the next row, which left just enough of a corridor to maneuver and drive down. The corridor led to a series of ramps that dropped from one level in the ship to another. Steel locking straps held each of the APCs down.

"Waters," Walker told him, pointing to one, "that one is yours." It was a standard Alexander Industries APC, the WestHem flag painted just above the WestHem Marine Corps symbol.

"Can I scratch out that fuckin flag and that fuckin marine shit?" he asked, kicking at it with his feet.

"There'll be time for that later," Walker told him. "For now, just get in the thing and drive it."

"Right," he said.

"Be gentle with the controls," Hicks put in. "Pretend you're playing with your dick. I'm sure you know how to do that."

"At least I have a sex drive, dickweed," Jeff shot back. "I don't spend all day thinking about..."

"Enough of that shit!" Walker barked. "Waters, get your vehicle ready for transport. Hicks, you climb in the one next to him and keep your damn mouth shut about it."

Grumbling and groaning, but not saying much of anything, they went to work releasing the vehicles. It was a simple matter of pulling a lever where the strap met the floor and it was free. They folded them up and stowed them against the wall. They then climbed up onto the front of the vehicles, to the hatch that led to the inside.

"Don't run your fuckin armor into mine, Waters," Hicks told him as he put his feet through the hatch and began to drop inside.

"Wouldn't touch it with a five meter pole," Jeff responded, pulling open his own hatch.

The inside of the vehicle was spotlessly clean despite the fact that it had been sitting in storage aboard the landing craft for at least the last ten years with no maintenance of any kind being done. This was because the armor ships had been kept in vacuum, with no moisture or oxygen to cause the sorts of problems that they caused. It was, however, very dark in there, especially when the hatch was closed behind him. He turned on his combat goggles in order to see the controls before him. Just as he had been briefed in the training class on basic armor operation, he turned on the batteries and powered up the computer systems first and foremost.

The lights came on, allowing him to turn the goggles back off, and the two computer screens came to life with system status reports and command buttons. He opened up the view screens before him first, allowing him to see outside, and then took a look at the state of the vehicle on the screens. The fuel tank was completely full of liquid hydrogen to run the turbine engine, the oxygen tank was completely full of liquid oxygen to allow the hydrogen to burn, the batteries were at seventy percent charge, the computer systems were all operational, and the overall status was listed as within operational parameters. He then sat, breathing the air in his suit and listening to the mutterings of the other squad members while he waited for the command to start the engine and pull out.

That command came thirty minutes later, after a few insults between he and Hicks had been traded and they had been told once again to shut the fuck up by Walker. Jeff made sure that the transmission for the vehicle was in neutral and then pushed the tab on the screen for engine start. The powerful turbine engine ground several times and then lit up with a whine. The entire vehicle began to softly vibrate.

"Squad," Walker said a few minutes later. "Let's move out. Head downward, the way we came in, at a very slow pace. If one of these things gets jammed in the corridor it'll be a bitch and a half to work free. Waters, you're in front. You get the honor of going first."

"Right, sarge," he said, licking his lips a little and putting his hands on the controls. For once, Hicks didn't have a remark to throw back at him.

He pushed the tab on the screen that put the transmission into forward and the smooth whine of the engine lugged down the slightest bit. He went over the controls in his mind one last time — the T-bar on the front controlled direction, the right pedal controlled acceleration, the left provided braking — and then eased forward. The treads of the heavy machine clanked on the steel deck and he moved out into the corridor. With a push of the T-bar the left tread slowed up and the vehicle turned in that direction. After only a few fits and starts he was soon facing down the corridor that led out.

"Not bad, Waters," Walker told him. "Now head on down. Remember where our staging location is and head directly there."

"Right, sarge," he responded.

Level by level he clanked along, descending out of the ship. The ramps between levels were a bit frightening for someone who had never driven a vehicle of any kind before, let alone a sixty metric ton APC. Gravity, as weak as it was on the surface of Mars, pulled the entire machine downward at a frightening rate, making it seem like it was on the verge of rolling out of control. On the first such descent Jeff instinctively braked hard, bringing the vehicle to a jarring halt and throwing himself forward into the T-bar. It was then he discovered that he'd forgotten to fasten the restraining strap.

The final ramp was the most terrifying of all. Though it was nearly as wide as the ship itself, it was a forty-degree descent to the loading area nearly thirty meters below. To Jeff it looked like two or three kilometers. He hesitated for the briefest of seconds on the edge, gathering his nerve, long enough for Hicks, who was directly behind him, to notice.

"What's the matter, Waters?" he asked over the tactical radio. "Afraid you might fall over and bump your little nose? Get that fuckin thing down there! You're holding me up."

"If I was holding you up I'd drop your ass, you can count on that," Jeff replied sourly. But his antagonist's words had done the trick. He goosed the accelerator and eased over the threshold. The APC began to pick up speed and he stepped on the brake, slowing it. Soon he was down on the ground. He maneuvered the APC onward, steering through and around other groupings of vehicles until he arrived at the assigned staging area for his squad.

One by one the rest of the APCs arrived, parking in a semi-neat formation around him. Walker took a quick roll call from his own APC and then told them to form up on him. He began to clank along, heading for the edge of the spaceport and the open ground beyond it. Soon all ten APCs were on the gritty Martian sand, traversing around the edge of the city towards the MPG base.

The 17th ACR now had its vehicles. All they needed now was someone to fight.

Deep Space near the orbit of Mercury

July 18, 2146

The Mammoth was one of the Panama class transports that were transporting the marines and their equipment to Mars. It was near the middle of the armada, drifting along at maximum speed, it's engines idle except to control the ship's systems and environmental controls.

Deep within its hull was Landing Ship F, which was a troop housing and transport vessel. On the fourth deck of that particular landing ship were the birthing quarters for Lieutenant Eric Callahan and his forty-man platoon of the 314th Marine ACR. Their quarters were far from luxurious. On the contrary, they were living in an area that had been designed to house two squads. The room was less than twenty meters long and less than five wide. Bunk style hammocks had been strung up from ceiling to floor lining both walls, with only the area where the doors were left uncovered. The smell in the berthing area was not particularly pleasant either. Showers onboard the ship were a strictly rationed luxury, as were laundry facilities. Most of the men had gone for more than a week without bathing and nearly twice that without having clean clothing.

Everyone was bored and out of sorts from spending the last three weeks in these cramped and smelly conditions. Fights broke out on a regular basis, usually over trivial things such as imagined insults or card games. About the only solace was the Internet screen on the far wall, just above the doorway. And this was a solace that had quickly grown old. All it ever showed was news channels that were being beamed to the ship from a communications satellite in Earth orbit.

One such channel was being played now, as the majority of the platoon lay on their racks. It was yet another briefing by General Wrath, their commanding officer. He was explaining to the solar system how the fighting morale of his men was as high as ever although they sincerely hoped that the rogue Martians that were holding the planet hostage would come to their senses and give up peacefully before their arrival.

"So our morale is as high as ever, is it?" spat Sergeant Mallory. "Shit, big of that prick to say while he's sitting over there on the flag ship living in a goddamn suite with servants and chicks to suck his dick for him."

"Right," said Sergeant Hamilton, the greenest of the squad leaders. "I'd like to see Wrath spend three weeks crammed in this little room smelling all of the sweat and farts."

"I heard that," said Callahan, who had just entered the room from the aft door. "No talking shit about our commander now. With rank comes blowjobs. When you get to be a general you can sit in the command ship and have a flock of bitches to wax your helmet for you too."

There was some laughter from the men at his words but it was mostly forced. Callahan didn't mind. He'd rather have forced than nothing. In truth he was just as bored and frustrated as everyone else at being crammed into a landing ship with twice as many men as it had been designed for.

"Now then," Callahan said, "I believe that it's about time for our daily workout, is it not?"

The laughter turned to moans and groans. The daily workout requirement was a constant sore spot among the marines.

"Don't give me that whining shit," Callahan told them. "Let's just get our asses up and do it. You all know as well as I do that if we don't keep up our workouts in transit we're not gonna be in shape when we land and start fighting those green fucks."

"They'll surrender before we get there," said Corporal Brad Jones, one of the more cynical members of the platoon. "Everyone knows those greenies are really yellow. They ain't gonna take us on."

"That may be the truth," Callahan conceded. "Probably is in fact. But as of this moment, those greenies still haven't sent us surrender terms or opened negotiations for them. So we assume that we'll have to kick some ass and proceed as if that's the way it's gonna be. So let's move out, marines, shall we?"

With more grumbles and some barely concealed curses, the men began to climb out of their racks and work their way towards the door.

They were not allowed to leave the landing ship, were in fact locked solidly inside of it, so this made their exercise routine a little difficult to manage. Callahan led them to the enlisted mess area, the largest room in the ship, and had them spread out as much as they could to perform their stretches. They then ran around the perimeter of the ship, twisting and turning through hallways, going up and down flights of stairs, in a roughly oval path that covered perhaps a half a kilometer per circuit. They passed other berthing areas, the kitchen, the weapons storage room, the engine room, and the main bridge of the ship time and time again, their feet thumping down in unison on the steel deck, their formation grouping and regrouping depending upon the amount of room available to them.

"Why the fuck didn't they design this goddamn ship with a running track in it?" asked Jones on about the fifth circuit. "I mean, they knew that we was gonna be in these fucking things for weeks at a time and they knew that we was gonna have to do PT. So why the fuck ain't there a regular track for us to run on?"

"Because it's too expensive, you idiot," replied Sergeant Mallory. "You think they're gonna spend money on your dumb ass so you can run in peace?"

"Yeah," put in someone else, "that money is better spent as kickbacks and shit like that."

"Quit whining and keep running," Callahan told them. "I want to get five kilometers in today."

They didn't quite make five kilometers. By the time they reached six circuits of the ship the men were constantly grumbling and seemed damn near rebellion so Callahan, ever the sympathetic one, called a halt to that day's routine.

"Okay, grunts," he told them after a half circuit cool down period. "I've got some good news for you now that we've got PT out of the way."

"What's that?" Private Stinson piped up. "We getting showers today?"

"Oh hell yeah," said Jones. "I ain't felt no running water in almost a week now."

"No," Callahan said, "it ain't showers. We're not up for those for another two days."

"Laundry then?" Mallory said hopefully. "They finally getting some clean clothes down here."

"It ain't laundry either," replied Callahan. "Something even better. Something you've all been waiting most eagerly for."

"Oh man," Stinson said sadly. "I hate it when he talks like that. It means something fucked up is coming."

"My we're cynical, aren't we, Stinson?" Callahan said.

"What is it, LT?" Jones asked. "Just give it to us straight."

"Okay, since you asked nicely. Before PT I was in a briefing with Captain Ayers and Major Wild. I now have in my possession, for you pleasure and perusal, our combat assignments and schedule for the landings. We'll have a full briefing as soon as we get back to our room."

"Oh man," whined Jones. "We gotta do a briefing? I was gonna go to the head and jack off."

"Yeah," put in Stinson. "Can't we do that shit later, LT? Maybe the greenies will surrender today and we won't have to bother."

"Nope," Callahan said. "Briefing immediately upon return. Even if the greenies do surrender, this'll be a good training exercise for us. We haven't been getting enough of that lately as it is."

There were some more mumbles and comments — including a few along the line of telling the lieutenant that they had his training for him right fucking here — but no open dissent. The men walked slowly back to their cramped, smelly quarters and began to mill about, changing out of their sweaty T-shirts and putting on the dry T-shirts that had been sweaty the day before. Callahan, after changing into his own fresh stinking shirt, told them all to gather near the front of the room, under the big Internet screen above the door.

"All right, people," he said, sliding a briefing disk into the computer slot near the wall, "you'll be pleased to know that if we do have to fight the greenies, we'll at least get one of the fun jobs." He pushed a few buttons to get rid of the Internet broadcast and to call up the instructional program. "Load training brief from disc," he told the voice-activated circuit.

"What are we gonna do?" asked Mallory. "Do we get to rape the women and children? I always wanted to be in that part of the service."

Callahan ignored his remark as the screen above him changed to a satellite shot of the equatorial region of Mars. "We," he said, "are going to be part of the force responsible for securing the largest Martian city: Eden. The timetable for this operation is going to be one week from the time of landing to the occupation of the city itself. As you see on the map here, Eden is an agricultural city and is bracketed on the north and the south by vast stretches of greenhouses that stretch out for hundreds of kilometers. On the west side of the city are the Sierra Madres mountain range. On the east is a vast, hilly plain that stretches for more than two thousand kilometers. These are relatively gentle hills with lots of valleys and gullies between them. It is through this system of flatland that we will make our approach."

He changed the screen, showing a closer view of the hilly terrain and a broad valley. "This will be our primary landing site," he said. "It is approximately 350 kilometers east of the outer edge of Eden. We will establish our beachhead and the security forces will set up perimeter security on the first day of the landing. On day two we will begin unloading our equipment and assembling it in the staging area. On day three, we will begin to move in as a group, the entire division. Now the march forward will take us another two days before we start to encounter any greenie defensive positions."

"What about those little planes they have?" asked Mallory. "Assuming they want to take us on, will they try to hit us with those things?"

"They may try," Callahan said. "Intelligence estimates that they have around fifty of them assigned to the Eden branch of their little army. They are equipped with dual laser cannons that are capable of destroying a tank or an APC if they manage to get a hit. The threat from these little aircraft however, is calculated as minimal. They are very fragile aircraft and not terribly maneuverable from what I understand. Our unit's anti-air crews will be flanking our positions during the march and will engage any such toys the moment they show themselves. My guess is we'll pot those fucking things out of the sky like clay pigeons on a skeet range."

Everybody nodded at this statement, no one doubting it. After all, the WestHem mobile anti-air vehicles were designed to take on heavily armored EastHem hovers and atmospheric attack craft. Surely a little flimsy flying wing would not be able to stand up against it.

"Now going back to those greenie defensive positions," Callahan said, changing the view on the screen yet again, this time to an overhead shot of some bunkers embedded in a hilltop. "These are the hills that our company will be primarily concerned with. They lie sixty kilometers southeast of the approaches to Eden. As you can see, they are classic layered defensive emplacements, designed after our own models. There are fixed anti-tank trenches on these hills over here. They are surrounded by other entrenchments on these hills which can be occupied by infantry troops to defend the anti-tank positions and also by mobile troops packing shoulder-fired anti-tank lasers. Behind these hills are other entrenchments that the greenies can install eighty millimeter mortar nests in to help protect their infantry and anti-tank positions. And in addition, the entire network of hills and trenches is protected by heavy artillery guns, both the fixed guns installed outside of Eden, and the mobile guns that the greenies have as part of their force inventory."

The platoon was paying a little more attention now as they actually saw digital images of the Martian defenses. A few even managed to look uneasy as they contemplated their targets. After all, those were professional, well-constructed defenses and it was their job, as marines, to put those positions out of commission. Callahan quickly picked up on this unease and went to work putting it to rest.

"Now let's not get our panties in a bunch now," he told his men. "Granted, these are some pretty good defensive emplacements, but the greenies are not really smart in how they use them. Let me explain a little further." He took a deep breath and paced around for a moment, cracked his knuckles. "There are a few essentials of defense that our green friends our sorely lacking in for this battle. One such thing is tanks, which are the cornerstone of any military operation, be it offensive or defensive. The other is airpower, which you could call the other cornerstone. According to statistics compiled before the takeover of the planet, the greenies are extremely shorthanded on these particular commodities. The amount of tanks from our landing force alone will outnumber the amount the greenies have deployed by nearly seven to one, six to one if they manage to bring down the ones from our landing ships. So the first thing you have to remember is that those positions that we'll be taking are not protected by very much armor.

"The second thing that the greenies are lacking in are hovers. They have invested so much of their budget on those little aircraft that they've built that they have less than fifty hovers for their entire planet's defenses. Less than fifty. And they have no air-to-air combat hovers at all. This means that our hover force, which numbers more than a hundred just in this landing alone, will enjoy complete air superiority over any battlefield.

"So, with those two facts in mind, let me tell you what is going to happen on our march. The hover force is going to bomb and strafe these defensive positions starting from day three, when they get into range. It is going to be a non-stop, around the clock campaign with 150-millimeter cannon shells ripping those trenches from one end to the other before our forces are even close. And then, once our artillery forces are in range — which should take place early on day five — we will begin shelling those positions relentlessly as well. And after that, as we finally start to move in, the tanks will go in ahead of us and blast them some more and kill everything that is seen moving. Then, and only then, will we advance to the base of those hills in our APCs and then climb up to occupy them. By that point I'm sure that every greenie that isn't already dead — if there are any — will gladly surrender himself to us. If they do not, we will shoot them down like dogs."

"And always remember this, if nothing else," he concluded. "There will be more than one hundred thousand of us advancing on this greenie city. One hundred thousand! Standing in our way will be less than sixteen thousand greenies at best, and that is before we bomb and shell them into oblivion. There is no way that those greenies can do significant damage to us. No way in God's universe."

July 20, 2146

Deep space, near the sun

Mermaid had finished her deceleration burn several days before and was now drifting along in a solar orbit, just over sixteen million kilometers away from the bright yellow orb that gave life to the solar system, well inside the orbit of Mercury. Her orbit was east to west, timed to correspond with an intercept course with the approaching armada when it came around from the other side. By this point, nearly four weeks after leaving Triad and encountering their first contact, the crew was as well drilled as they were going to be for their mission. They had run through every procedure so many times that they could do them in their sleep, and often did.

On the bridge everyone was strapped into the chairs since the engines were no longer burning and there was no acceleration to provide even the most meager of artificial gravity. Brett drifted into the room from the direction of his quarters. He was well rested after a five-hour sleep period and had just finished with his traditional post-awakening bowel movement in his private bathroom, although the vacuum device that needed to be employed in the absence of gravity took much of the pleasure out of such an action.

"Good morning, Brett," greeted Sugiyoto, who had been in charge of the bridge during his absence. Sugi wasn't quite up to taking complete command if something should happen to Brett, but he was getting there.

"Is it morning?" Brett asked with a yawn. "I didn't notice. I guess I must've missed the sunrise."

"Well, a figure of speech really," Sugi told him, unbuckling and floating up from the command chair. "It's actually about 1600 New Pittsburgh time, and the sun is most definitely up. We've done six heat dumps while you were out. It's rankin hot out there."

"Nothing like the sun," Brett said, ignoring the chair for the moment and propelling himself over to the corner of the room, where a coffee maker designed to work in zero or minimal G was always percolating. He grabbed one of the pressure cups and fastened it to the tap, allowing the cup to fill. "About three of these things and I should approaching wakefulness," he said. He kicked off the wall and pushed himself over to the captain's chair.

"All systems working just like they're supposed to," Sugi told him. "Waste heat is currently at 64 percent with another dump due in about ninety minutes or so. Our position is on the screen, right on course. And we're do for a communication link-up in ten minutes."

"Static," Brett said, pulling himself into the chair with a practiced flip of the hands on its back. His backside settled neatly down in place and he quickly pulled the strap around his waist, securing himself. He set his coffee cup down on the magnetic holder that was specifically designed for such a purpose. "I've got the con," he said automatically.

"Brett's got the con," said Mandall, who was operating the helm at the moment although there was really nothing to con since they were in a stable orbit and weren't maneuvering.

Sugi drifted over to his own chair at the detection console, relieving the junior crewmember who had been training on it. The junior crewmember was then allowed to return to below decks to get a little sleep.

"Nothing out there yet?" asked Brett once Sugi was strapped in and tuned in to his equipment.

"Nothing but the sun," Sugi said after checking the board.

"About what we expected then. It's awfully nice of those WestHem folks to continually broadcast their present position to us. They surely making our job a lot easier."

What he was referring to were the media reports being beamed out live from the armada in each and every briefing given by General Wrath and Admiral Jules. These reports were seen not only on Earth and on the Jupiter colonies, but on Mars as well since Internet transmissions were still being sent there. In each briefing, for the enjoyment of the viewing audience, a graphic would be presented of the armada's exact position in space at that particular moment in time. This graphic was always accompanied by a countdown clock showing how many hours, minutes, and even seconds until the first ships entered orbit around Mars. The Martian intelligence network, which would have otherwise been blind to the armada's exact course, speed, and location, was beaming this information via communication laser to the Owls that had been deployed, therefore keeping them constantly updated on their targets' position. While it was possible that the information might actually be deliberate misinformation, designed to mislead the Martians, nobody really believed that. It was so very Earthling to transmit such information out for the entertainment of the masses.

"Like General Jackson said," said Sugi, "it's their arrogance that's gonna defeat them."

"Here's to their arrogance," Brett toasted, picking up his coffee cup and grabbing a sip. "Now how about giving me some status reports on crew fitness? Are they keeping up with their exercise routines?"

They talked of crew fitness and other shipboard physical and sociological factors for a few minutes, Sugi hesitantly bringing up the fact that at least two sets of couples had formed among the coed crew members and that there had been some experimentation with zero gravity sexuality in the storage rooms.

"Did you actually catch them doing this?" Brett asked. "Or are you merely telling me rumors?"

"One is a rumor," Sugi said. "But Wentworth and Loggerman I actually caught in the act. I'm sorry, I hate to rat people out but..."

"I understand," Brett said. "And I'm sure that no one blames you for ratting them. After all, you are the executive officer. But tell me something, were they on duty when you caught them?"

"No," he said. "They were both on sleep period."

Brett simply shrugged. "Well then, I guess that's their right as Martian citizens, isn't it? As long as they weren't pilfering the food, damaging anything, or otherwise endangering the ship, I say let them screw their brains out. Maybe they'll find some new positions."

After a flabbergasted silence by the bridge crew — who had really been expecting Brett to simply explode when he heard this — laughter broke out.

"In fact," Brett added, "let's make that a general order for the crew. Anyone who can score themselves a companion, of either sex or creed, is free to use any storage room for sexual activity as long as they are both off duty and as long as no one needs the storage room for anything else at the moment."

"Are you serious, Brett?" asked Sugi. "Do you really want to put that out for the crew?"

"Fuckin aye I do," he replied. "It'll help boost morale. After all, a happy crew is a productive crew. We may not be the best-trained or the most experienced crew in space at the moment, but goddammit, we're gonna be the happiest."

"I'll put it out right away," Sugi assured him, already thinking of a certain torpedo technician that had been casting eyes at him lately.

"Of course, if there are any fights, physical altercations, or any other problems as a result of this policy, it will be rescinded immediately," Brett qualified. "Be sure to put that bit in as well."

By the time Brett was finished with his first cup of coffee of the waking period, it was time for the communications link-up. The standard status report was prepared and digitized. It was roughly one third the size the standard report had always been back when Mermaid had belonged to WestHem and had been run by Commander Hoffman. Admiral Belting just didn't want to hear about all of the non-essential things that the WestHem bureaucracy had insisted upon. Belting wanted the basics: current speed, course, fuel and consumable status, and whether or not contact had been made with the enemy.

"Establishing link," said Frank, the young communications technician. He pushed a few buttons on his computer screen and the communications laser on the top of the ship popped out of its housing and rose slowly upward on a narrow, retracting pole. The laser itself was only three millimeters in diameter. It spun on it's axis, guided by the ship's computer which was utilizing the exact positioning and attitude of the vessel so that it could hit the receiver — a two hundred meter dish — on a communications array on Phobos. Once it was in position, a window popped up on Frank's display letting him know that the laser was locked.

"Go ahead and send it," Brett ordered.

"On the way," Frank responded, pushing the transmit button. The laser pulsed for two and a half seconds, sending a modulated beam of light out across the emptiness of space. Nineteen minutes later, the beam struck the receiver just five meters off center and the information was encoded and sent via encrypted radio link to Admiral Belting's office. Twenty-six minutes after that, a message was returned to them, sent through space as an encrypted radio signal.

"Ok, let's see what they got for us," said Brett, who was now on his third cup of coffee. "Open the report and let's see where our friends are today."

"Right," said Frank, punching the encryption code so the message could be de-scrambled.

The computer took less than five seconds to break the code and display the information on Brett's view screen. It was another position report of the WestHem armada, updated less than three hours before. The front elements of the fleet were just on the other side of the sun, almost exactly where Sugi and Brett had plotted them out to be on their chart.

"How's it look?" Sugi asked as Brett perused the data.

"If these reports are accurate, we should be able to detect the lead elements in twelve to sixteen hours."

There was a moment of silence on the bridge of the ship as everyone contemplated that fact. They had been out in space for weeks now, all of them knowing what their mission was, training hard for it, but at the same time, trying not to think too much about the danger of it. Well now that danger was just around the corner from them. Now it was very hard to put off thinking about it.

"Sugi, let's make sure that everyone is well fed and well rested before then, okay? Once we start tracking them, things are gonna get rankin busy around here."

"Right Brett," he said. "I'll make sure."

July 21, 2146

Deep space, near the sun

It was 0532 hours when the first detection was made. Mermaid was drifting along in her orbit, her passive sensors peering into space, paying particular attention to the area between ten and twelve million kilometers due west of the sun, along the planetary elliptic. Sugi, who had just come off of a rest period of his own, was looking at the display, waiting for it to show him something different. Finally, at long last, it did.

"Con, detection," he said aloud, moving into formal naval procedure now that something was happening. "I'm getting some strong flickers from bearing 296 mark 05."

"Copy, Sugi," said Brett, who had not had any more sleep since the last radio update. "What do you have?"

"It's in the medium range, spread out over about two hundredths of a degree. Moving rapidly from right to left but holding on the elliptic."

Brett nodded, already knowing what he was seeing, but he wanted to hear Sugi identify it as well. "What's it look like to you?"

Sugi took a deep breath, hesitated for the briefest instant, and then said slowly, "Absorption heat on the side of a spacecraft maybe?"

"Exactly," Brett told him. "The sun is heating that ship up mighty hot. Good call. Get it up on the display and give it a target designation. That's probably the lead ship of the armada."

Sugi continued to track on it, fine tuning his instruments a little. Within five minutes he was able to detect other information from it as well, namely internal heat from an inertial damper and some faint radar waves, probably from the anti-meteor defense.

"Do we have an ID on it?" Brett asked.

"Computer has it as a Seattle class anti-stealth frigate. Not enough of a signature yet to identify the particular ship. And we're still bearing only at this point."

"Okay, let's do a little maneuvering and see if we can get a range. Helm, stealth procedures in place."

"Copy that, Brett," Mandall replied. "Thrusters on minimum, cooling systems on main plasma jets active."

"Very good. I'm sounding the acceleration alarm." He pushed a button, activating it. When it was done running through its cycle he turned on the intercom. "All personnel," he said, his voice broadcast throughout the ship. "We have detected a Seattle class frigate coming around the sun. It is probably the lead element of the nice folks that we came out here to meet. We will be maneuvering at low acceleration to attempt to pin down a range on the ship. We will not, I repeat, not, be going to general quarters just yet." He turned the intercom off. "Helm, turn us to 270 mark 300. Once aligned begin a burn at point one G."

The ship turned on its axis and then began to slowly accelerate, changing their orbit. The plasma ejecting from the rear was still white hot, but was cooled enough and was coming out at such a rate that the ship would remain invisible to infrared detection, especially from the distance they were at. As she moved along, and as the target of their inquiry moved along as well, Mermaid's sensors continued to collect data, everything from heat levels to Doppler shift. Within an hour an exact range and speed was pinned down.

"612,345 kilometers," Sugi announced when the calculations were complete. "It's on a course of 186 mark 1, moving at seventy kilometers per second. Fusion engines are idle."

"Beautiful," Brett said. "And the other targets?" While they had been tracking the first target, four others had come into view and were now being tracked as well.

"I've got a tentative ID on target two as another Seattle class frigate. Target three, four, and five are still unknown."

"Let's keep working them," Brett said.

They kept working them and one by one the front escorts of the armada were all identified and their courses and speeds calculated. They were all moving on the same course, towards Mars, at the same seventy kilometers per second. Ship number five was a California class, lagging behind the main escorts but unmistakable due to its size and the amount of heat it generated, even with engines off.

"They're running dumb," Brett said in amazement as he stared at the data coming in. "They're probing forward with nothing more than radar beams for anti-meteor defense and a few active systems. They don't seem to have any attack craft up at all."

"Then that means we've achieved surprise?" Sugi asked.

"Either through blind luck or their own stupidity, it would seem so. Let's start setting up an intercept course here. Helm, bring us to 340 mark 0 and decrease the burn to point zero six G."

"Copy, Brett," she said, making the adjustments. This course and speed put them facing directly towards where he hoped their targets — the large Panamas — would begin to emerge in another thirty minutes or so. Mermaid was off to the side of the formation and moving relatively slowly at an angle of about forty degrees towards it. Brett's plan was to slip in behind the front escorts and in front of the middle escorts to take advantage of the gap in coverage.

A few more escorts became visible and were identified over the next twenty minutes, Sugi's skills with the computer becoming such that he was able to get signatures from them and assign actual ship names. And then, the moment that they had been waiting for, the first of the Panamas appeared. It, like the California, was unmistakable on their screen once enough data was collected. The Panamas were huge and they absorbed a lot of heat from the sun on their hulls.

"Here come the targets," Brett said happily, though with a little trepidation as well.

Two more came into view over the next fifteen minutes and Sugiyoto calculated their courses and speeds out. Brett then made his decision. "Let's go after number three to start with," he said. "The angle of attack is about right and the front escorts will be well beyond our firing position by the time we get there."

"Sounds good, Brett," Sugi said, staring at that particular ship on his holographic display.

"Helm," Brett ordered next, "calculate a course to target twelve please, the third Panama in the line. Let's go for a 400,000 kilometer release."

Mandall hesitated. "Uh, Brett," she said nervously, "don't you think that maybe you should do that. I mean..."

"It's your job Mandall," he told her. "You've done it on the simulation many times. Just do the same thing here."

"But..."

"You'll be fine, Mandall," he said. "Now get it done while our window is still open please."

She nodded and bent to her computer screen, inputting several pieces of data and letting it know which target she wanted to prosecute. The idea was to put the ship on a direct intercept course, a collision course in fact, and then, when 400,000 kilometers out, to release a torpedo and set it drifting on that course. The ship could then turn away and move to another position while the torpedo drifted on. By the time the torpedo was detected Mermaid would be long gone.

"I've got the course," she said after a minute had gone by and after she'd double-checked her data. "It's on your screen right now."

Brett took a glance down at it but didn't bother to check it himself. "Very good, Mandall," he told her. "Get us on that course please. And I think it's about time that we go to GQ." He pushed the red button on his panel that sounded the general quarters alarm. He then turned the intercom back on. "All personnel, we are now prosecuting a Panama class transport ship that is presumably filled with WestHem marines and their equipment. Let's get to general quarters now and button this ship up. The fun has begun."

While the ship turned and began to head towards its target, the crew went into the general quarters drill. By now they were well practiced at this all-important aspect of combat operations and they had their emergency pressure suits on and their stations manned in just under two minutes. Brett, hearing the reports of manned and ready from each station, beamed with pride at this accomplishment. He had taken a bunch of civilians, undermanned a warship with them, and despite the madness of it they were behaving like a veteran crew.

Things became very tense as Mermaid closed in. The first group of escorts moved beyond her position, their holographs drifting rapidly across the display and off the far edge of it. Though they could still send attack craft after Mermaid, there was no longer much danger of being detected by the Seattle's. Then the Panamas began to get closer and closer. The minutes ticked by and the range closed to half a million kilometers.

"Twenty minutes to firing point," Mandall reported. "Still on target."

"Thanks, Mandall," Brett told her. He then raised Chad Hamilton in the torpedo room on the intercom system.

"I'm here, Brett," Hamilton answered up within two seconds of the hail.

"We're less than a hundred thousand kilometers out," he told him. "Coming up on the firing point. Load torpedo tubes one and two and set the weapons for semi-controlled flight."

"Copy," Hamilton replied. "What's the burst range?"

"Set it for fifty kilometers. I won't those things to burst as close as possible. I don't just want those Panamas wounded, I want them dead."

"You've got it, Brett," he answered.

The next thirty minutes went by slowly, with everyone on the bridge watching the display in front of Sugi's terminal, staring fascinated as the symbol that represented their target came closer and closer to the center.

"Twelve thousand kilometers to release point," Mandall reported at last. "That's just over two minutes, Brett."

"Two minutes," he repeated, chewing his lip a little. He called Hamilton again. "Torpedo room, open tube number one and prepare for launch."

"Opening tube one," was the reply.

On the front of the ship a circular hatch irised slowly open, revealing the blunt nose of the torpedo. On the bridge, Mandall began to count down every ten seconds as the launch point approached. When she reached zero Brett gave a simple order.

"Launch tube one," he said.

In the torpedo room, Hamilton took a deep breath, tried not to think about what he was doing, and flipped up the protective cover on a large red switch. Across the room from him, at the same time, one of his enlisted men flipped up a cover of his own. With a nod towards each other they pushed down on their switches, thus fulfilling the requirements of the launch system. Nothing terribly dramatic happened at that point. There was no sound, no gout of flame, no shuddering of the ship. A simple hydraulic arm connected to a plate of steel extended, pushing the five-meter long weapon out of the tube. When the arm reached the end of its stroke the mounting bracket released from the rear of the torpedo and it slowly drifted out in front of the ship, its powerful rocket engine idle.

"We have good separation," Hamilton reported to Brett. "The weapon is drifting free."

"I copy good separation," Brett said. "Let me know as soon as you have a laser lock on it."

The torpedo, which was nothing more than a two hundred megaton thermonuclear missile, was encased in radar and heat resistant material to keep it from being detected as it moved in on its target. On the top of it a three-meter laser receiver dish unfolded from its case and stuck up into space. When the weapon, which was moving at about a half a kilometer per hour faster than Mermaid — was six hundred meters from the ship, a tracking laser shot out from a mast located atop Mermaid's sensor array. Similar to the communications laser system, this beam would keep a lock on the torpedo as long as a line of sight was maintained. With this link established, Mermaid's computers, acting under orders from Brett, could control the torpedo. It's course could be corrected by the tiny maneuvering thrusters and a short burn from the main rocket engine, or the engine could be throttled up to full power for the terminal dive to target, or the weapon could be detonated in the event it was detected and the target began to fire on it. In case the line of sight was lost or some other problem caused the disconnection of the beam with the ship, the torpedo had an active seeker head as well and was programmed to continue seeking its target and correcting it's own course. The optimum detonation range — the range that was considered universally lethal to a ship — was inside seventy kilometers, although heavy damage would be inflicted anywhere up to one hundred and fifty kilometers away.

"I have a laser lock," Hamilton reported. "The weapon is continuing normally on course."

"I copy you have a lock," Brett responded. He turned to Mandall. "Sugi, how many Panamas do we have identified now?"

"Six," he said, "and two more ships are just becoming visible on the display that are more than likely Panamas as well, but I don't have quite enough data for a positive ID yet."

"Good. Put them on my screen. I want to get that second weapon out there too."

"On the way," he said.

"And keep your eye peeled for Owls. We know the WestHems have some out there but we don't know where they are. The last thing we need right now is detection."

"I'm looking," he assured him.

Brett looked over the display for a moment and ran some basic angles in his head as he compared his ship's position and speed with that of the oncoming vessels. It looked like he could turn Mermaid and launch on the sixth Panama back with a minimum amount of maneuvering and within the time frame allowed him by the first weapon's trip to target.

"Helm," he said to Mandall, "lock onto target fifteen and plot a launch course. Once again, let's shoot for 400,000 kilometer separation."

"Plotting," she said, turning back to her computer screen.

Soon the course was plotted and the order was given to initiate it. Mermaid's maneuvering thrusters and engines came to life once more, turning the ship and accelerating it at .02 G. The first torpedo continued on, linked to the ship by the laser, and the distance between them increased rapidly, until Sugi could no longer detect the minute amount of heat.

The second release came twenty minutes later. Torpedo number two slid neatly out of the tube and began to drift away. Soon it too was locked by a guidance laser.

"Okay," Brett said, wiping a slight sheen of sweat from his brow. "The shots are away. Let's maneuver clear of this place. Helm, turn us to new course of 010 mark 70 and accelerate at point zero eight G."

"I copy zero one zero mark seven zero and burn engine at point zero eight G," she repeated, her hands already making the adjustments. She, like everyone else on the bridge, was very anxious to get the hell out of the release zone now that the weapons were on their way.

Mermaid spun well away from the formation and turned her nose downward, seventy degrees from the plain of the elliptic, in effect diving far beneath the formation of ships she was tracking.

The tactic Brett had used in making his attack was a classic one in stealth ship warfare. The idea was to lie in wait in the path of the oncoming enemy, moving at relatively slow speed while the enemy was at maximum velocity. This made the closure speed of the weapon with the target equal to that of the enemy's forward motion plus the velocity added by the launching ship. In effect, the torpedoes that Mermaid had launched were closing with their targets at a speed of nearly three hundred thousand kilometers per hour without so much of a drop of the weapons' own rocket fuel or oxidizer being burned.

Aboard the ships of the armada, it was just after 0700 hours, the time for the daily routine to begin. On the flagship, Admiral Jules was still sound asleep, naked beneath the silk covers in his private suite, one of the attractive servants he had brought along curled up naked with him. On the bridge of the ship, crew change was taking place as the night shift gave report to the oncoming day shift. A full combat information center staff was at hand at their terminals, all of them receiving data from the escorts near the front of the armada and even from the sensors of the Panama ships themselves. No sensors detected the presence of the two nuclear torpedoes closing in on the Camel or the Mule. No one was really looking for any such thing. On both of these ships the marines were climbing out of the bunks in their crowded landing ships and getting ready for the unappetizing meal that was known as breakfast. None of them had the slightest idea that death was rushing at them at eighty-three kilometers per second.

Camel was the first of the targets, the third Panama from the front of the armada. It was a young spacer second class on the bridge that first noticed something unusual on his screen. He was getting slight flickers in the medium range on infrared, just a few at first, nothing to be terribly concerned with, but then they started to get stronger, more frequent. At almost the same moment his anti-meteor radar display began to register something that looked like ghost returns, not a good solid hit on anything, and again, nothing to be terribly concerned with by itself, but they were coming from exactly the same place as the infrared flickers. He hesitated for longer than he really should have, but finally he called it to the attention of the second officer, who was in charge of the ship at that particular moment since the captain and the executive officer were both still asleep.

The second officer stared at it for nearly thirty seconds, running things through in his mind, thirty seconds in which the object in question closed another 2500 kilometers with them. Since the flickers were getting a little stronger and since the radar returns were becoming a little more frequent, he finally advanced a nervous observation. "That's almost the same signature that one of our torpedoes gives off."

"One of our torpedoes?" the spacer asked. "What would one of our torpedoes be doing out there?"

"I don't know," he said, shaking his head, starting to get a really bad feeling. "But it kind of looks like it's heading right towards us, doesn't it? I wonder if one of the Seattle's or one of our stealth ships accidentally jettisoned one."

The spacer then had a particularly unpleasant thought. "Sir," he said, "those torpedoes are pretty stealthy. If that thing is close enough for us to be getting radar returns and infrared detection from it... well... I think that it's probably very close to detonation range then."

The second officer swallowed nervously, staring at the display before him, watching the bearing change on the target. In his heart he couldn't honestly believe that an actual live torpedo was heading towards his ship — after all, who possibly could have fired it? — but on the other hand, there was a remote possibility, wasn't there? After another six seconds and another 480 kilometers of closure, he finally came to a decision. "Sound general quarters," he barked to the bridge. "Get the anti-missile defenses active. Let's go active with a fire control radar and see if we can enough of a return to pin down the range."

Ten seconds later the general quarters alarm began to sound. All over the ship, men began to head listlessly to their stations, every last one of them figuring that this was some sort of ill-timed drill. On the outside of the massive ship, panels flipped open and anti-missile lasers popped out. They began to charge up.

"Fire control radar active," the spacer reported. "Sweeping the area right now."

"What in the fuck is going on in here?" a voice boomed from behind them. It was the captain of the vessel. He had just emerged from his quarters after being jarred awake by the sounding of the alarm. He was dressed only in a pair of navy blue underwear, his hair mussed, his eyes furious, looking for blood.

"Sir," the second officer told him, "we've detected what appears to be a WestHem torpedo at close range. It seems to be closing with us. I thought that under the circumstances..."

"A WestHem torpedo?" the captain interrupted. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Sir," the spacer said, his face going pale. "I have a good return on it. It's just over two thousand kilometers out, it's course directly towards us, closing at a speed of eighty-three kilometers per second."

"Jesus," the second officer said, his mind performing a quick piece of arithmetic. The missile would be in lethal detonation range in less than thirty seconds. Without bothering to wait for the captain to digest the information and give an order, he gave it himself. "Lock onto it and fire all anti-missile lasers!"

"Locking on," the spacer said.

"A torpedo?" the captain repeated, still trying to come to grips with the situation. "Moving in on us? How in the hell is that..."

"Sir!" the spacer barked. "A jammer just went active on the weapon! I've lost the range data!"

That piece of information brought it home to everyone just how real the situation was. The jammer was an electronic device installed in the seeker head of torpedoes. Designed to activate when a fire control radar started probing, they sent out a confusing array of infrared and radar noise that would foul a defensive system's ability to lock onto it exactly, which would make it very difficult to guide an anti-missile laser beam to a lethal hit. The fact that one had just come on told them that this was not a weapon accidentally dropped by one of their own ships. This was a weapon that had been deliberately fired at them and that was undoubtedly armed and ready to blow them to pieces. And it was less than twenty seconds out!

The captain finally realized that they were in mortal danger. He took over and gave the only order he would have time for. "Increase the power of the fire control radar," he shouted. "Try to burn through it!"

The burn through never came. The weapon closed to fifty kilometers from the port corner of the ship and then detonated in a flash of light.

When a nuclear weapon is detonated within the atmosphere of Earth its destructive force comes from the explosion itself pushing the air away from the flash point and slamming it into structures, people, or anything else in its path. In space, there is no atmosphere to be pushed out and no pressure wave forms. Instead, the destruction comes from a huge pulse of electromagnetic energy that expands outward at the speed of light. At a range of only fifty kilometers, this energy burned through the hull of Camel, igniting the air within, melting the steel of the bulkheads, and incinerating nearly everything within. The entire ship was ripped open by the pressure of superheated air expanding under the onslaught. Then the propellant tanks ruptured, the hydrogen within them mixing with the oxygen in the ship's environment and the storage tanks. Another bright flash of light occurred as a cataclysmic explosion took place, blowing the ship and everything in it into literally billions of pieces that went flying off into space.

In the blink of an eye, 20,000 marines, 1200 naval personnel, and more than a million tons of equipment, ammunition, fuel, and other supplies were gone forever.

"Good detonation," Sugi reported excitedly as he saw the double flash of the thermonuclear weapon on his screen. "I repeat, that was a good detonation. Jesus fucking Christ was it ever!" His display went momentarily blank as the electromagnetic pulse cluttered the ship's sensors.

"Damn," Brett whispered. Though he had spent his entire naval career aboard Owls he had never actually seen one of the weapons detonated before. He only admired their work for a moment however before turning back to business. "What's the time to torpedo number two detonation?" he asked.

"I've lost guidance on it," Sugi reported. "The EMP from the first weapon broke the laser link. Last position had it at twenty-four minutes to detonation though."

"See if you can reestablish the link," Brett ordered. "We have the last known position and the estimated position now. Tell the computer to sweep the area with the beam."

"Right," Sugi said, banging furiously away on the panel. After a moment he gave a thumbs-up signal. "I got it back," he said. "The torpedo is still tracking normally, still on course."

"Good. And the status of target twelve? Have the sensors come back up yet?"

"Coming on line now," he said, peering at his display. "And I'm picking up nothing in the last known position of target twelve. Nothing at all, not even debris."

"Jesus," said Mandall, "we vaporized it."

"That's 20,000 less marines for our troops to worry about," Brett said. "And hopefully that second torpedo will get rid of another 20,000 for them. Remember, this is what we came out here to do. It's our job."

"Right," Mandall said, looking at the track of target number 15, which was slated to be next. "Our job."

"Now all hell is going to break loose in that formation in a minute. As soon as they get over the shock of what just happened, they're going to start launching attack vessels to sweep the area, looking for us. We've had our free shot. From now on, they're not going to be underestimating us. So let's look alive out here. Mandall, keep us at point zero eight for now. As soon as the attack ships start circling, we shut the engine down and drift."

The blaring of the general quarters alarm is what woke Admiral Jules from his contented slumber. He jerked up, the silk sheet falling away from his chest, his heart hammering alarmingly from the adrenaline. "Holy God," he barked.

"Tanner?" said Mandy, his mistress for the night. She was even more frightened, although seemed to be recovering quicker. "Why are they having a GQ drill at this time of the morning?"

"A better question is why in the hell is that alarm going off in my quarters? I programmed that computer so it would never do that unless it was actual situation." He jerked the covers off and stood up, not bothering to grab a robe off of the hook by the bed. He was ready to chew some ass and it was best to chew it while the outrage was still fresh. He walked angrily over to the Internet terminal at the desk.

Before he could activate it, however, it came to life itself in the intercom mode. The face of Rear Admiral Brannigan, the direct commander of the naval task force, was on the screen. It was a face that was pale and scared.

"Brannigan!" Jules yelled. "What the hell is going on here? Why is that GQ alarm screaming in my quarters?"

"Sir," Brannigan said, "I've put all of the ships in the fleet at general quarters. There's been an attack!"

"An attack? What kind of attack? Start making some sense, man, right this second!"

"A nuclear weapon just went off near the Camel — that's one of the lead Panamas in the line. It was a torpedo."

"A torpedo?" he said. "You'd better be shitting me!"

"No sir. Camel's active systems went on line four minutes ago and were tracking an incoming object. We received their telemetry here and the object has been positively identified as a torpedo. It was detonated just two minutes ago now."

"Damage?" he asked.

"She's gone, sir," Brannigan replied.

"Gone? What do you mean gone?"

"I mean destroyed completely. The weapon detonated inside of fifty kilometers. A direct hit. There's nothing left of the ship, sir. She's gone. She never even had a chance to radio in a report."

"Are you telling me," Jules asked carefully, "that we have just lost a transport ship and that the 20,000 marines and all of the naval personnel inside of it are dead?"

"Yes sir," he said, his face stunned. "That is how it looks at the moment."

"Holy Christ," he whispered, slumping into the chair. He had lost a ship? He had lost 20,000 marines that he was responsible for transporting safely to their destination?

"Sir?" Brannigan said, "I've ordered a..."

"Twenty thousand!" Jules broke in, shaking his head in denial. That was more than two hundred times the worst-case casualty estimate formulated before departure. It was a disaster of unprecedented proportions.

"Sir? Are you with me?" Brannigan said.

"We need to find the ship that did this immediately!" Jules said, his fists clenching in his lap. "This is an outright act of war! Those EastHem fucks need to be tracked down and eliminated at once. And once we've done that, we need to..."

"It wasn't EastHem sir," Brannigan cut in.

Jules looked at his image as if he thought the man mad. "Wasn't EastHem? What are you talking about? Of course it was EastHem. There's no one else with nuclear torpedo capability."

"Sir, by all evidence that we've seen so far, that was a WestHem weapon that went off."

"A WestHem weapon?"

"No mistaking, sir. Camel was able to paint the delivery device with her fire control radar for a few seconds before the jammer went active. The signature was of a Mark-38. And then there were the detonation flashes. As you know, we can identify the weapon type by the EMP it releases. Again, all data points to a WestHem device. We can collect some of the radioactive debris for analysis as well if you'd like, but that will only confirm what we already know. Somebody fired a Mark-38 torpedo at Camel and killed her."

"Is there any chance that it was an accident?" he asked next. "Could one of the escort ships have inadvertently jettisoned a torpedo and it drifted into Camel's path?"

"I would rate that possibility as extremely unlikely. That weapon was on an exact collision course and it detonated in optimum destruction range. I'm forced to conclude that there is a hostile ship out there, probably a stealth attack ship, and that it deliberately attacked the convoy."

Jules thought of the report he'd received that Marlin was tracking an Owl being operated by the greenies before her signal was abruptly lost. Could it be possible? Could the greenies have somehow gotten one of those ships operational and used it to attack his ship. And could they have possibly managed to get on or more of those nuclear torpedoes operational as well. As impossible and as mad as that idea sounded on the surface, there really was no other explanation that made sense.

"We need to sweep the area and see if there's an Owl out there," Jules said. "It's possible the greenies may have somehow managed to get one of the captured ships operational."

"I've already ordered the attack craft launched," Brannigan told him. "They'll be going along the path of the weapon, probing with their active sensors to try and locate the vessel, if there is one. I've also had all ships activate their active search systems. If there's an Owl out there, we'll find it."

"Very good, Brannigan," he said, nodding in satisfaction. "Let's find that ship and capture or destroy it. I want this done within the hour. Within the hour, do you hear me?"

"I understand, sir."

"And in the meantime, we need to start figuring out what we're going to tell the media about this. Let's start thinking of a cover story right away."

From the launch bays of the Californias, A-22 attack craft emerged, their powerful rocket engines lighting up and sending them streaking off into the surrounding space to search for the ship that had attacked Camel. The saucer shaped craft joined up into teams of two and began a grid search along the bearing that the torpedo had come from. They moved back and forth over their grids, their radars and other active systems probing in all directions, their passive sensors sniffing for the slightest sign of heat.

At the same time, the destroyers and the anti-stealth ships of the armada joined in the search as well, their unmanned probes shooting off in multiple directions along the torpedo bearing and off to the sides of it. Radar and search lasers filled the empty vacuum while technicians kept their eyes glued to their screens, reading the telemetry that was coming back in.

The WestHem forces however, held a distinct disadvantage in the search. Though they had the bearing that the weapon had launched from, they had no idea from what range its flight had begun. It could have been launched anywhere from 600,000 kilometers out to inside of 60,000 kilometers. And the further out that it had been launched from, the more time that the ship would have had to alter course and clear the area. They were in effect stuck with an area to search that the Earth itself would have fit inside of with room to spare for its moon to orbit. And in addition to the huge search area they had to work with, they only had a limited amount of time in which to do it in. The entire armada was still traveling at maximum speed away from the area while the ship they were searching for was undoubtedly standing relatively still. The attack craft were not capable of decelerating to this speed and lingering behind. And even if they could, they would never be able to catch back up to their mother ships when they were done.

Meanwhile, while all of the searching was going on and while Mermaid herself drifted silently and invisibly, her bridge crew nervously following the courses of the various ships on the lookout, the second torpedo that she had launched continued to close with Mule. None of the sensors on the search ships got a sniff of it since they were probing outward of the formation, not along its inner flank. It closed to within 12,000 kilometers before the search radar on Mule itself was able to get a hint of a return.

By that point, all of the commanding officers on all of the Panama ships had been alerted to what had happened to Camel. Every last one of the remaining transports were at general quarters now, their active systems all on line, their defensive weapons systems charged and on standby. Even still, it took a horridly long time for the bridge crew to react to the threat closing in on them. The commanding officer of Mule initially dismissed the intermittent returns as an anomaly, thinking that the fear and hysteria of the detection crew was causing an imaginary sighting. Precious seconds ticked by before he even thought to report this finding. It was only when the returns began to get steadier and when the infrared flickers began to accompany them that he started to wonder if maybe there really was a second weapon out there and maybe it really was heading for his ship.

He ordered the targeting radars lit up and directed down the bearing from which the sightings were coming. As with Camel, this gave a momentary solid return that was able to identify range, course, speed, and a weapon signature. He paled as he saw that he was dealing with a Mark 38 thermonuclear torpedo and that it was less than five thousand kilometers out. Before he could open fire on it with the anti-missile lasers, the jammer on the weapon went active, cluttering the display.

"This is Mule," he reported to the commander of the armada on the emergency frequency. "We have a torpedo closing in on us from five thousand kilometers! Jamming systems are active. Attempting to engage now!"

The entire command staff followed the brief drama on their screens as the telemetry from Mule was downlinked to them. They watched as her array of lasers began to fire into space one by one, trying to hit the now hidden object that was closing with them.

On Mermaid, Brett and his bridge crew watched the same thing. Since they were still linked via laser to the weapon, and since the weapon had clearly been detected, Brett ordered that the rocket engine be fired to help close the range a little faster. A command was given and a second later the powerful chemical rocket lit up, accelerating the torpedo towards Mule at nearly 12Gs.

When the torpedo was eighty kilometers out, less than a second away, one of the laser beams nicked it, just barely burning through the outer casing. Had the shot been just five centimeters more to the center, it would have destroyed the weapon, rendering it incapable of detonation and turning it into nothing more than a projectile. Instead a sensor in the weapon, detecting the damage, immediately set the detonation sequence into action. It took less than three hundredths of a second for the nuclear material to be compressed and explode in the distinctive double-flash.

Since the range of the detonation was considerably further out than had been the case with Camel, the ship was not completely obliterated from existence. The energy burned into the hull, causing huge rips along the entire port side, basically tearing the ship in half lengthwise. All of the landing ships on the port side were ripped open as well, instantly killing all within as they were opened to space in explosive decompressions. The worst damage occurred when two of the fuel tanks of the landing ships exploded, sending shrapnel ripping through the rest of the ship. The delicate fusion engines were put out of commission by the opening of the rear of the ship and then destroyed completely by the secondary explosion. The propellant tanks were ruptured, their contents blasting out into space as a tremendous cloud of vapor, but they did not explode this time due to the lack of sufficient oxidation. Nevertheless, more than three quarters of the men aboard Mule were killed outright by the impact or the secondary explosion. Of the remainder, most of whom were located on the bridge or the starboard side of the vessel, well over half were trapped forever in compartments that had been fused shut by the heat and the buckling. Their fate would be to drift forever into space, entombed in a dead, twisted hulk. Of those that were able to abandon ship, they had only fifty minutes of air in their emergency pressure suits and would have to hope for rescue from the other ships of the armada. And if they did manage to be rescued in time, all would have to be treated for severe radiation sickness.

Mermaid's engines had long since been shut down and she drifted silently through space, her passive sensors keeping an eye on the frantic search that was being undertaken on their behalf. The crew had been at general quarters for nearly five hours now, all of them anxious, scared, but also proud that they had just helped take forty thousand marines out of commission.

Brett and the rest of the bridge crew watched their screens as the Panamas continued to pass far above them and as the anti-stealth frigates and the attack ships that came from the middle portion of the security screen circled back and forth and probed into space. They picked up many radar signals and infrared sweeps bathing their ship in energy but so far they had not been detected. And as the minutes ticked by the ships in pursuit of them moved further and further away, carried along by their own momentum.

"They're well outside of potential detection range now," Sugi said as he watched the circling of a pair of A-22s about 40,000 kilometers away. They had been as close as 12,000 kilometers at one point, close enough that any sort of heat dump or engine usage would have meant instant discovery.

"Good," Brett said, puffing nervously on a cigarette, "but they won't be the only ones. We still have the rear screen to worry about. They'll be out in force as well. And all it takes is for one to get a little sniff of us."

Sugi said nothing, didn't even nod. He simply went back to studying the display, remembering how he had once begged for something to appear on it. Now there were more symbols on it than he thought he could handle. And more would be gracing his view at any time.

"Have you found them yet?" General Wrath demanded of Jules. They were sitting in Jules' quarters, both sipping from cocktails as they sat in leather bound chairs before the huge picture window that looked out on the empty space before them.

"Not yet," Jules sighed. "The first group of search ships have passed beyond where the torpedo could have conceivably been fired from and the attack ships have run out of maneuvering fuel. They're being recovered right now."

"So we lost them then? Almost forty thousand of my men dead and you can't find the people responsible for it? That's unacceptable, Jules! I want that ship dead!"

"The anti-stealth ships from our part of the screen will be coming into range in about twenty minutes," he told him. "And the entire wing of A-22's will be launching in five to fan out ahead of us. We'll find them."

"Christ," Wrath said, shaking his head angrily. "How in the hell could something like this have happened? How in the hell could you let the greenies attack this armada with nuclear weapons? That's outrageous."

"There will be a full investigation, I can assure you of that," Jules said. "Those responsible for the lapse in security will be punished harshly." He was in fact already formulating just who would be blamed for the attacks. The on duty combat information center crew made handy scapegoats. They were, after all, the ones responsible for detecting enemy craft or weapons, weren't they?

"I want some heads to roll over this, Tanner," Wrath said. "And I want them to roll soon. Nothing like this has happened to the corps since the Jupiter War. And then we were at least fighting a real enemy!"

"They'll roll," he promised. "And we'll find that ship. You have my word."

Wrath sighed and took another sip from his scotch and soda. He looked out at the stars for a moment and then turned back to his colleague. "What did the executive committee have to say about this?" he asked.

"I just got their reply about ten minutes ago. We're still able to relay messages directly instead of sending them to Jupiter first. They were a bit upset by the news of course."

"I take it that that is an understatement?"

He gave a cynical smile. "Yes, perhaps the biggest of the trip so far. They were infuriated. They're very worried about what effect this is going to have on public opinion."

"Understandable. What did they have to say? Do we have orders for what to brief the media on? They've already started picking up the rumors."

"It was a collision," Jules said. "That's what the official story is going to be."

"A collision?" Wrath said in disgust. "You've got to be kidding me."

He shook his head. "One of our captains was trying to adjust his station in the formation. He let his engine burn a little too long and ran his ship into another Panama, therefore causing the rupture of the propellant tanks aboard Camel. The explosion completely destroyed Camel and caused severe damage to Mule."

"Holy Jesus," said Wrath. "And just how are we to explain why we had to treat the survivors of Mule for radiation sickness? Did that occur to them? Or how about what's going to happen when one of the surviving bridge crew starts blabbing his mouth? Or one of our own CIC crew that was tracking this thing. Do they really think that something like this can be kept under wraps?"

"They didn't explain things any further than what they ordered," Jules told him. "They left that up to us. We could say that the surviving crewmen were exposed to intense solar radiation before being rescued. After all, we are near the sun."

"Their suits have protection from that," Wrath pointed out. "That'll never fly."

"They'll make it fly," Jules insisted. "Remember what we're talking about here. They can control the media if they really want to, if they really need to. They did it during the Jupiter War. Remember, the big three are nothing more than huge corporations themselves. And whose behalf are we really fighting this fucking war on?"

Wrath looked at him levelly. Both men of course knew the real reason for the war, but neither had ever mentioned it, not even in private. "I suppose you're right," he said. "And I suppose we can let those men from the bridge know exactly what they're facing if they go around telling lies about how they were attacked by a nuclear weapon."

"Such things have been done before," Jules said. "Many times. We'll place the blame for the collision on the captain of the Camel, since all hands were lost there. We'll portray the bridge crew of the Mule as heroic in the attempts to avoid the collision and in their diligence for saving the surviving men. As for our CIC crew, I'll speak to each one of them personally and make sure they understand what the stakes are. They stick to the story, they'll move up the ladder. If they go telling lies about nuclear weapons, they'll be destroyed, both in their career and their reputation."

"Sounds good," Wrath said. "But in the meantime, you have to find that ship. And you have to make sure that there aren't any others out there."

"I can't possibly imagine that the greenies could have manned more than one ship," Jules said. "I'm frankly quite amazed that they were even able to do that."

"And I'm sure you're right about that, but we underestimated them once. Let's make sure we don't do it again."

Sugi and Brett were watching the display of enemy vessels carefully, both of them very tense. For the past forty minutes more than sixty A-22's had been circling around them. They were teamed up in pairs and performing careful grid searches as they moved through the area. As their colleagues had been before them, they were somewhat hampered by the fact that they were moving roughly seventy kilometers per second through the search area, but they had also been given much more time to perform their search and were able to be a little more thorough.

So far, none had come within 10,000 kilometers of Mermaid, although they had passed on both sides and though their active systems were slashing all over her. Brett was certain that they had not gotten so much as a sniff from him yet, but that was only because all heat emitting systems had been shut down.

"Brett," said Mandall from the helm, "our waste heat is becoming critical. We need to make a dump soon."

Brett nodded, stifling a yawn as he looked at the display. The excess heat should have been released into space more than twenty minutes ago, but to do so now was to risk giving the A-22s a source to lock in on. If those ships found their position, they would be on them in minutes, blasting them with heavy lasers.

"We'll have to hold a little longer," he said. "I don't want to risk it until those ships are at least 40,000 kilometers out. They're coming to the end of their search arc now it looks like."

"Okay," she said worriedly.

As if that wasn't bad enough news, Sugi soon had worse. "Brett," he said, "I've just plotted out a course for target 46. It's a Seattle class and it's heading pretty much right towards us. If both of us keep on current courses, they'll pass within 12,000 kilometers. All of her systems are active too."

"Are you sure on that plot?" Brett asked.

"I've run it three times now," Sugi answered. "It looks like the closure will occur in forty-three minutes."

"That's well inside detection range for one of those vessels," Brett said. "Well inside. Especially if we don't get rid of some of this heat before then."

Worried looks passed among the crew at these words. What were they to do? Just sit there and hope that the Seattle didn't see them? Try to fight it out and get destroyed by the A-22s? The fact that Brett, their commanding officer, the man who was supposed to know what to do in these situations, looked just as helpless as they felt, didn't make them feel much better.

"Brett?" Sugi said.

He took a few deep breaths, running the problem through his head. Until now he'd never really appreciated just what kind of pressure the captain of a ship was put under. What he decided now would make the difference between them living and dying.

"We can't just hope that it'll change course," Brett said, mostly thinking aloud but wanting his crew to hear his thoughts. "They seem to be on a search course. It's unlikely that they'll deviate from it."

"It would seem so," Sugi said.

"Helm, start calculating the minimum amount that we'd have to burn the engines in order to clear them by more than 20,000 kilometers."

"Right," she said, bending to her screen. She worked the numbers for more than three minutes before coming up with an answer. "We'll have to burn at point zero eight G on a course of 139 mark 180 in order to clear that range," she announced.

He shook his head. "That's too damn much," he said. "If we light up the engines that much they'll detect us for sure." He took a few deep breaths, looking around, trying to find some inspiration. Finally, the glimmer of an idea came. It would be risky, but he didn't really see any other option. "Helm, put us on an intercept course towards them. Get us aligned to firing range as quickly as possible using as little engine power as possible."

"An intercept course?" she said doubtfully.

"You heard me," he told her. "If we can't run away from them and we can't hide from them, we'll have to fight them." He pushed a button on his panel. "Torpedo room, get a weapon ready for launch."

Since the ship was already heading almost directly towards them, it didn't take much maneuvering to put them on a collision course. A short burst of the thrusters and a five minute burn at .02G did the trick. The A-22s, which were still circling about, were on the far end of their latest circle as the burn took place and therefore didn't see it.

"Timing is the key here," Brett said, watching as the Seattle grew closer and closer to them. "We have to wait until those 22s have moved far enough past us so that they won't be able to engage us when we start our separation burn. Because once we start that, the whole fleet is going to know we're out here."

"Will we be able to clear the area?" Sugi asked.

Brett gave a worried smile. "We'll have to hope so I guess, won't we?"

The minutes ticked by, the atmosphere on the bridge thick with tension. The A-22s, which were identifiable by the heat of their thrusters and the frequent burns of their main engines, continued to circle about, their distance getting further and further away with each arc that they made. Finally they went beyond 40,000 kilometers, still blind to the enemy ship they had just encircled. There was no way that they could circle back at the speed they were moving without burning up all of their maneuvering fuel.

"Okay," Brett said, "let's get it on here. Sugi, what's the distance to that Seattle?"

"86,000 kilometers and closing rapidly," he replied.

"Got it," Brett said. "Helm, go ahead and dump the waste heat now. We should be safe from detection."

"Dumping," she said, flipping the switch that controlled that.

"Torpedo room," Brett then said into the intercom, "launch tube one immediately. Set detonation for sixty kilometers and get a lock on that thing as quick as you can."

"Launching now," was the response.

Once more the torpedo tube irised open and the hydraulic arm pushed out a weapon into space. It drifted forward, moving slightly faster than the ship, and the laser system achieved a lock on it.

"Sugi," Brett said, "get ready to employ every piece of jamming equipment at your disposal. The moment we light those engines up they're going to see us. It won't be more than a few seconds after that before they try to engage us. Your job will be to make sure that they don't get a laser locked onto us before that torpedo gets on target."

"Right," Sugi said softly, his hands trembling a little as his fingers hovered over the panel.

Brett thought about saying a few last words to the crew, telling them that he had been proud to serve with them in case his plan didn't work out the way he wanted. Instead he kept his words to himself, figuring that it was bad luck to make such a speech.

"Helm," he said, "initiate breakaway maneuver. Turn to new course 180 mark 90."

Mandall swallowed audibly and then punched in the new course. The maneuvering thrusters fired, turning the ship in space. There was no sign that they had been detected from this.

"On course," Mandall told him when the thrusters were finished doing their work.

"Okay," Brett said. "Sounding acceleration alarm." He pushed the button and let the alarm go through its course. When it was finished he looked at Mandall once again. "Full power to the engines," he told her. "Point two-five G."

"Point two-five," she repeated, sliding the computerized dial all the way to the end.

The fusion engines lit a second later, expelling a stream of plasma out the back of the ship and pushing her away from the drifting torpedo. Everyone on board was pushed forcibly downward in his or her seats as gravity returned and the ship began to pick up momentum.

"Active fire control systems coming on line from the Seattle," Sugi reported.

"All jamming systems active, right now!" Brett ordered. "Don't let them get a lock on us or we're dead!"

"Coming on line," Sugi said, his voice breaking just a bit. Nevertheless, he did his job, instructing the powerful transmitters to send a haze of conflicting radar and infrared data out towards the Seattle.

"Torpedo room," Brett said into the intercom. "How's that torp looking?"

"We're still locked on it," was the report. "All systems on line."

"Copy that. Let's pray to God that thing closes and puts that ship out of action. Keep a close eye on it."

"I'm getting laser fire from the Seattle," Sugi reported, watching as the tell-tale flashes came from the target's weapons. "They're firing at us, all weapons. Unknown how close they're coming."

"You'll know when they get too close," Brett said. "Trust me, there will be no mistaking it."

The minutes passed with agonizing slowness. Mermaid picked up speed second by second, moving further and further away from the torpedo she had launched, although the Seattle continued to close on them. Every ten to fifteen seconds the four main lasers of the Seattle would fire one by one, trying desperately to make a hit on the fleeing Owl but unable to make the beam and the ship intersect because of the confusing jamming. Some of the beams passed within a half a kilometer of the ship. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before an impact occurred, either because the Seattle had burned through the jamming or because of blind luck.

"Torpedo range?" Brett asked Hamilton via the intercom.

"22,000 kilometers and closing," was the report. "Just over four and a half minutes to detonation."

"Sugi, any signs that they know the weapon is out there?"

"Nothing yet, Brett," he answered. "All of the fire control systems seemed to be focused on us."

More weapons flashed, sending more laser energy shooting through space. Mermaid's distance from the torpedo continued to grow as her momentum picked up. But the Seattle just kept getting closer and closer and the powerful active systems kept getting more intense. And on the bridge of the ship there was nothing to do but wait. Wait and see if the lasers would find them, wait and see if the Seattle would detect the torpedo and destroy it.

Brett turned on the intercom once again. "All laser teams, get ready to engage. If that torpedo doesn't work we're going to have to slug it out with them."

This thought did not do much to encourage anyone. The weapons lasers on the hull of the Mermaid were enough to take out a crippled ship or to maybe knock out an attack craft, but it would be next to impossible to destroy a huge anti-stealth destroyer with them. Nevertheless, the gun crews manned their terminals and began to sight in on the rapidly approaching target. The lasers themselves were charged up and readied for action.

"Ten thousand kilometers and closing," Hamilton reported. "Two minutes to detonation."

"It looks like they're picking up the torp," Sugi said suddenly. "Two of the fire control radars are shifting target."

"Jamming systems just went active on the torpedo," came Hamilton's voice a second later. "They've got it."

"Hopefully that'll detract their attention from us," Brett said. "Hammy, light up the engine on the torpedo. They know its there now, might as well push it a little faster."

"Lighting it up," he responded.

On the view screen they watched as the huge thermal plume of the torpedo's rocket engine made itself known. It began to close the range even faster. All over the Seattle itself, anti-missile lasers began to fire, sending more flashes of energy onto the display.

"Eight thousand kilometers and closing," Hamilton said. "Detonation in 94 seconds."

"Come on, baby," Brett mumbled, his hands clenched nervously. "Just slip in a little closer."

Suddenly there was a violent jolt, making the entire ship shudder. On the master panel alarms began to blare.

"We've been hit!" Mandall yelled. "We have a hull breach in engineering!"

"Shit," Brett said, flipping on the intercom. "Engineering, report immediately!"

There was no answer at first and Brett had to hail two more times. Finally the voice of Mike Bellingraph, sounding frantic and scared, came on. "We've got a hull rupture in engine room number two," he said. "The engine has been hit as well. Performing an emergency shutdown now. The doors are shut and some of my people are trapped in there!"

"I copy," Brett responded. "Get the engine shut down. Hopefully the crew was able to activate their suits. They'll be okay for now."

"Understood," he said.

"Is engine number one still online?"

"So far, but that blast came awfully close to the main propellant tanks. You'd better check them."

"Checking now," Brett said, looking at Mandall. "How we looking there, helm?"

"I'm showing no loss of pressure," she reported.

"Propellant tanks seem fine," Brett told him. "Get that engine shut down and see if we can salvage it. Report back as soon as you know something."

"Right," Bellingraph said. "I'm on it."

Brett took a deep breath, feeling like things were moving just a little too fast for him to keep up. "Sugi," he said, "how are our jammers doing? Are they still active?"

"Still active," he confirmed. "They're still firing at us. That must've been a lucky hit instead of a burn through."

"Good," he said. "Hammy? You still there?"

"Still here," came his voice. "Torp is now 3200 kilometers out. Engine is still burning. Impact in 36 seconds."

The seconds ticked off one by one. On the display, the symbol representing the torpedo and the larger symbol representing the Seattle continued to close. Frantic flashes of light flared every second or so from the Seattle's position as the laser weapons pulsed out more energy, trying desperately to destroy both the onrushing weapon and the ship that had fired it. Just six seconds before the impact time, another one of the anti-ship lasers got through, striking the aft section of the ship a glancing blow. There was no shudder of impact this time, just another blaring of alarms from the panel.

"Another hit," Bellingraph reported. "Starboard exhaust port has been damaged. Unknown how severe just yet."

Brett simply nodded, his eyes still glued to the display. If the torpedo didn't detonate in the next four or five seconds, it wouldn't really matter how bad the damage to the ship was. The two symbols closed to within a half a centimeter and then there was a sudden flash before they could merge.

"Detonation," Sugi reported, obvious relief in his voice. "Right on target. Sixty kilometers out."

The displays went momentarily dark again as the electromagnetic pulse bombarded the ship and overwhelmed the sensors.

"Sugi," Brett said, "get the systems back on line as quickly as possible. We need to know if that Seattle was destroyed or just crippled or what."

"Going through the restart now," he said.

"Mandall, give me report on the laser damage."

"There's been no hull breach this time," she said. "It doesn't look like it was a direct hit. There's some damage to the rear of the exhaust port but that's the engine that's been shut down from the first strike. I'm showing no venting of gas."

Brett breathed a little easier. "Thank God for small favors."

It took nearly a minute before Sugi was able to get the display back up. It took another minute for him to process the signals that he was receiving and formulate a diagnosis of what was there.

"The ship is still there," he said, "but it's no longer firing, no longer under power. It's drifting on its last course. There are spot heat sources coming from all over it and some other strange readings in the low end."

Brett unbuckled from his seat and walked over, moving carefully in the reduced gravity. He looked at the images for a moment, trying to make some sense out of them. "They're venting," he finally said. "The hot spots are residual heat from the blast. The low end stuff is oxygen and hydrogen streaming out of a hull rupture." He pointed at some of the other spectrums, which should have been active but were not. "And look at this, no electromagnetic energy or engine heat from the aft section. Her engines are dead. She's just drifting, dead in space. It looks like she's slowly spinning around as well, probably because of thrust from the initial rupture."

"So that's a kill then?" Sugi asked carefully.

"It's a kill," he agreed. "Obvious hull rupture in at least one place, a large volume of venting gas, no power or gravity generation. That ship is dead. There might be some of the crew still alive if they managed to get their suits active, but I don't think she's going to be much of a danger to us when she passes."

"So we're safe then?" Hamilton asked hesitantly from her helm panel.

"Assuming that that was really the last ship in the armada, yes, we should be relatively safe. But just to be sure, let's not make ourselves so visible. Cut engine power on the remaining engine immediately. Bring us down to a tenth of a G."

"Right," she said, "reducing the burn to point one zero."

"And then start checking the thrusters one by one to make sure they weren't damaged by the hits. If they all check out, let's get a course change going."

"What course?"

"I'll let you know when I find out how bad the damage is," he told her. "Sugi, get the jammers shut down and let's start looking at the ships again just to make sure that none of them can get into range of us."

"Doing it now," he said, watching as his targeting information began to pop back up on the display one by one.

Things settled down a little over the next few minutes as the crew began to realize that they really were safe. Sugi was able to track that two of the rear screen ships — a destroyer and another Seattle — had turned around and were decelerating at full power to allow the crippled Seattle to catch up to them. But there was no way that they could possibly slow down enough to become a danger to Mermaid in any way. And a check of the area to sunward also showed that no other ships were currently coming towards them. That didn't preclude the possibility that there might be a WestHem controlled Owl drifting out there of course — in fact Brett figured that there probably was one in the vicinity since trailing one was standard WestHem doctrine — but at least they were safe from direct attack.

In the engineering compartment it was revealed that the bulk of the damage to engine number two had been in the exhaust portion. The fusion reactor itself had been undamaged and was still capable of providing power for the electrical and environmental systems. Granted, it would take about a week of repairs at TNB before it could ever provide thrust again, but at least the fueling systems and the propellant tanks themselves were still functional.

It was discovered that four crewmembers had been killed in the engagement, all of them as a result of the first laser blast. Two had been killed by the blast itself, their bodies burned to ashes and bone fragments from the energy. The other two had been blown out of the ship by the hull rupture, hurled through the two-meter hole in the ship and into space by the escaping air and then vaporized by the exhaust plasma coming from the engines. Six other crewmembers were rescued from the decompressed room about twenty minutes later, two of them injured by flying debris, but all alive thanks to their emergency suits. The room itself was sealed shut after the rescue and would be unused for the rest of the trip.

On the display the bridge crew watched silently as the Seattle they had destroyed drifted over the top of them, still moving at 70 kilometers per second, it's front and rear turning end over end, gas still streaming out of it. No laser fire emitted from her weapons. No signs of life were noted at all. Mermaid's laser crews kept their weapons trained on it as it passed, knowing that a single shot would ignite the pocket of hydrogen and oxygen that enveloped the ship, but not firing.

The maneuvering thrusters on Mermaid were all undamaged by the blasts and they were engaged to turn the ship back towards Mars and to raise it a little more towards the planetary elliptic. They accelerated on their good engine at .05 G in order to clear the area where the engagement had taken place. Brett wanted them to get lost in space again in case a WestHem Owl was moving in.

It was two hours after the detonation of the torpedo when the dead Seattle was finally in range of the rescue ships. They watched on the display as the rescue ships moved in and burned their engines to match velocities and dock.

"Well, that's that," Brett said, smoking another cigarette and sipping from his sixth cup of coffee. "If there are any survivors, they'll get them out." He looked over at Sugi. "How are we looking out there otherwise?"

"Nothing showing," he said. "If there's an Owl after us it must be way back in the rear not to have caught up with us yet."

He nodded. "I agree," he said. "My thought is that the entire armada has now passed us by. Good job, folks. Now let's secure from general quarters and start setting up a sleep schedule to get everyone rested up. Our job is done out here. Now we can start heading home. Hopefully the other ships in the operation and the MPG on the surface will make sure that we still have a home to go to."

"Sir," said Rear Admiral Brannigan, "I have word from the rescue crews."

"What is it?" Jules said. It had been nearly three hours since the torpedo had hit the anti-stealth ship Billings. The rescue crews launched from the Topeka had been aboard her for nearly an hour.

"No survivors found," Brannigan told him solemnly. "There are five serious hull ruptures and more than thirty smaller ones. Well over half of the crew is just plain missing, probably blown out into space or vaporized by the pulse. About half of the bodies that were found onboard appeared to have died instantly. They have severe burns to their skin and clothing. The other half... well... they were in the rear of the ship, the part that was shielded from the worst of the blast. They appear to have died from suffocation when their emergency suits ran out of air."

"There were no air pockets, no sealed areas where survivors might be?"

"None, sir," he told him. "That ship was fractured in hundreds, maybe thousands of places. The airtight integrity of all of the compartments was compromised. The rescue crews are trying to collect the bodies and get them aboard their own vessels now."

"I see," Jules said, his hands clenched in rage. "Have them get as many as they can and then place some scuttling charges on that ship to fragment it. It shouldn't be that hard to do with that cloud of unburned propellant and oxygen floating around it." He didn't mention that that same cloud also made rescue operations extremely dangerous.

"Yes sir," Brannigan said. "It should be done within the next few hours."

"What about that Owl the greenies are using?" he asked next. "Any further sign of it?"

"No sir. Once they cut their engine power after the engagement, we lost them. I imagine they've altered course by now and are well clear of the last known position. In any case, we're well beyond them now."

Jules shook his head in anger and frustration. "They'll pay for this," he vowed. "When we retake that planet we'll open an investigation into this incident. We'll get the names of every person that was aboard that ship and they'll all be tried for terrorist acts and murder."

"Yes sir," Brannigan said, with real emotion this time. He couldn't wait for that day, the day he could stare at the greenies who had destroyed three of his ships and killed more than fifty thousand men and had somehow — against all odds — managed to elude capture or destruction.

"I've sent a report off to Earth on this latest incident," Jules said with a grimace. "I can assure you that the executive council is not going to be happy about it. But they will at least be thrilled to hear that the immediate danger has passed. They blindsided us somehow but there's no way that they can catch up to us now."

"What are we going to say happened to the Billings?" Brannigan asked. "To the public that is?"

"I suggested that we tell the public a crew error with one of the torpedoes caused an accidental detonation. Since the relay of signals to Jupiter is now in effect it'll be another hour or two before I get approval of that. But my guess is that is what we'll go with. It's neutral. Blames it on a human error instead of saying that something malfunctioned in the engine or the fueling system. The shipbuilders are sponsors of two of the executive council after all. We can't go saying their products are defective."

"I see," Brannigan said. "And... well..."

"What is it?"

"Well sir, are you sure that we can keep the real reason for the losses under wraps? There were a lot of men involved in hunting down that Owl. The pilots and the gunners on the A-22s, the CIC crews on all of the rear guard ships. They all know that we were tracking a WestHem Owl and that torpedoes were launched."

"It'll leak to a certain extent," Jules said. "I'll agree that there's no way to prevent that. And I'm sure that the reporters on board have already gotten wind of what really happened. You know how those people are. But the people who control what actually gets reported won't allow any of those rumors to be broadcast on the Internet in any form. They'll keep their reporters under control. That's how the system works."

"And what happens if there are more losses?"

"More losses?" Jules scoffed. "How would that happen? We're well beyond that ship now. We've already been over this."

"What if there are more of them out there?"

Jules actually laughed at this notion. "Don't be ridiculous," he told his underling. "It was a stretch beyond imagination for those greenies to get even one ship operational and deployed. There's no way in hell that they could possibly have another one out there."

"You're probably right, sir," Brannigan said. "But all the same, I'd like to initiate a full combat space patrol and have all active sensors on all ships constantly on for the rest of the voyage. With your permission of course."

Jules thought this over for a second, his instinct telling him to deny the request as alarmist and as a certain waste of precious fuel. But it really didn't hurt to be prudent, did it? "Why not?" he finally said. "Go ahead and initiate that. Just be sure that those crews are briefed to keep their damn mouths shut about what they're doing."

"Yes sir," Brannigan said. "I'll make sure."

Onboard the Mammoth that night, Lieutenant Callahan and his platoon were all in their bunks, most dressed in nothing but their underwear. It was fifteen minutes before the official lights out period and all of the men were staring intently at the Internet screen, watching as Admiral Jules, the commander of the naval portion of Red Hammer, delivered a briefing on the events that had occurred that day. Although the news reports of the deaths and the explosions of the ships had been going on almost non-stop for the past three hours, this was the first official word on just what had happened.

"Our preliminary findings," Jules was telling the solar system, "based on interviews with the combat information center staff and review of the computer records of the events, seem to indicate that the collision between the Camel and the Mule, the two Panama class transports, was caused by a maneuvering error aboard Camel. It appears that the helm operator on that ship, for whatever reason, burned the engines for far too long during a routine position shift and then was unable to correct his course before the impact happened."

"That is a bunch of fucking bullshit!" yelled Sergeant Mallory. "Can you fuckin believe that they're feeding us that shit?"

"Easy, Mallory," Callahan said soothingly. "All we've been hearing are rumors. Just because someone told you that the greenies torpedoed those ships doesn't mean its true. That's why Jules is giving the briefing now, to clear up those rumors."

"You don't actually believe that shit do you, LT?" Mallory asked. "Jesus Christ, you know as well as I do that Mule and Camel weren't anywhere near each other in the formation!"

Callahan sighed. Yes, he did know that. Until about three hours before, the exact configuration of the ships in the armada had been available on the open Internet by doing an active search. It was part of the briefing material that the public relations department of the Navy had uploaded to their official site. But now — now that two transports and an anti-stealth ship were mysteriously erased from existence — those configurations were gone. And as hard as Callahan wanted to believe that a simple accident had killed nearly 40,000 of his comrades in deep space, it just wouldn't fly.

"So that," Jules continued, "is what we have found so far regarding this unbelievable catastrophe. Of course our investigation is far from complete in this manner, and we will of course look at every possible circumstance surrounding this event, but at this time it appears that those are the facts of the matter." He paused, as if overwhelmed with the emotion of the moment. "And at the same time, I also have preliminary findings on the explosion aboard the Billings, which I'm sure that most of you have heard reports of us well. It appears, based on findings by the brave rescue personnel that went aboard her after the explosion, that one of the torpedoes was being worked on in the maintenance section of the ship and that somehow the conventional explosive that sets off the nuclear warhead of the torpedo was detonated. This did not — I repeat, did not — cause a nuclear detonation of any kind. What it did was cause a rupture of the propellant tanks, which in turn caused gross damage to the hull and the structural integrity of the vessel. I am shocked and saddened to report that all hands were lost here as well."

"More fuckin bullshit," Mallory said in disgust. "The goddamn torpedoes aren't stored anywhere near the propellant tanks. No ship does that. So how the hell did the explosion make them rupture?"

Callahan didn't even bother telling him to pipe down this time. Any marine who had ever served aboard a ship before knew that what he was saying was true. There was some more grumbling and cries of disbelief as the briefing went on and Jules continued to explain about the collision of the two vessels that had been separated by nearly ten thousand kilometers of space, and about the explosion aboard Billings that had somehow managed to avoid detonating the nuclear package but had somehow ripped open the fuel tanks while still leaving enough evidence behind for the investigators to determine this. It was when Jules opened the floor to questions however that things really started to get out of control.

Not a single reporter asked about the rumor of an attack by greenies in control of a stealth attack ship. There was no way that the reporters could have not heard that rumor. The marines were in the middle of a landing ship, cut completely off from the naval command, and they had heard the rumors. How could the reporters not ask anything about them? The closest they came was when one of them — a pretty young thing from InfoServe — asked if there was any sort of connection between the collision of Mule and Camel and the explosion aboard Billings.

"At this time," Jules answered with a perfectly straight face, "there does not appear to be any sort of connection at all. These are just two tragic events — the most tragic since the Jupiter War itself — that coincidentally happened to strike the navy and the marines on the same day. This day will go down as one of the darkest in our proud history of course, all the more darker because the thousands of brave men that gave their lives on this day did not give them in battle but because of a series of accidents."

"Christ," even Callahan muttered at this speech. "This is getting pretty thick here."

"Why can't they just tell the truth, LT?" a young private asked. "Why don't they just say that the fuckin greenies managed to get one in?"

Callahan didn't answer.

On the screen, another reporter asked, "Will the events of this day effect the mission on Mars?"

"Well obviously," Jules said, "there will be a few less troops and equipment that are able to participate in the mission. And though this is more General Wrath's department than mine, I can say with assurance that our mission will go on despite the tragedy and loss of life. We will still land the marines on schedule and they will still retake that planet from the control of the terrorist factions that have taken over it. I can give you my solemn word on that."

"You hear that, guys?" Mallory said. "He gives us his solemn word! Doesn't that make you all feel better?"

Chapter 11

MPG Base, Eden

July 24, 2146

The office of Major Frank Jorgenson overlooked the flight line. Down below, on the floor, ground crews were busy doing pre-flight inspections on a group of Mosquitoes that would soon be launched on a training mission. Up above, Jorgenson himself, commander of the 27th Attack squadron, was sitting behind his small desk, his Internet terminal showing a screen saver of vaguely pornographic images. Standing before the desk, dressed in his uniform shorts and T-shirt, was Brian Haggerty.

Brian was not in the least bit happy. "It's bad enough that you took Rendes away from me after we'd been flying together for almost two years," he told his commanding officer. "You already know how I feel about that."

"Yes, Haggerty," Jorgenson said with a sigh. "We've been through that quite enough I think. We had to break up the experienced aircrews so we could pair up some of the newbies with the veterans. That's all there is to it. Rendes is now in the 24th."

"I'm down with that," Brian said. "Like I said, I don't like it, but I've accepted it. But what you've done now..." He shook his head angrily. "I'm sorry, Frank, but it's just not acceptable."

"You would be referring to your new sis, I assume?" Jorgenson asked dryly.

"Of course I'm referring to that! Did you think I was talking about the fucking food in the mess hall?"

Jorgenson let the impertinence pass. He and Haggerty did go back a long way after all. "Okay," he said. "Let's get this over with. What's wrong with him? He graduated third in the training class on navigation skills and second on gunnery. He's fully qualified to fly in that Mosquito with you. So what's the problem?"

"What's the problem?" Brian almost hissed. "He's vermin! That's what the fucking problem is. He's a lowlife, gang member piece of shit and I will not fly with him. There's no way in hell. I'll fucking resign first!"

"You'll resign before you fly with Mendez?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Goddamn right I will," he said. "If you can't give me Rendes then I demand a sis who knows what its like to hold a goddamn job at least."

Jorgenson cracked his knuckles thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair and appraising his pilot for a moment. This was of course not the first such conversation that he'd had along these lines — on the contrary, there had been many, particularly from the experienced systems operators who didn't want to fly with a novice pilot — but this was by far the most heartfelt. Haggerty's hatred of the unemployed class went far beyond what most projected, even for a police officer. Jorgenson even knew the story of why he hated them so much, how a group of gang members had raped and killed his pregnant wife. But at the same time, he had a squadron to run, time was getting very short before the Earthlings arrived, and order were orders.

"Is that the way it's going to be then?" he asked. "Either Mendez goes or you go?"

"That's right," Brian said.

"Okay then," he said. "I'll start processing your resignation immediately."

The smug look that had appeared on Brian's face suddenly disappeared, being quickly replaced by one of disbelief. "What the hell are you talking about?" he asked.

Jorgenson ignored him and turned his Internet terminal towards him. "Computer, access personnel files," he said.

"Accessing," the computer responded.

"Frank, what are you doing?" Brian said, alarmed.

"I'm changing your status in the computer," he told him. "Will you be resigning from the service completely, or would you like me to just remove your flight status and find you a support position? You'd probably be a good help in the logistics..."

"You can't do that!"

"You just told me that you would resign before you would fly with Mendez, didn't you? Well Mendez has been assigned to your aircraft and he is not going to be removed from it. So that means you're going to have to be the one to go. So how about that logistics position? We'd really hate to completely lose..."

"Goddammit, turn that fucking computer off," Brian told him.

"Oh?" Jorgenson said. "Are we changing our mind? I wouldn't want you to compromise your ideals here."

"Fuck off," he said angrily. "I withdraw my resignation. But listen..."

"No, Brian, you listen," he cut in. "Don't ever try to bluff me with that shit again. The next time you come in here ranting and threatening to quit if you don't get your way, I'll kick your ass right the hell out of here. We have about three weeks until the WestHem marines establish orbit. I have an entire squadron full of flight crews that need to learn to work together before that occurs. I don't have time for this shit and I won't stand for it. Is that clear?"

"Yes," he said, fuming. "It's clear."

"Now Mendez is your sis. Period. End of story. You have three training missions a day scheduled for the next two weeks before we do a final stand down for maintenance. You'd goddamn well better find a way to put aside the problems you have with him or you're both going to end up splattered across a mountainside out there in the wastelands. I'm sure Mendez isn't any more thrilled than you are that he's been paired with a cop. But he hasn't been in her threatening me or bitching at me. So get your ass out there and run your mission like a good little pilot, okay?"

"Fine," he spat, turning on his heels and heading for the door.

"Brian," Jorgenson called when he was three steps away.

He turned to look.

"I'd accommodate you if I could. You have to know that. But there's simply not enough time to go changing things now. If I reassign your sis, I'll have ten crews in here in the next hour wanting to do the same thing. So don't take it personal, okay? It's not becoming."

Brian stared at him for a moment and then turned back around. The door slid obediently open in front of him. He walked through it without another word.

The mission planning room was a large, windowless office located directly adjacent to the ready room. It had small desks arranged in a manner so that as many flight teams as possible could occupy the space at the same time. Each desk had an oversize computer screen mounted on swivels so that it could be turned back and forth. As Brian entered the room the rest of the squadron was already in there, each flight team sitting together and going over the maps of the training area and planning their upcoming missions. The babble of conversation echoed through the room as the pilots and system operators discussed the best means of attacking the MPG column that was to be their target for the day.

Brian found Mendez sitting at one of the desks, a digital satellite shot of the training ground on the screen before him. Mendez, like all of the other flight crewmembers, including Brian himself, was dressed in the standard issue MPG red shorts and white T-shirt. He was smoking a cigarette thoughtfully as he traced over the landscape on the screen with his finger, highlighting certain areas. Brian felt himself seething with hatred as he looked at him, as he took in the Capitalist tattoo that was plainly visible on his arm. Not so long before he had been throwing vermin like that into jail. Now he was supposed to fly with one? To trust his life to him?

With another grunt of disgust we walked over and sat down in the chair next to him.

"Hey, boss," Mendez said. "Where you been? Have to take a big shit or somethin?"

"Where I was is not any of your concern," he said shortly.

Mendez stared at him for a second, hostility flashing in his face for an instant and then disappearing. He shrugged. "I guess not," he said. "Anyway, I started the mission plan while you was gone. I got a prelim path through the southern part of the range about sixty klicks from the target area. I think that the category four hills and ridges will give us good coverage for the..."

"I don't really care what you think," Brian cut in, grabbing the computer screen and turning it towards himself. "Computer, purge current document and set up a new one."

"Say what?" Mendez said.

"Confirming that you wish to purge the current document?" the computer asked.

"Computer, confirmed," Brian said. "Get rid of it and open a new one." A moment later the map and the tracings that Mendez had completed disappeared and was replaced by a blank view of the area.

"What the fuck did you do that for?" Mendez demanded. "I had a goddamn prelim path already completed!"

"Like I'm going to trust my life to any flight path that you've worked on," Brian spat. "No thanks. I'll figure out my own flight path to the target area if you don't mind."

"You didn't even fucking look at it," Mendez said. "I worked on that thing for half an hour while you were off jerking your missile somewhere."

"As I said," Brian told him, "my whereabouts were not your concern. And I don't really give a shit how long you worked on it, I'm not flying any path that you've come up with."

"We only got forty-five more minutes until wheels up," Mendez said. "And I was doing what I'm supposed to do. I'm the sis, remember? I'm responsible for..."

"Get this straight, newbie," he said. "You're not responsible for shit on my aircraft. I'll come up with the flight plan. I'll fly the goddamned plane. You will sit your ass in the back seat, keep your fucking mouth shut, and shoot at the targets when I get us into the target area. That is all that you will do. Is that clear?"

"That ain't how its supposed to work," Mendez told him.

"Well that's the way its gonna work on my aircraft. Now just sit your ass over there and shut up until its time to fly."

Mendez' hands clenched into fists and it seemed for a second that he was going to throw a punch at Brian. Brian sincerely hoped that he would. He would then have an excuse to kick the vermin's ass into the ground. He would also have an excuse to have him thrown out of the MPG. But Mendez didn't rise to the occasion. He simply took a few deep breaths and then slumped back in his chair.

"You're the boss, boss," he said through gritted teeth. "But you'd better get crackin I think. We got about twenty minutes until we hit the ready room."

They roared into the red Martian sky an hour later, Brian's hastily assembled flight plan programmed into the navigation computer. Matt tried reading off altitude and upcoming heading changes to him over the intercom — something that had been drilled into him in training — but Brian only told him to shut his ass again.

"I've got the nav references on my HUD," he said dryly as he leveled them off at 1000 meters. "I don't want to hear anything out of you until the target area, and even then the only thing I want to know is when your weapon is discharged."

Matt's glare burned into the back of his head through the cockpit partition. "Is it okay to breathe back here, boss? Or is that too noisy for you too?"

"You're talking, newbie," Brian said. "You can breathe, piss, shit, jack off, or do whatever the hell else you want back there. Just don't talk."

"You can't fly a mission this way, Haggarty," Matt told him.

"Oh? Are you basing that statement on your years of flight experience or on the superior education that you received in Helvetia Heights? Or is it maybe a combination of both?"

"It's common sense, asshole," he said. "Remember common sense? Its the thing we're supposed to be fighting for here?"

"Yeah, I remember it. And General Jackson showed a distinct lack of that factor when he let you vermin in the MPG. Now keep your mouth shut or I just might accidentally eject your ass over the Sierra Madres."

Matt fumed but did as he was told and kept quiet. Brian continued to fly without verbal input from his system operator and using a flight plan that had been put together far too quickly. It wasn't very long before things started to go wrong.

Brian descended the aircraft to 200 meters and streaked along the uneven surface towards the mountain peaks. He dropped down another 100 meters just before passing between two of the peaks. He cut hard to the right, his hands and feet manipulating the controls, his eyes watching the guidance carrot on the display in front of him as it moved back to center. He straightened the plane, flew onward for another fifteen seconds, and then the carrot suddenly swung back to the left. With no warning of the upcoming course change, he was forced to react strongly, pulling them into a turn of nearly four times the force of gravity. He then had to scramble to level the plane back on its course. Just as he did, the next turn came up, forcing him to cut hard to the right.

"Goddamn, Haggarty," Brian grunted as he was slammed up against his restraints and his G-suit squeezed forcefully on his legs. "You're gonna lose it if you keep this shit up!"

Brian didn't answer him. He simply pulled into the next turn, forcing another three and a half G's on them and missing the side of one of the mountains by less than half a kilometer. He could feel himself tense up uncomfortably. For the first time in hundreds of flight hours, it seemed like he was fighting to control the plane instead of reacting as if it were a part of his body. He spun them around another one of the mountains and then was flying high above a valley. Within two seconds the instruments began to pick up the tones of active search systems.

"You're too goddamned high!" Matt yelled in frustration. "They're getting a hit on us!"

"Shit," Brian muttered, pushing down on the stick and putting them into a steep dive. He pulled up just 50 meters above the valley floor, leveling out. The tones went silent once again but before he could even take a breath of relief, the next turn was suddenly upon him, forcing him to cut sharply right. This had him aimed directly at another mountain.

"You're off course now," Matt said, real fear in his voice for the first time. "Pull up!"

Brian, seeing the large red mountain looming in his view, acted more out of instinct than anything else. He pulled up and cut to the right, putting the plane through a narrow gap in a ridgeline, the left wingtip missing the side of the mountain by less than thirty meters this time. The tones from the ESM set began again as soon as they were clear.

"Way off course now," Matt said, his hands gripping the armrest. "And they've got a solid hit on us with a search set. Probable detection."

"I know what the fuck that means!" Brian yelled at him as he tried to dive back down out of the coverage. "Shut your ass while I get us back on course."

"You wouldn't be off course in the first place if you'd let me do my fucking job!"

"I said shut up!" he said, cutting hard left again, trying desperately to get the carrot to swing back towards the center. It refused to do so. They were now well off their path and there were too many mountains between them and the route back to it.

"We're off course, Haggarty," Matt told him. "I need to go manual and plot us a new path or we're never gonna find the targets."

"You're not plotting shit," Brian told him. "Computer, switch to manual mode and give me an overlay of the terrain on my HUD. Make sure that the course path is marked on it."

"What in the hell are you doing?" Matt demanded. "The only time you're supposed to put a course overlay up is if your sis is incapacitated. That's a fucking emergency measure."

"I said shut up!" Brian said. "You say another word and I'm cutting your goddamn intercom off!" In front of him, a faint outline of the surrounding terrain appeared, partially obscuring the windscreen. The course that he had plotted to the target area was marked in red. The blip in the center of the view, which was what represented their current position, was now more than thirty kilometers from that line.

"You can't run a mission this way, Haggarty," Matt said. "The map overlay is just so you can find your way clear if I get hit."

Brian ignored him, knowing deep down that his inexperienced, vermin system operator was right, but not wanting to admit it. He couldn't divert his attention away from the terrain they were flying through long enough to figure out a path back to his course. To take his eyes off of the mountains and ridges even for a second would cause him to fly into one of them. Still, he tried for almost a minute, turning and diving, banking and leveling, his hands and feet moving automatically, the aircraft rising and falling, pushing them back and forth.

"You're gonna kill us, you asshole!" Matt said in terror. Though he had long since gotten over the motion sickness that he had experienced early in training, he felt it returning to him now, a swelling nausea in his stomach as the G-forces slammed him this way and that, as rocky hills flashed by on both sides.

They got no closer to their target area or their course. They just went further and further into the mountain range, where the terrain became even more dangerous. Finally Brian was forced to acknowledge that this was getting him nowhere. With a frustrated sigh he pulled up and put on power, putting the plane into a steep climb. Within seconds they were above the highest of the mountain peaks and the ESM was beeping steadily.

"They've got a lock on us," Matt said disgustedly from the back seat.

"No shit," Brian said.

"And they've got a clear line of sight. If those would've been Earthlings they'd be blasting our asses out of the fuckin sky right now."

"Well, they're not Earthlings though, are they?" he responded, keying his radio transmitter. "Flight Alpha 7, aborting mission and returning to base."

"Flight Alpha 7?" the controller back at the MPG base asked, alarm in her voice. "Your status? Are you declaring an emergency?"

"Negative," he said, flipping on the transponder switch. "We're not declaring an emergency. We just need a vector back to the landing pattern. We were unable to complete our mission."

"I copy," she said slowly. "I have your transponder now. Your course is 95. Please maintain Angels zero-eight until the pattern."

Twenty minutes later, the aircraft was touching down on the runway and rolling towards the airlock. Twenty minutes after that, Brian and Matt were in their shorts and T-shirts once again and standing in Major Jorgenson's office giving him a debriefing on their aborted mission.

Brian was basically an honest person, not prone to assigning blame to others. True to his personality, he did not try to field the blame for what happened on Mendez. He told the exact truth in a sterile, monotone voice while Jorgenson listened in disbelief.

"So you're telling me," Jorgenson summarized when he was finished, "that you refused to let your sis participate in planning the mission?"

"Yes," he agreed.

"And that you threw together a flight course of your own in twenty minutes?"

"Yes."

"And that once you were up in the air, you refused to receive navigation inputs from your sis, refused to allow him to manually guide you back on course once you strayed from it, and that you actually tried to continue a mission on pilot manual mode?"

Brian swallowed nervously, realizing, now that Jorgenson was saying it back to him, how asinine his behavior had been. "Yes," he said.

Jorgenson looked over at Matt. "Is that the way it happened, newbie?" he asked him.

"Well... uh..." he started, his voice hesitant. One of the unwritten rules that had been pounded into the students during training was that what happened in the cockpit stayed in the cockpit. As a former gang member, Matt understood this code well. Even if Haggarty was a raving asshole and a cop to boot, he had no desire to squeal on him. "I'm not sure if... that is to say that maybe it wasn't... uh..."

But Jorgenson wasn't having any of this. "Don't you try to soft-pedal what happened for this asshole," he said. "I just want a straight answer. Is that what happened?"

"Yes," Matt admitted.

Jorgenson put his fingertips to his temples and massaged for a moment. He then looked at Brian. "I honestly don't believe what I'm hearing here, Brian. I've known you for years and you're one of the best pilots that we have. And now you come in here and you tell me that you just violated no less than five rules of flight, that you decided that you could disregard basic navigation and attack tactics, that you risked your aircraft and your highly trained lives. What in the hell were you thinking? What in the hell were you doing?"

"All I can say, Frank is that I have a personality conflict with my sis. I don't trust him to navigate me or to plot courses for me."

"A personality conflict?" Jorgenson said. "A personality conflict? How in the hell can you have a personality conflict with a man you just met today? You've spent less than three hours with him and you haven't said anything to him in that entire time except to tell him to shut up and to call him a few nasty names."

"We already had a discussion about why I have a personality conflict," Brian said. "And you'll recall that I asked for a reassignment."

"And you'll recall that I denied it," Jorgenson said. "And I'm sure you'll also recall why I denied it. We simply don't have time for this kind of shit, Brian." He looked at Matt. "You're vermin, right Mendez?"

"Yep," Mendez confirmed.

"That's why he don't like you. You've probably picked up on that, right?"

"I didn't think it was because of the way I dressed."

"And did you know that Haggarty here is a cop?"

"Yeah, I knew that."

"And do you, being vermin, have a great love for our men and women in blue?"

"No," he said.

"In fact, you probably hate all fucking cops, don't you?"

"Yeah, actually I do."

Jorgenson nodded. "But you're willing to work with Haggarty here, aren't you? You were willing to put that aside and fly with him in the interests of killing some Earthlings, weren't you?"

"I was," he said. "I'm not sure about that now after that flight we just had."

"Well, let's leave that alone for the moment to keep from detracting from my main point." He shifted his gaze back to Brian. "You told me that you don't trust him to navigate for you or to plot courses, right?"

"That's right."

"Because he's vermin?"

"Yes. Because he's vermin."

"But other than the fact that he's vermin, and that he used to be in the Capitalists, you don't know a damn thing about him, do you?"

"I know what vermin are like," he said. "I've been working the streets for ten years and I've seen ten thousand pieces of shit like him. I don't need to get to know him personally."

"Well, Brian, in this case, you're wrong. You do need to get to know him personally because he's your goddamned sis. He's probably seen ten thousand cops in his life and knows what all cops are like, yet he's willing to work with you. He didn't come in this office bitching at me before he even talked to you. He strapped into a plane with you and let you fly him through the Sierra Madres Mountains at three hundred meters. He gave you a chance, you see, and I might add that you probably haven't changed his image on what assholes cops are. You, on the other hand, did not give him a chance. Instead, you risked his life and yours because you let your pre-conceived notions override your common sense. Didn't you?"

Brian opened his mouth to protest, but couldn't think of anything to support such a position. "Yeah," he finally muttered. "I guess I did."

"Now you two get your asses out there in that mission planning room and you start working on your next mission. And Brian, if you discover some concrete reason why Mendez shouldn't be in that aircraft navigating and shooting for you, than you come back and we'll talk. I'm talking about something real, not the piddling little mistakes that all the newbies make, and you know goddamn well what they are. You are to give this newbie a fair chance. That's a fucking order, do you understand?"

"I understand," he said.

"Good. Now I don't expect you two to be bong-hit buddies or anything like that, but I do expect that you do your jobs. Now go do them, and there better not be any more aborted missions."

The briefing room was about half filled with crews that were already in the midst of planning their second missions. They found a terminal at a desk near the back and sat down at it. Brian called up their next mission assignment, which was yet another hit and run attack on the column, although in a different part of the mountains. They both stared at the map for a while, neither of them talking, neither of them doing anything. Finally Matt made a hesitant first suggestion.

"How about initial entry in this sector?" he asked, pointing to one of the narrow valleys on the western side of the range. "The bulk of the row of mountains here will block detection and we'll be able to stay at 400 AGL for most of the ride."

Brian wanted to disregard the suggestion immediately, simply because the vermin had been the one to come up with it. He felt his mouth opening to say something acid, felt his hand wanting to reach up and twist the terminal away. But, heeding Jorgenson's words, he restrained himself. He took a deep breath and looked over that point on the map in relation to their target area. And even though he did find fault with the plan, he knew that it was not incompetence on Mendez' part that had formed the basis of it. "I think that over here would be a better place," he said, pointing to another gap about thirty kilometers to the north.

Matt's eyes flashed hostility again. He too wanted to say something acid. He too restrained himself. "What's wrong with my spot?" he asked, his voice even and level.

"It's too damn obvious, that's what's wrong with it."

"Too obvious?"

Goddammit, why do I have to explain things to this vermin? Brian's mind screamed at him in anger. Another part of his brain however, knew that what Mendez had suggested was a simple mistake of inexperience, something that any newbie would do. "Look," he said, putting his finger on the spot and tracing out a route, "it's a good entry for a nice easy ride and for good cover from the main formation. That's what makes it too obvious. Any competent commander who knows he's going to be hit with Mosquitoes will send a scout team or two right into this valley in an APC. Those APC's will be equipped with passive infrared and twin anti-air laser cannons. If we come screaming up that valley heading for the IP at 400 AGL, they'll pot us right out of the sky. We need to stay away from that broad valley as much as we can. The ride will be a little bumpier, but we'll get there in one piece."

"I didn't know they sent out scouts," Matt said, not sure whether to believe him or not.

"Why in the hell would you know that? You're a goddamn newbie. You learn things by making mistakes. You haven't been here long enough to make any yet."

Matt thought that over for a moment, trying to figure out if he was being insulted or not and finally concluding that he wasn't. "Okay," he said at last. "I get you."

"If we were hitting the actual Earthlings in this spot and if they hadn't dealt with our Mosquitoes yet, that's exactly where I'd head. But we're dealing with Colonel Chin today, and Chin is a veteran of our tactics and his goal in life is to make our jobs hard for us."

"Shouldn't we be training for what the Earthlings are gonna be like instead of what our own commanders are gonna be like?"

"The Earthlings will learn fast once they land and we spank them a few times. They'll never be as competent as Chin at taking us down and predicting what we're going to do, but they'll also be using fully charged weapons instead of training charges. So don't you think its best to train for the worst case instead of for the best?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "I guess that makes sense."

"So here's where we'll go in," Brian said, pointing to his spot again. "We scream in low, hang a hard right at this ridge here, and work our way through these smaller valleys on the west side of the range until we're almost directly across from the target area. We don't cross that valley until we absolutely have to. Hell, we don't even get within ten klicks of it if we can avoid it."

"All right," Matt said, leaning a little closer to the screen. "Let's figure it out then."

"Right," Brian said, leaning a little closer himself. Soon, the both of them were tracing different routes through the western section of the mountains, zooming in on sections, and marking them down on their flight path. Before long both were completely absorbed in their task and almost forgot that they hated each other.

They made their second training flight two hours later. This time Matt was allowed to do his job. He called out course changes to Brian and kept him updated on his position. They only strayed off of their projected course twice and both times Matt was able to go to manual mode and quickly navigate them back onto it. When they reached the target area the initial attack run went flawlessly. They appeared over the travel corridor like an apparition and Matt identified a formation of APCs and hit two of them with the laser in less than four seconds. They disappeared back into the safety of the mountains a second later, long before any of Colonel Chin's men could lock an anti-aircraft laser onto them. Matt then switched back to manual mode and was able to guide them around two more times for follow up attacks, hitting two more APCs and a tank.

"Not bad, newbie," Brian grunted at him as they made their egress from the area.

"Thanks," Matt responded.

"Of course you still got a lot to learn."

"Never said I didn't," he said. "But I think this mission went a little better than the last one, didn't it?"

"Yeah," he said. "I suppose it did. Now how about plotting us a course back? We still have one more mission before we stand down for the day."

July 26, 2146

Sector Bravo-7, 60 kilometers west of Eden

The hill stood 234 meters above the surrounding terrain and was nearly a kilometer in diameter at the base. Four APC's, all with the WestHem Marines emblem painted over and the Martian Flag stenciled on instead, rolled slowly up to the base of it on the south side and stopped. While gunners stood by at their mounted weapons, the back doors of the vehicles opened and ten fully equipped and bio-suited soldiers climbed out of each one, their weapons in hands. They quickly formed a defensive perimeter away from the APC's, weapons pointed outward and ready to engage any targets they found. Of course they knew that they wouldn't find any targets out here since the training mission they were engaged upon had not yet started, but their lieutenant insisted that they treat every drill as if it were the real thing.

"Clear," said Sergeant Walker, the second-in-command of third platoon of Baker company of the 1st Battalion of the fledgling 17th Armored Cavalry Regiment. The entire 1st of the 17th was engaged in this particular drill, which was designed to be a realistic simulation of the situation that they would soon be encountering with the approaching WestHem marines.

"I copy clear," said Lieutenant Fernandez, the platoon commander. He slowly got to his feet, looking over his assembled troops with a practiced eye. They were not exactly in perfect formation, but they were better than they had been a few days before. At least if they had been fired on they might've been able to return it with some effectiveness. "On your feet, platoon," he told them.

One by one they stood up. Jeff Waters, who had been tasked with a squad automatic weapon today, flipped on the safety and slung it over the shoulder of his biosuit. He took a few breaths of the manufactured air and then flipped down the water dispensing straw with his tongue and had a small drink. He was facing back towards Eden and he could see the distant high rises poking up over the horizon. Next to him was Hicks, his constant nemesis, and the man who always seemed to be on his heel or in front of him. Hicks was looking at the buildings too.

"We're way in the hell out here," Hicks said whimsically.

"Missing you mommy?" Jeff asked him.

"No, missing yours. She always did have the tightest pussy."

Jeff let that one go. In truth the banter between them had evolved to the point where it was almost friendly in nature. Now when they were actually mad at each other they didn't talk at all.

"Waters and Hicks," said Fernandez, "if you two are done with your little chat, maybe we could proceed with the briefing, huh?"

"Sorry, LT," Jeff said.

"Go ahead, LT," said Hicks.

"Thank you," Fernandez said. "Now then. What we're standing at the base of is Hill 678. It is one of many hills that overlooks the main route that an attacking enemy will use to approach the west side of Eden which, as I'm sure you're aware, is where both the spaceport and the MPG base are located. Ladies and gentlemen, this is where the battle is going to take place. This is where first contact with the WestHem marines is going to occur. This series of hills that stretches twenty some-odd kilometers from north to south, is our first line of defense.

"Now hopefully the special forces teams will whittle their numbers down a bit before they get here. And I'm sure that you've also heard rumor that we've formed a Navy of sorts and that even as we speak they are out there knocking off a few of those transports for us."

"You mean that those ships didn't just collide with each other?" asked Hicks, to the amusement of all. The official WestHem explanation for the destroyed transport ships and the fact that the ships that had collided had not really been anywhere near each other in the formation was not something that had escaped the notice of the Martian people. Though the interim Martian government refused to comment on the events, it was a known fact that a number of the Owls that had been captured at Triad Naval Base were no longer docked there.

"Be that as it may," Fernandez continued, "our job out here is to train for the worst case scenario and the worst case scenario is that an entire army is going to be marching towards this line, equipped with tanks, APCs, and heavy hover and artillery support. We have an understrength division of inexperienced troops to hold that off. Our task is to keep them away from Eden. We, the dismounted infantry, will play a key role in that task. We will occupy this hill, along with Lieutenant Zander's platoon of anti-armor troops. Zander and his people will use their shoulder fired AT-lasers to blast the armor that approaches. This will force the WestHems to take this hill away from us before they can move through this section in safety. That is what we are here to prevent.

"Now the enemy will pound us with heavy artillery, mortars, and hover attacks. But the only way that they can actually take this hill away from us is to march their own dismounted infantry up here and occupy our positions. Our part of the battle will be nothing different than what our great-great-great grandfathers did back in World War III on Earth. We will engage in gunfights from our high ground and our trenches with armed men trying to move upward on us. It will be warfare brought down to its most basic level. We're the grunts people, the dogfaces, the doughboys, the whatever-the-hell-you-want-to-call-us. And this is where we're going to make our first stand against them.

"So what we're out here to do today is to practice this ancient art of warfare. We are but one hill among many on this line of approach. The entire 1st of the 17th is going to go up against the entire 16th ACR, our most experienced and oldest MPG unit. Even as we speak, they are out there in the wastelands, moving in on us. This will be the most comprehensive and realistic exercise that we've performed so far. So let's get ourselves up that hill, get our training rounds loaded, and start doing what soldiers do best: waiting for the opposition to arrive."

One by one, in a loose formation and moving rapidly, the men and women of third platoon moved up the hill and occupied the trenches that had been dug there long before.

The training battle raged for almost forty hours. Though the 16th ACR, under the command of Colonel Chin, took heavy simulated casualties from the 1st of the 17th, they pushed them methodically off of each hill, clearing an open path westward. The remnants of the 1st battalion fell back to other hills and fought on, inflicting more casualties as they made a new stand but were soon pushed even further backwards. When it was all said and done, the western edge of Eden fell to the 16th ACR and the bulk of the 1st Battalion were either simulated casualties or simulated POWs.

Thought they lost the exercise, and though the men and women who had stayed awake for nearly two days, firing thousands of helium-filled projectiles down at the their attackers, were dispirited by the apparent ease with which they were dislodged, their commanders were quite pleased. The exercise had been designed to be nearly impossible to win, with every advantage going to the attacker. Now the 1st of the 17th had a taste of what battle would be like, the unpredictability of it, the mind-numbing fatigue of it, and most important of all, the mechanics of it.

After a two-day stand-down for rest, Colonel Chin's regiment would be out in the wastelands again, this time attacking the 2nd Battalion of the 17th ACR. Four days after that, they would attack the 3rd of the 17th.

July 28th, 2146

Deep space, between the orbits of Mercury and Venus

The armada continued on, coasting through space at seventy kilometers per second. Because of the attacks made by Mermaid, it was now an armada that was significantly more alert than it had been on the outset. All active detection systems on all ships were powered up and sweeping through designated sectors. A full wing of attack and detection craft now maintained a 24-hour combat space patrol, circling around on all sides in overlapping patterns. However, despite all of this surveillance of the flight path, it had been more than a week now since Mermaid's attacks and no one really believed that there could be any more Owls out there gunning for them. As a result, reactions were a bit lapsed and judgment was a bit overconfident once again. The perfect environment for disaster.

Swordfish was the second of the Owls that had been launched from Triad Naval Base. Ron Bales, her commander, a former detection technician in the WestHem navy like Brett, employed the same classic attack pattern Mermaid had used. He set his ship right in the path of the advance, relatively motionless from the perspective of the fast-moving armada. When the time was right, Bales gave the order and Swordfish's weapons crew unleashed two nuclear torpedoes — each at a Panama transport ship — from a distance of 320,000 kilometers. She then turned and moved clear of the firing zone as fast as she could without risking detection. Bales knew better than to press his luck by attempting a third shot against an alerted enemy.

The torpedoes drifted through space for more than an hour, closing on their targets. The first was detected at a range of 8000 kilometers by Packhorse, the ship it was stalking. A fury of anti-missile laser fire was directed at it, trying desperately to make a lethal intersection of beam and torpedo through the electronic jamming. Purely by blind luck, that is exactly what happened. One of the lasers scored a direct hit, burning into the delicate mechanisms of the nuclear package and destroying any chance of a detonation.

Despite the destruction of the warhead however, the body and mass of the missile remained intact and continued to close with its target. Two minutes and twelve seconds after detection, this mass slammed into the side of Packhorse at a velocity of eighty kilometers per second. This was sufficient kinetic energy to blast a hole more than fifty meters wide in the hull of the ship and into the side of one of the landing ships within. More than two hundred marines inside of that landing ship were killed instantly by the impact. Another sixty were burned to death by the resulting fires or suffocated by the hull breach itself.

The second of the missiles was detected at a range of 7200 kilometers from its target, Llama. This time the luck of the anti-missile fire did not hold and the missile achieved a perfect detonation at a range of forty kilometers. In less than two seconds Llama was nothing more than vaporized metal and scattered debris. Another 20,000 marines were dead at Martian hands.

Admiral Jules was frantic at the news that yet another greenie crewed Owl was not only out there, but had annihilated another of his ships. He personally monitored the search for the vessel, watching the display for more than an hour as attack ships and destroyers swarmed through the area. In the end however, though two of the search craft had passed within 200 kilometers of her, not so much of a sniff of Swordfish was gleamed. The armada passed her by and she turned towards home, triumphant, and without a scratch on her.

Jules, after reluctantly conceding that the offending ship had gotten away clean, was then forced to make yet another report to the executive council on Earth, letting them know that yet another attack had been successfully launched upon his forces. The communication lag was well over ninety minutes at this point in the journey, but this was still not sufficient time to dampen the fury of Loretta Williams. She bluntly told Jules that he was an incompetent, in charge of a larger group of incompetents, and only the knowledge that his second-in-command was an even bigger idiot than himself had kept her from replacing him and having him sent to the brig for dereliction of duty.

Jules took his executive dressing down like a man, only muttering a few obscenities at the image of Williams on the screen. He then was forced to turn to the bigger problem of what to tell the WestHem public about this latest catastrophic loss of life. Though it was an acknowledged fact that the WestHem civilian population was nothing more than sheep that tended to believe everything that they were told on the Internet, there were limits to how much they could swallow. It was unlikely that even the sheep would buy that another of his ships had collided, or mysteriously exploded through crew errors. Reluctantly, after consulting with General Wrath and holding a few communication-lagged conferences with executive staffers, it was decided that they would have to admit Martian involvement this time.

As had been the case in the first attacks, word of what had happened had already filtered down to the landing craft aboard the Panamas. The Internet screens in every room were turned on, the coverage, though delayed by the communication lag (it was ironic that those in the armada, where the story originated from, actually had to wait the longest to receive the Internet signal since it had to travel to Jupiter, Earth, and back to Jupiter again), was constant on the explosion that had destroyed Llama. The knowledge that another 20,000 of their comrades had been erased from existence in an instant weighed heavily on the rest of the troops.

"We're like rats in a cage," said Private Stinson aboard Mammoth. "We're trapped in these floating deathtraps while the greenies pick up off like targets on the range."

This time Lieutenant Callahan didn't bother spouting the company line, that they didn't know for sure that the greenies were involved. Though there had been no official statement yet, even the news was saying that the Martians had been responsible for this latest explosion. Though many wild theories were being floated by the "military experts" that worked for the big three Internet services, the most popular was some sort of kamikaze attack. Various physicists were put on camera to show just how the velocity of one vessel ramming another in open space at full speed could result in a cataclysmic explosion.

"Do you think they felt it when they went?" asked Sergeant Mallory. "Do you think it was real quick, or did the slowly suffocate to death when the hull was breached?"

"Had to have been fast," Corporal Jones said. "The whole ship is gone they say. Nothing but fragments left. They probably didn't even know what hit them."

They all silently pondered that thought for a moment as the latest expert on the Internet screen explained about kinetic energy and velocity. Before he could get too far into his lecture however, the newscaster interrupted to say that Admiral Jules was now giving his briefing on the events. It was time for the official word.

"Here we go," Mallory said. "Get ready to swallow a big one."

Jules came on the screen, resplendent in his class A uniform, his hair neatly pressed, his face dusted with a covering of make-up. He had the same solemn look on his face as he'd displayed the last time he had been forced to give such a briefing.

"Good evening," he told the solar system. "By now I'm sure everyone has heard about the tragic events that took place today, events that come little more than a week after the horrible accidents that befell our forces and cost so many their lives. I'm saddened to announce that once again catastrophe has struck this armada, a catastrophe that has cost many good men their lives.

"At approximately 2116 hours, Denver time, the WSS Llama, a Panama class transport ship carrying 20,000 marines for Operation Red Hammer, exploded, killing all hands on board. Rescue vessels were immediately sent to the scene of the explosion but there was no hope for survivors. The ship was in fact, completely destroyed.

"As before, an immediate investigation was launched into the cause of this explosion and the cause was found rather quickly. This time, the tragedy was not the result of an accident. This time, Martian terrorists were responsible for this heinous act."

He paused for a moment, to let his words sink in. After a few deep breaths, he continued. "Based on tracking data uplinked to the command center just prior to the explosion, it appears that these Martian terrorists took control of one of the Owl class stealth attack ships that were docked at Triad Naval Base when that facility was seized by the rogue units of the Martian Planetary Guard. These terrorists, probably using rudimentary spaceflight skills picked up by accessing the training computers at TNB, managed to accelerate the Owl to a speed of more than seventy kilometers per second towards our armada. Probably more by sheer luck than anything else, they were able to steer this vessel directly onto a collision course with Llama. Since the armada is traveling seventy kilometers per second towards the Planet Mars and since the Owl in question approached from the opposite direction, the closure speed was nearly 140 kilometers per second. This gave only seconds for Llama to attempt evasive action once the vessel was detected closing with her. Unfortunately, seconds were not enough time to prevent the collision. The Owl struck amidships on the port side. At that velocity, the impact was enough to completely obliterate both vessels.

"This is, without a doubt, one of the most cowardly, atrocious acts of barbarism imaginable. I implore all WestHem citizens to say prayers for the souls of these brave marines and naval personnel and for the families they've left behind. I am assured by the Executive Council that those responsible for launching this horrible mission against our forces will be tracked down once the planet has been liberated and they will be tried for crimes against humanity, treason, and for more than 20,000 individual counts of murder."

The briefing by Jules went on for quite some time, with General Wrath making an appearance and spouting a few words of his own about how his marines were still in high spirits and how they would fight on and re-take that planet despite the losses so that those responsible could be punished. This was followed by a question and answer period, during which, as before, not a single reporter asked a single question about the possibility of there having been a nuclear explosion responsible for the destruction of Llama. There was, however, a brief question concerning the WNS Packhorse, another Panama class that had been reported damaged that day.

"Again," Jules answered, "it seems that tragedies are striking this attack force in groups of two. Just minutes before the explosion that obliterated Llama, Packhorse was struck by a small meteor that somehow managed to be missed by the anti-meteor defenses. It is estimated that this was a small meteor, probably composed of a material that does not absorb heat well and that was shaped in just a way that it deflected most of the radar energy. It struck Packhorse amidships and caused a serious hull rupture, which, unfortunately caused the deaths of approximately 230 marines and naval personnel. The ship itself is being repaired in space and is still underway with the rest of the group. The remaining marines on board that ship, although understandably shocked and saddened by today's events, will still participate in Red Hammer when the landings occur."

"A meteor hit it?" asked Mallory. "Oh Jesus. There hasn't been a ship struck by a meteor in more than a hundred years. Now we're supposed to believe that one just happened to hit right before Llama went up?"

Nobody disputed his words. Everyone had a pretty good idea of what had really happened.

"LT?" Stinson asked Callahan.

"Yeah?" he said, wearily.

"Them greenies got those Owls that they took at Triad operational, don't they?"

Callahan wanted to lie, knew that his superior officers would not appreciate him voicing his own opinion in front of the troops. He wanted to, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. "It looks like maybe they do," he sighed. "Probably at least two of them, maybe more. They positioned themselves out here and they're pounding on the transport ships."

"They've given us more casualties doing that than they ever could have hoped for on the ground," Mallory opined.

"Don't worry though," Callahan said. "Once we make our landings we're gonna give it back to those greenie fucks in spades. We're gonna show those bastards what marines really do."

There were a few half-hearted cheers at his words, cheers that were mostly reactions rather than being powered by any actual emotion. In truth, morale was about as low as Callahan had ever seen before. They were trapped onboard a confined ship with primitive washing and laundry services and they were now apparently being stalked by an enemy capable of vaporizing them all in an instant. There was no way that they could fight back against such a thing; no way they could even see it coming.

Meanwhile, in Eden, just outside the MPG base, the Troop Club was doing its fair share of business. Every table was full of off-duty military personnel swilling down alcohol or smoking marijuana. The three servers behind the bar and the two waiters circulating among the tables were scrambling to keep up with the demand. Though the Earthling accountants that had managed the bar had been banished to their apartments along with most of the other Earthling corporate types, the actual labor pool that ran the facility still reported for work every day to do their part to keep the MPG morale from descending to the level being faced by the WestHem marines. In all, it was a project that seemed to be working well. At most of the tables the talk was boisterous and laughter was frequent. On the large Internet screens that were mounted on the walls and above the bar, MarsGroup channels were the ones being viewed.

The clip of Admiral Jules' briefing regarding the destruction of one of their vessels had just been played for everyone to see. Commentary by the Martian newscasters as to just what this really meant was now being offered.

"Laura Whiting, the interim government officials, and everyone on General Jackson's staff have continued to refuse comment on the destruction of the WestHem ships today," said a pretty African descended reporter. "No explanation is offered for the refusal to comment, but it should be pointed out that Whiting and Jackson have both been very candid with past requests on past MPG operations during this conflict. One can only speculate that the reason for their silence must be an ongoing operation that might be compromised if WestHem authorities were given details. As such, our department and all of the other MarsGroup stations that report news and information are honoring their request and not pestering them. It is, however, common knowledge, as we've reported in the past, that at least four of the Owl class stealth attack ships that were captured at Triad Naval Base are no longer in their moorings and that there was a frantic burst of activity at SpaceLab Incorporated, the facility that produces the nuclear torpedoes that the Owls fire. This information, coupled with the wave of explosions that the approaching armada seems to be facing over the last ten days, is certainly compelling."

"Compelling," said Lon Fargo from one of the tables near the back. "She says it's compelling. I think they should keep their fucking mouths shut about it. Don't they know that this planet is full of WestHem spies that are relaying that information back to Earth?"

"Freedom of the press," said Horishito, who had just packed an electric pipe with a hit of some potent marijuana. "Even during wartime, we have to let the press report what they see. That's the only way to run a planet."

"Oh, lets not start that argument again," said Matza, who was packing his own pipe with another load. "I agree with Lon. They should shut their asses about it until whatever operation we're running with those Owls is over with."

"Here, here," said Lon, picking up a pipe of his own. He looked over at the newest member of his squad, the member that he had fought unsuccessfully to avoid having assigned. It was a fight that he was now kind of glad he had lost. "What do you think about this, Wong?" he asked her. "Your partner is usually quite opinionated on these matters. Are you the same?"

Lisa looked up at him, her eyes reddened and half-lidded, a determined expression on her face. She too held an electric pipe in her hands, its bowl stuffed full. "My opinion?" she said with a snort. "My opinion is that it doesn't fucking matter. The Earthlings are a bunch of dumb asses. They haven't even admitted that we've hit them yet, at least not with actual weapons. I think we could send them a schematic of the exact location of every one of those Owls and a timetable showing when they're going to attack, and the dumb fucks still wouldn't do anything about it."

"Fuckin aye," put in Winters, another of the new assigns from the last training class. He had been a dip-hoe in Eden before the revolution and was now the squad's medic. "And you gotta hand it to those guys that went out in those ships to hit them. That takes some balls. I thought joining the special forces was nuts. They're actually out there in deep space going up against the goddamn navy."

"And kicking ass too," said Matza. "They've already knocked out about sixty thousand of the OPFOR. And there's still at least two more Owls out there. Shit, they keep this up and we might not have to fight at all."

"Don't say that," said Horishito. "They give up before they get here then we won't get to watch Wong prove she's got bigger balls than we do. I for one have been looking forward to that."

That produced a bout of laughter from everyone at the table, Lisa included. Though there had been a time when such words, obviously directed at the fact that she was a female, would have provoked anger in her, those days were gone. In two weeks of training with her new squad out in the wastelands, she had more than proved her worth to her teammates. Her physical condition was now better than she had ever imagined it could be. She could haul a full load of sixty millimeter mortars, in addition to her own weapons, up the tallest hill without causing a discharge warning on her suit. She could move boulders and dig hiding holes in the rocky Martian soil as well as any of them. She could shoot any weapon in the special forces inventory with pinpoint accuracy, with or without the combat goggle targeting system active. She could assemble booby traps and plant them in under a minute flat.

"Maybe that's a bad analogy," Lon said.

"Oh?" said Lisa.

"Yes, I've seen you in the shower, remember? Your balls aren't very big at all. In fact, I can hardly see them."

"Yes, and I've noticed you've done a lot of searching for them too, boss man," she said slyly. "Sometimes you've searched so much in there that your weapon started to get cocked."

The table erupted in another bout of laughter, this time at their leader's expense. Lon actually blushed at the attention. True, he had been known to check out his new female squad member in the shower from time to time, and true, it had caused him to develop the beginnings of an erection more than once, but he hadn't been aware that anyone, especially Wong herself, had noticed. Another supposition, proven wrong. Still, Lon was good-natured about the jive, and Wong was a very attractive woman. Could he help it if she insisted on showering and dressing with the rest of the team? That was her decision, wasn't it? "I was just checking to make sure you practice good hygiene after our deployments," he said. "You know what they say about cleanliness."

"Hey, sarge," Horishito said. "How come you never check out my hygiene that thoroughly? Wong got something that I don't got?"

"Yeah, sarge," said Matza. "I'm hurt. That's blatant favoritism, you ask me."

"And what's so interesting," Lisa said, "about a woman soaping herself up in the shower, anyway? I certainly don't find it all that exciting."

"No?" said Lon, raising his eyebrows suggestively.

"No," she said, "although you never know what's going on in my little mind while I see all you guys soaping up now, do you?"

"She's got a point there," said Matza. "She could be thinking whatever she wants in there, and we wouldn't have a clue, would we?"

"Part of the beauty of being a girl," Lisa said. "So are we gonna take these bonghits or what? I think we're on number five here, aren't we?"

"Number five," Horishito agreed. "And I still say that no girl is gonna take more hits than I can. Nothing personal, Wong, its just an anatomical fact of life. Men are better suited for sucking up the green."

"That's why we got a hundred bucks riding on it Hoary," she said. "Now lets smoke up."

"Let's smoke," the other two echoed.

On the count of three all of them activated their electric pipes, turning the marijuana inside into shriveled ash and sending the cooled steam that was produced down into their lungs. They each held their hits in for a count of thirty seconds before blowing them out.

"Damn," said Lon, taking a few breaths to get some fresh oxygen in. "There's really nothing in the solar system like Agricorp green. I'm glad all the people who grow it are on our side of the revolution."

"I second that," said Lisa.

"I heard that all the Agricorp managers are trying to keep track of everything that we produce and use from their fields so they can charge us when they win the war," said Horishito.

"Well, they gotta have something to do," said Lon. "Since they're stuck in their apartments all day every day. I guess it makes them feel better to keep accounting things."

"It is their life," said Matza. "What's the word on when we're sending them all home?"

"Not until after we kick the marines off the planet," Lisa said. "I can't wait to go watch all those corporate fucks load up on a ship and slink the hell out of here. Good riddance."

"Amen to that," said Horishito and Matza in unison.

"That calls for another hit," said Lon. "Let's load up."

While they loaded up the MarsGroup channel began showing another clip that had been taken from WestHem Internet channels. This was yet another military briefing, this one by General Wrath of the Marine Corps. He was standing before a hologram of Mars and pointing at it with a laser pointer.

"Hey, look at this shit," said Lon. "He's actually telling us where the landing sites for his troops are going to be."

The rest of the table, indeed the rest of the room, all looked up in disbelief, thinking that Lon had to be wrong. The Earthlings weren't really that arrogant, that stupid, were they?

It appeared that they were. It seemed that in an effort to draw some attention away from their losses in space, the powers-that-be were trying to reassure their audience by releasing some details of the upcoming ground operation.

"Right here is going to be one of the biggest beachheads," Wrath was saying. "This is the equatorial plain, where the Martian agriculture is grown. This is Eden, Mars' biggest city and the center of the transportation hub and home to many key agricultural production facilities. It is also the city where most of the terrorist cells that have seized the planet are based. It is this city that will be key to retaking the planet."

"Terrorist cells," said Horishito with disgust. "Don't you just love..."

"Quiet," barked Lon. "I want to see this."

"In order to facilitate the capture of Eden, we will land more one hundred thousand combat troops in an area approximately three hundred kilometers due east of the city. As you are aware from previous briefings, the rouge elements that have taken over the Martian Planetary Guard may be in possession of some artillery weapons. Landing at this distance will keep us well out of the range of these weapons and allow us to assemble are troops in safety."

The special forces troops in the room all broke out into contemptuous laughter at this statement.

"Wait 'til you see how safe you are, Mr. Wrath," Horishito called out to the room.

"Oh yes," yelled Bennington, a member of Lon's squad who was sitting at the next table. "We'll be out there to say a nice big hello to you when you get there."

Cheers erupted from nearly everyone present in the bar, the staff included. Shouts of encouragement were offered, as well as more than one obscene epitaph to Wrath himself. Meanwhile, the briefing went on, with the general revealing which four cities his troops were going to be landing outside of and the approximate numbers that were going to be deployed at each site. Though he did not reveal exactly where the landing areas were going to be, he did indicate which general direction from the individual cities.

It was agreed that the WestHem populace probably had their minds put a bit at rest by the briefing. They probably enjoyed knowing just what sort of composition their forces would attack with and what the strategic thinking behind it was. So from the WestHem point of view, the release of this information was probably deemed a good idea.

General Jackson and Colonel Bright also thought that the briefing was a success as well. Intelligence analysts recorded the entire thing and set immediately to work analyzing it. And though the possibility that this was disinformation being used to deliberately mislead the MPG was acknowledged, a number of troops were shifted from several cities as a result of what was learned.

August 3, 2146

Deep space, near the orbit of Venus

The captain of the Barracuda — the third of the Martian crewed Owls lying in wait — had released the torpedo at the perfect angle to his target, a one in a hundred shot that managed to approach perfectly through small gaps in the sensor coverage. Not so much as a single bit of artifact appeared on any screen until the torpedo detonated forty kilometers from its target. Without any kind of warning whatsoever, there was the double flash of a thermonuclear detonation and Clydesdale — a Panama class transport — was vaporized. Another 20,000 marines were taken out of the coming fight.

Twenty minutes later, just as the frantic search efforts for the ship that had fired the torpedo were getting into swing, the second torpedo was detected 10,000 kilometers from Elephant, another Panama class. The anti-missile lasers were brought to bear on it and one finally managed a lucky shot, nicking the forward edge of the weapon at a distance of 92 kilometers. Not enough energy penetrated to disable the warhead so the automatic firing mechanism was triggered instead. The weapon flashed and lashed Elephant with an EMP, ripping several holes in her hull, damaging both of her engines, and causing explosions and fires that killed nearly four thousand marines and naval personnel on board. The ship was effectively disabled for good, forcing the offload of its surviving personnel onto three other Panamas. All of the heavy equipment on board was lost since there was no way to offload it in transport and there would be no way to slow the ship down once it arrived at its destination.

Barracuda herself, though she made an almost perfect attack and a textbook egress from the firing area, was nevertheless detected by a flight of A-22s on a search sweep. Within minutes, six more A-22s were swarming her and a Seattle class ship was moving in fast. She put up a valiant fight, destroying three of the A-22s with her lasers before being battered mercilessly with return fire. Her hull was breached in six places, including the bridge, killing more than half of the crew before the Seattle closed to firing range and used her more powerful lasers to explode the propellant tanks and obliterate the shattered wreck. All hands were lost on Barracuda but her mission would be marked down as a rousing success nonetheless.

About four hours later Admiral Jules appeared at the live briefing to announce that another two suicide attacks by Martian terrorists had taken place, destroying one ship and damaging another.

August 10, 2146

Deep space, just outside the orbit of Mars

The armada was now well into its deceleration burn. Every surviving ship had turned its rear end towards Mars, which was now visible as a bright red orb glowing in space, and was running its fusion engines at .25G. This time Admiral Jules and the rest of the command staff were actually expecting an attack to occur. By now word that four of the Owls that had been docked at TNB were now missing had reached them from naval intelligence. Since they had encountered only three of the Owls at this point in time, it stood to reason that they just might encounter the fourth as well. And the deceleration burn was the perfect time for such an encounter from the enemy's point of view. With the ships on acceleration in the opposite direction, their sensors had a difficult time detecting objects approaching from directly in their path. The plasma from the engines tended to scramble outgoing radar signals and mask infrared hits.

Hammerhead, the fourth of the Owls, obligingly made herself known right during this period. Since the armada was now moving at less than half the speed that it had during most of the trip, she was forced to employ a different attack tactic. Instead of simply sitting still in relation to the targets, she had accelerated as they'd approached, bringing her own velocity to forty kilometers per second directly towards the target ships. This maintained a closing speed of nearly seventy kilometers per second, which would allow for a speedy escape after the weapon release.

Hammerhead released her first torpedo 350,000 kilometers from Pacaderm. It was yet another near-perfect release, with the weapon approaching in the clutter from the plasma and closing to less than 6000 kilometers before being detected. There was barely enough time for the anti-missile systems to come on line and begin putting up a defense before the weapon reached forty kilometers and detonated, erasing yet another Panama class and another 20,000 marines.

Hammerhead's second torpedo, which was aimed at Mammoth, did not fair quite as well. It was detected more than 60,000 kilometers out by flight of A-22s making a sweep of the area in response to the attack on Pacaderm. Once detected by the attack ship the torpedo became easy fodder. It was dispatched by two close range shots from the A-22s heavy lasers, which exploded the rocket fuel and fragmented the warhead itself into millions of tiny pieces.

Hammerhead herself was detected by another flight of A-22s ninety minutes later. Since by that time the tail end of the armada was already passing them by, only one other flight was in position to go on the offensive against her. The four A-22s made firing runs at her from two different directions, scoring two shots amidships and one direct hit on the engine room. However, Hammerhead proved a formidable enemy. She destroyed two of the A-22s and forced the other two to withdraw, one with heavy damage that required the crew to eject and be picked up by a rescue ship. Hammerhead herself suffered two hull breaches, lost one engine, and a significant propellant leak in her tanks. Sixteen crewmembers were killed and eleven were injured. Despite the damage, the remaining crew was able to seal the holes in the ship, plug the leak, and get the ship turned around for a deceleration burn.

The armada passed her by and continued on their own deceleration burns towards Mars and an eventual orbital inclination. With this passing, Operation Interdiction, the first operation of the Martian Navy and the first major action of the war, came to a close. The operation could only be described as a success. Though three of the four vessels participating had been engaged, destroying one outright and damaging two, with a loss of nearly 200 men and women, Interdiction caused the deaths of more than 83,000 WestHem marines and the loss of nearly one fifth of the battle equipment and fuel allotted for Operation Martian Hammer. It was the greatest loss by the WestHem Navy in its entire history, including the Jupiter War.

That night, on Mars, Laura Whiting and Admiral Belting appeared live on MarsGroup and finally announced the existence of the operation. They explained that the need for security had kept them from making mention of it before. The briefing was given in exacting detail, from the first recruitments shortly after the seizure of the planet to the last shots fired only hours before by Hammerhead. Admiral Belting, after giving a mournful speech for those that had been lost in the operation, gleefully gave a conservative estimate of the damage that had been inflicted to WestHem. The Martian people — particularly those who would be fighting out in the wastelands soon — cheered as one as they heard that 60,000 to 80,000 marines had been killed and that millions of tons of equipment had been destroyed.

"This doesn't mean that the fight is over," Whiting said after Belting had finished his briefing. "Not by any means. There are still over 400,000 marines set to land on our planet in less than a week. But with the success of Operation Interdiction, we have evened the odds considerably. Keep up the spirit shown by those brave men and women of Interdiction, and we will prevail in this fight and our planet will remain free."

WestHem authorities, who received a copy of the Interdiction briefing by naval intelligence sources operating from the armada's flagship, played a heavily edited copy of it for the WestHem populace. In this copy, Laura Whiting seemed to say that Interdiction consisted of a series of suicide attacks with captured Owls that had been guided to their targets by EastHem Henry's that had been tracking the armada. The WestHem people were of course infuriated by this treachery and demanded that stern action be taken against those responsible once Mars was back in WestHem hands. Loretta Williams, the executive council spokesperson on all matters relating to Mars, assured WestHem that Laura Whiting, General Jackson, and the so-called Admiral Belting would all be tried for terrorist acts and crimes against humanity once they were captured.

August 14, 2146

Martian space

One by one, the ships of the armada, their fusion engines now idle, were captured by the Martian gravity and pulled into orbit around the red planet. Using short bursts of their main engines and longer blasts from maneuvering thrusters, they settled into a geosynchronous inclination some 100 degrees west of Triad. It took more than sixteen hours for all of the ships to get into position, but once they were, they formed a tight group with the transports on the inside surrounded by a solid perimeter of escorts and battleships. Active sensors were powered up and lashed back and forth through the vacuum of space, probing for anything approaching. A constant combat space control circled above and below, ready to attack any intruder in force. The Martian forces kept well away from this virtual orbiting fortress, knowing that there was no way they could effectively attack it. The Martians knew that merely establishing orbit around their planet could not conquer it. Their fight would take place on the ground, not high above it.

It was early morning of August 15th before the entire armada was situated. Had this been the invasion of an EastHem held possession, attack craft would have fanned out through space at this point, attacking and neutralizing the hundreds of communications and navigation satellites that circled both in geosynchronous and low Martian orbit. WestHem doctrine called for this particular phase of an invasion to last almost a week in fact. In this particular invasion however, the executive council, acting on orders from their corporate sponsors, had forbid the destruction of any orbiting satellites. Those communications and navigation birds were worth billions of dollars and they were all owned by various WestHem corporations or the government itself. It was thought that there was no sense in destroying billions worth of hardware that would only have to be replaced once the planet was retaken. And so, though the space wing of the MPG flew a full combat space patrol and was prepared to guard these orbiting assets as part of their doctrine, not a single ship was launched on a single sortie against them.

Of course the establishment of orbit around Mars was a significant media event for the WestHem people. The big three media representatives that were traveling on the flagship now began broadcasting constant live updates instead of the single daily briefing. General Wrath and Admiral Jules now began spending more time giving interviews to various reporters than preparing for the coming operations. Rehashing the force composition of the marines and that of the Martians became a favorite time-filler during the periods when nothing new was happening. Despite the heavy losses due to "accidents" and "terrorist suicide attacks", it was estimated that the WestHem marines would be in complete possession of the planet in less than seven days with minimal casualties. Unless of course, the greenies decided to simply give up this hopeless battle before it was started. That was still regarded as a distinct possibility and one that General Wrath tried to facilitate when he sent a message on the open channel asking for a press conference with the MarsGroup Internet services.

Diane Nguyen of MarsGroup agreed to the press conference after consulting with Laura Whiting.

"Let them say their piece," Whiting told her. "The Martian people, particularly those with the guns, have a right to hear everything that transpires."

And so, at 1800, New Pittsburgh time, most of the planet tuned in to MarsGroup to see General Wrath facing them from the command center of the WHSS Nebraska. Instead of the class A uniform that he had given all of his previous briefings in, he was now dressed in red Martian camouflage fatigues, as if he were going to be going down to the planet with his men instead of staying nice and safe up in the flagship.

"First of all," Wrath said, his voice tough and gravelly, "let me thank Ms. Nguyen and her people for having enough sense to allow me this statement. I know that there are a lot of good people left on Mars, people that do not agree with what the rogue groups that have taken over your planet are doing, and..."

"Uh... General Wrath, if you'll excuse me for a moment?" interrupted Nguyen, who was personally handling the press conference. As the camera panned over her the audience was able to see that General Jackson, who was wearing his standard uniform of shorts and T-shirt, was sitting next to her, his face neutral.

"Yes, Ms. Nguyen," Wrath said, stammering a little since this was not part of his prepared speech.

"My company is fully in support of the revolution that has occurred on this planet," she said. "I just want that on the record right now. I agreed to air this conference at the insistence of Governor Whiting and General Jackson here. It is their thought, and I completely agree, that the Martian people have a right to hear your final threats before they meet you on the battlefield."

"I... I see," said Wrath, fighting the urge to wipe his forehead. "That is an interesting point of view. In any case, if I may now say what I need to say?"

"Of course, General," she said. "Please continue."

"Thank you," he said. "The reason that I've asked to address the people of Mars this evening is to offer a final plea for your surrender. As you have seen from our previous news reports, we have a whole lot of men and machines up here that will be landing on your planet tomorrow with the intention of liberating it from the terrorist elements that are holding it hostage. We have four tanks for every one tank that you have down there. We have almost four men under arms for every one that you have. We have three artillery pieces for each one of yours. We have twenty times as many hovers. I know that a lot of the men down there that are planning to fight us are simply misguided youths that have fallen for the drivel that Laura Whiting has been spouting. You probably don't know exactly what you're in for. Well let me explain it to you in very simple terms. If you do not unconditionally surrender in the next twelve hours, my marines are going to come down there and take that planet by force. A lot of you people are going to die if that happens. I will not have my men hold back or try to be gentle because we are fighting WestHem citizens. We will fight this conflict as we would a full-scale battle against EastHem invaders and we will prevail quickly and decisively. You are outnumbered, outgunned, and out-equipped. We have superior training and discipline. You cannot win this battle so I ask you, in the interests of avoiding needless deaths, please give it up right now. Send me a surrender message, turn over Laura Whiting and General Jackson to us, and this will all be over without further bloodshed."

Wrath continued to speak his impassioned plea to the Martian people for another fifteen minutes, stating and restating this same theme in several different ways. At times he seemed almost to grovel. At other times he was blatantly threatening. Finally, when it wound up, Dianne Nguyen, who had looked bored throughout the entire presentation, sat up a little straighter in her seat.

"Is that all you wanted to say?" she asked Wrath.

"I have said my piece," Wrath told her. "I only hope that the Martian people have enough sense to take this final chance I'm offering you and give up this hopeless fight."

"Okay, General," Nguyen said. "I thank you for your time and I'm sure the Martian people have been quite enlightened by your words as well." She turned to Jackson. "General? Do you have anything you wish to say?"

"I do," Jackson said. He leaned forward and stared intently into the camera. "I think, Mr. Wrath," he told him, "that I speak for the vast majority of the Martian people when I tell you, respectfully and sincerely, to take a flying fuck at Phobos. If you think you can beat us, come on down and give it a try. We'll be waiting for you."

Wrath actually turned red with rage as he heard these words. "Your people are going to die if you fight us," he told Jackson. "They're going to die and you're going to be executed for high treason!"

"Like I said, Wrath," Jackson said. "If you think you got what it takes, come on down."

And with that, the press conference was effectively over. Wrath made one more mumbled threat and then shut down his transmitting equipment, effectively killing the feed. He stood and turned to his aids, who were just as shocked by Jackson's words as he was.

"It's on," he told them. "We start our landings in twelve hours. Twelve hours!"

Chapter 12

Aboard the WHSS Mammoth, Mars Orbit

August 16, 2146

Lieutenant Callahan came into the berthing area to find his platoon lying listless on their bunks, just as they normally did. As always the smell in the room was of stale sweat and dirty laundry, although after nearly ten weeks he hardly noticed it anymore.

"On your feet, marines," he barked at them. "Assemble immediately for a briefing."

Nobody got to his feet. During the course of the chaotic trip across space, discipline among the men had slipped rather sharply. Where once the men had snapped to obey his every command, they were now quite openly disrespectful, not just to him but to every officer of every rank.

"I got your briefing right here," said Private Stinson as he grabbed his crotch a few times.

"Do you have to yell, LT?" asked Corporal Jones. "I was sleeping."

Callahan sighed, knowing he had helped create this environment he was now living in. He had created it with complacency in the name of soothing the morale problem that had cropped up. Now, however, it was time to start reversing that complacency. Soon they would be going to battle.

"I said on your feet!" Callahan yelled, striding further into the room. "And the next person who throws a smart-ass remark in my direction is going to have my foot up his ass! Assemble for a briefing right now!"

Slowly the men climbed out of their bunks and ambled across the room to assemble before him. It wasn't exactly the military precision that had been the norm in Salta, but at least they were obeying him. And no one threw a smart-ass remark in his direction either. At least not one that he was able to hear, which was, in truth, the best he could hope for.

When they were all more or less lined up he walked to the front, looking them up and down. "I've just come from a meeting with Captain Ayers and Major Wild," he told them. "As you are undoubtedly aware, the 298th ACR was slated to be first down on the planetary surface today and was to establish the initial beachhead of the Eden attack. Well, as you were probably not aware, the bulk of the 298th were aboard Pacaderm, the ship that was destroyed in the so-called suicide attack."

"Suicide attack my ass," Stinson was unable to help saying. There were some grumbles from the rest of the men along this line as well.

"Whatever the cause," Callahan interjected, "the fact is that there really is no more 298th ACR. Someone else needs to secure the Eden beachhead. That someone else is us."

"Us?" asked Sergeant Mallory. "We haven't trained for that! We've been training for armored assault on the city."

And even that training, everyone knew, had been woefully brief. Getting the men to the simulators each day had been a chore that had been just a little too much most of the time.

"We will still be performing assault duty on Eden if that becomes necessary," Callahan said. "But that is after we secure the beachhead itself and facilitate the landing of all of our equipment. This is an upper level decision directly from General Wrath himself. Given the greenie resistance that was encountered during the trip here, it is felt that a combat experienced regiment should be first down in this area of operation. The 314th is the most combat experienced regiment in the task force. We've been dealing with rebel elements in Argentina for years and so General Wrath feels that if there are any greenies down there waiting for us at the LZ, we'll be the unit that is able to most effectively deal with them."

"And they're just springing this on us now?" Mallory asked. "Christ, when are we supposed to make this landing?"

"In three hours, not including travel time," Callahan said, allowing a hint of his own trepidation to leak into his voice.

"Three hours?" all four of his sergeants and a good number of the men said in unison.

"I know its not much time," Callahan allowed. "Hell, it'll take us most of that time just to get suited and armed up. But that's the way its gonna be, guys. This landing ship will be departing this vessel in three hours and we need to be ready when that happens. So lets get this briefing started, shall we?"

Charlie Company, which Callahan and his platoon were part of, had been tasked with securing the north side of the landing zone. They would exit the landing ship immediately upon touchdown and move overland on foot to a ridgeline two kilometers away. From there they would spread out by platoon to different sectors of the ridge and dig in to guard the perimeter. For at least the first eight hours, possibly more, they would be the only forces in the area. They would have no hover support, no armored vehicle support, and their only artillery support would be from the 150-millimeter guns mounted on the landing ship itself.

"Navigation and targeting is going to be somewhat of a pain in the ass," Callahan explained. "The greenies have apparently encrypted all of the signals from their navigation satellites, which means that unless our intelligence division can ferret out the proper code somehow, our GPS systems will not work. Everything will have to be done by inertial navigation, so be sure to zero out your combat computers when you leave the ship."

"How will we zero out our computers if the ship itself doesn't even know exactly where it is?" asked Sergeant Hamilton.

Callahan grunted a little in frustration. That was exactly the question that he had asked of Major Wild when he had received his briefing. He had not been given an adequate answer. "It will at least give us a rough estimate of our location," he said now.

"A rough estimate?" asked Mallory. "How rough are we talking?"

"Accurate to within five hundred meters," Callahan said.

Everyone looked at him for a moment to see if he was joking. Finally they were forced to conclude that he wasn't.

"Five hundred meters?" Mallory said. "That's half a klick. How are supposed to call down artillery with that kind of a margin for error? We could end up calling it down right on top of ourselves."

"Intelligence seems confident that it will be able to hack into the greenie Internet and get the GPS codes within a day or two," Callahan said. "And in the meantime, estimates are that greenie resistance should be non-existent or very light at the LZ itself. Remember, we're three hundred klicks from their main defenses. It's not like they can just drive a division of troops out to engage us."

"What about those transport aircraft they have?" asked Private Stinson. "Those Hummingbird things we were briefed on. They can transport a squad, can't they?"

"They are capable of transporting a squad of troops," Callahan confirmed. "And they do have the range to fly this far. But our landing ship, as you know, is equipped with a full array of passive and active anti-aircraft sensors. They wouldn't be able to get one of those things within fifty klicks of our position without us picking it up. So unless those troops want to walk fifty klicks across the surface, they won't be able to engage us. Our landing zone will be perfectly secure. That's a good a guarantee as you'll get in this operation I'm told."

And strangely, though nothing else that they had been told about Martian capabilities had been true so far, everyone felt better having heard this.

Martian Planetary Guard Headquarters Building, New Pittsburgh

August 16, 2146

The official command center for the Martian Planetary Guard operations was on the top floor of the main MPG building near the capital. It was a windowless office, stuffed full of desks with computer terminals mounted on them and bustling with high-ranking officers and lower ranking technical people. On the front wall was a holographic projection of the entire planetary surface, a display that could be zoomed in at any particular point to a resolution of better than ten meters per centimeter. Currently the display was zoomed out and showed blue marks where MPG units were deployed. As of yet, most of the troops were still on stand-by at the headquarters building in each of the cities. At the Eden MPG headquarters, the biggest of them, more than sixty thousand troops were standing by for movement orders.

General Jackson was weary after having spent the past twenty-four hours in this room. His T-shirt was rumpled and marred with sweat stains. His eyes were bleary, with bags beneath them, and his face was unshaven. He had been advised multiple times by his closest staff members that he needed to get some sleep but so far he had refused to heed their advice. Since the WestHem armada had entered Martian orbit he had only grabbed quick catnaps in his chair.

"General," a voice said in his headset, startling him out of a light doze. It was Captain Edison, who was monitoring the reconnaissance satellites. "I'm picking up a separation from the armada."

"Landing craft separation?" Jackson asked, his fatigue instantly falling away.

"Looks like it," said Edison. "We're getting good feed from the KH-11 and the KH-17 birds on either side of their orbit. I have a positive landing craft separation from one of the Panamas. Looks like its now maneuvering into a descent corridor."

"Put it on my screen," Jackson ordered.

It appeared a moment later, a blurry infrared image of an object drifting above one of the transport ships. The distance between the two objects continued to slowly grow. White flashes from the bottom and sides indicated that the maneuvering thrusters were being fired.

"Keep a track on it," Jackson said. "I want course projections as soon as feasible."

"Working on it now," Edison said. "Do you want... stand by."

"What is it?" Jackson asked.

"Another separation underway," Edison told him. "No, make that two."

"From different ships?"

"Correct, and here's another now. That's a total of four landing craft separating from four different ships."

Jackson nodded. "What do you want to bet that they're heading for Eden, New Pittsburgh, Libby and Proctor?" he asked the room at large. Those were the four major cities that General Wrath had told the solar system his forces would be landing at.

"I think that's a bet I'll have to turn down," Edison answered. "I've got good passive tracks on all four."

"Shall we alert the forces at the target cities?" asked Colonel Anderson, who was in charge of logistical deployment.

"Let's keep the combat troops on standby for now," Jackson said. "I don't want to send them outside until we're sure where these enemy units are landing. Lets get the artillery units in all cities activated though. There's always the chance that the Earthlings will do something stupid and land close to the cities. If they do, I want arty falling on them from the moment their gear touch the ground."

"Deploying all artillery units now," Anderson said, calling up a screen on his computer.

By the time the main engines of the four landing craft began to fire, decelerating them and starting their descent towards the Martian atmosphere, men and women all over the planet were donning their biosuits and racing through airlocks to man their artillery positions. Teams of loaders crawled into heavily fortified fixed sites on the outskirts of every Martian city. Other teams crawled into mobile guns and began to drive across the soil towards their pre-determined firing points. By the time the first of the landing craft made contact with the thin atmosphere ninety minutes later all guns reported ready. The MPG was now capable of raining down horrific destruction on any point within one hundred kilometers of any of its populated areas.

"I have preliminary course paths for all four vessels," reported Edison.

"Let's have it," Jackson said, sipping from a cup of coffee.

"Just like we expected," Edison said. "Targets Alpha and Delta are in equatorial inclinations. They appear to be heading for the vicinity of Libby and Eden respectively. Targets Bravo and Charlie are in high latitude inclinations. They appear to be heading for New Pittsburgh and Proctor."

"Just like they told us they would," Jackson mused. "Which target will land first?"

"Unless there is some extensive maneuvering, Delta will touch down first near Eden somewhere. Estimated timeframe is approximately twenty-seven minutes."

"Okay," Jackson said. "As soon as they're down on the ground, we get the combat troops moving towards the defensive positions. Full deployment in the cities that have forces land outside of them. All tank crews, all armored cav crews, everything. And I want some special forces teams deployed to each LZ within one hour of its establishment. We start hitting them right away, while they're at their most vulnerable. Those marines are not welcome on this planet and I want them to start experiencing our inhospitality immediately."

Equatorial wastelands, due east of Eden, Mars

August 16, 2146 — 0900 hours

The large landing craft, with 5000 marines aboard, descended rapidly out of the red sky, falling like a rock, its forward momentum more than 900 kilometers per hour. At an altitude of 20,000 meters above the surface, retro-rockets fired, slowing its airspeed and reducing its rate of descent. It came down at a steep angle despite the slowing, much steeper than the Martians had brought down the landing craft from the pre-positioned ships at TNB. This was a combat landing, the first one made since the Jupiter War, and the commander of the craft went by the book even though resistance was expected to be non-existent.

At 0921 hours, Eden time, the craft passed over a ridge of hills and was almost hovering over a large plateau, its descent now only a few meters per second. Steel landing gear shot out from the bottom, ready to bear the weight of the large vehicle and everything within it. As it came close to the ground a cloud of dust was raised by the powerful blast of the retro rockets. The incredible heat fused the Martian soil beneath. Slowly, carefully, the craft inched lower and lower until the gear touched down on the rocky ground. The retro-rockets slowly eased off and the weight settled on the gear.

Even as the engines were being shut down, twenty-millimeter cannons poked out from ports all along the perimeter of the ship. These weapons were equipped with infrared and visual cameras that fed images back to a bank of control screens just below the bridge of the ship. In this room a team of navy gunners stared at the screens and operated joysticks that controlled each individual camera. There were twenty of them in all and they had overlapping fields of fire that could engage any person or light vehicle within five hundred meters of the ship. They panned back and forth, switching frequently between infrared and visual, zooming on different places, searching for biosuited greenies hiding in the rocks or the surrounding hills. They saw nothing but empty landscape.

On the top of the ship two steel doors slid open and three gun turrets — one fore, one aft, and one amidships — slowly rose up. 150-millimeter gun barrels, each ten meters in length, were attached to these turrets. Inside the ship, directly under each turret, a loading crew stood by next to pallets that contained hundreds of 150-millimeter shells. The guns themselves were operated from the same control room the twenty-millimeter gunners worked out of.

The troops that were to actually perform the initial sweep of the landing zone were staging just outside each of the four airlocks that controlled access in and out of the ships. They had put on their biosuits prior to the separation of the landing ship from Mammoth and had been standing around and waiting, their weapons in hand, for the past two hours.

Lieutenant Callahan and his platoon were slated to be the first out through Airlock C on the front part of the ship. They stood closest to the lock, M-24s and SAWs in their hands, all of them weary and feeling slightly claustrophobic from being inside the suits. They were still experiencing standard gravity and the WestHem suits, unlike the MPG's suits, were very heavy and difficult to move in. Though the material of the suit itself was quite similar, the storage tank for air was much bigger and bulged out from the rear in a very unwieldy manner. The environmental controls were also much larger since the suit was designed to be operated in the frigid environment of the Jovian moons instead of the relatively balmy Martian equatorial region.

"How much longer?" asked Mallory as he shifted his rifle from one shoulder to the other.

"When they give us the signal, we'll move," Callahan answered for perhaps the tenth time since they'd landed. "They're still sweeping the area with the cameras to make sure no greenies are about."

"There ain't no fuckin greenies out here," said Stinson. "What do they think? That they just happened to be having a picnic out here or something?"

"We're going by the book here, guys," Callahan told them. "That's the only way to do things."

"The book," said Mallory with a shake of his helmeted head. "The guy who wrote the fuckin book never had to stand around in 1G with a goddamn fifty kilo suit on."

"That's undoubtedly true," agreed Callahan, who was quite uncomfortable himself. "But we're marines, and standing around waiting for something to happen is what we do best, isn't it?"

They stood around grumbling for another twenty minutes before the order was finally given to move into the airlocks. The steel doors slid slowly open and, one by one, Callahan and his men moved into the cramped space. All forty of them were able to fit, but only by pushing tightly together and shifting their weapons and packs into accommodating places.

Once Callahan reported to command that they were all inside, the airlock door slid shut again, sealing them inside. A circuit clicked loudly over their heads and then there was the sound of the pumps running and sucking the air out of the room and into a holding tank where it could be recycled back in for the next group. This process took the better part of five minutes but finally the air pressure matched that of the surface.

"Okay, guys," Callahan told his men, "brace yourselves for lightening. They're gonna shut off the artificial G's to the lock."

The men all looked uneasily at each other for a moment. Although none of them had ever been on the surface of Mars or any other planet except Earth, all had undergone extraterrestrial combat training at Armstrong Naval Base in Earth orbit. A significant part of this course consisted of spending time in a low gravity simulation room and moving about with the biosuits on. All remembered the sensation of lightening quite well but none had experienced it enough to become accustomed to it.

As it turned out, only four of the forty men in the airlock actually vomited when the artificial gravity was switched off although every last one of them groaned and had to fight the sensation. Once the worst of it had passed Callahan polled all of his squad leaders and received assurances that everyone was ready to move.

"Third platoon, ready for egress," he reported to Captain Ayers over the command link.

"I copy, Callahan," Ayers replied. "Ramp is going down now. The sweep of the immediate area shows clear out to half a click. Proceed at best speed to your deployment area."

"You got it, cap," he said, taking a few deep breaths of his air. His combat goggles were turned on and a small graph in the upper right hand of his view showed he had just less than eight hours of oxygen remaining. He looked at his men. "Ramp's going down. We're going to head directly to our objective and secure it. First squad, you'll have point. Lets lock and load."

The door to the outside opened up a second later with a slight hiss of equalizing air pressure. They were looking out over a barren, red landscape dotted with boulders and rocks. About three hundred meters away a series of gentle hills were poking up from the ground. A steady wind was blowing from the west and clouds of dust went drifting by like red snow flurries. From the bottom of the doorway — which was three meters wide — a thin, aluminum ramp began to protrude, extending outward until its weight forced it towards the ground twenty meters below. Finally the end of it was resting on the Martian soil, imparting a forty-degree angle to the ground.

"Okay," Callahan said over the command link. "First squad, get your asses down there."

"You heard the LT," said Sergeant Mallory. "Down the ramp. Stinson, you're on point!"

Private Stinson, destined to be the first Earthling to invade Mars, put his weapon in the port arms position and stepped onto the ramp. He encountered trouble almost immediately. Unfamiliar with moving in low gravity and with his center of gravity thrown off by the weight of his oxygen tank and environmental control unit, the angle proved to be just a bit too much for him. By the second step his balance was shifting wildly back and forth. At first it seemed he was falling forward so he tried shifting his weight back. In doing so, he overcompensated, his body shifting much more than he had intended. Feeling himself falling backwards now, he shifted back forward, once again overcompensating. This time he pitched wildly, his feet coming out from beneath him. He thudded to the ramp, landing on the stock of his M-24, and began to slide downward. Halfway down he grabbed the edge of the ramp to stop himself and only succeeded in spinning his body around ninety degrees, at which point he began to roll like a log. He bumped and thudded and bounced the rest of the way down the ramp until he reached the bottom.

"Well, that was pretty," Callahan said disgustedly. "Is he okay?" he asked Mallory over the command channel.

"You okay down there, Stinson?" Mallory enquired over the tactical channel.

"I think so," Stinson said, rolling onto his stomach.

"You think so, or you are? Do I need to send the medic down after your ass?"

"I'm okay," Stinson barked back. "My suit isn't compromised."

"He's okay," Mallory reported back to Callahan.

"Good," Callahan said. "Then perhaps he'd like to get to his feet and start doing his job?"

Stinson got slowly to his feet, looking a little like a turtle trying to right himself after rolling over. Finally he was standing unsteadily on the surface of Mars, looking out to the north, his weapon held loosely in his gloved hands.

Two by two, the rest of the platoon went down the ramp. Most moved slowly, having taken Stinson's fall as an example of what could happen. Despite this caution however, five more people fell down and tumbled down the ramp and one person — Private Concord — actually rolled off the ramp and fell fifteen meters to the ground, landing hard on his oxygen tank and causing a leak. He was forced to retreat back to the ship for repairs, leaving the platoon short one man.

"This is a clusterfuck in the making," mumbled Callahan as he finally stepped onto the ramp himself. He made it down without falling, but only barely. In all, it had taken nearly fifteen minutes for the platoon to exit the ship, twelve minutes longer than the book prescribed. "Third platoon is on the surface," he reported to Ayers. "Moving in on objective."

The men formed up into a wedge formation and began to move forward towards the hills. They quickly found that walking over the uneven ground was not much easier than descending the ramp. Having lived their entire lives in 1G, they simply weren't accustomed to the way their bodies tried to spring into the air with each step, or with how easy it was to overbalance because your body shifted much more than you wanted it to. All along the formation men tripped and fell, grunting as they hit the ground. They bounced as they landed and then had trouble getting back to their feet. When other marines tried to give them a hand up they inevitably pulled too hard, tossing them into another fall. It would have been comical if it had been happening to someone else.

"Goddammit," yelled Callahan over the tactical channel after the sixth or seventh such episode, "we look like a bunch of fucking clowns out here. Everyone, take short, shuffling steps. Avoid shifting your weight from one side to the other. Remember your ET-combat training. We've all done this before!"

"That was almost ten years ago, LT," complained Stinson. "It'll take us a while to get used to this shit."

"Well get used to it fast," Callahan said. "When we start making contact with the greenies I don't want everyone tripping and falling."

They moved on, gradually becoming a little better as they followed Callahan's advice and took shorter steps. Still their movements were the awkward steps of children learning to ambulate and every minute or so someone would fall down. As they walked, the wind blew a steady stream of dust at them and soon their biosuits were powdered with a fine layer of it.

When they came to the base of the series of hills that were their objective, Callahan called a halt and took a moment to consult the mapping software. He called up the display, which superimposed itself over his view through the goggles. The map itself was constructed from old satellite views of the planet that had been in the military databases prior to the Martian takeover. A red dot represented Callahan's current position. Below this, in red letters, was the message: WARNING. POSITION IS ESTIMATED ONLY. NO GPS LOCK. And sure enough, the dot was not at the base of the hill Callahan was standing next to, but was shown nearly three hundred meters south and east.

"Computer," Callahan said, "move position locater to coordinates 47.855 by 01.455."

POSITION UPDATED flashed on his screen and the dot moved to the proper place on the map.

"Listen up, everyone," he said on the tactical channel. "Update your positions on the mapping software now that we're at a known location. Remember, we're going off of inertial navigation systems, which work by the computer estimating how far we've gone from our last known position. This is a notoriously inaccurate method. Be sure to update every time you get close to something that you can identify on the map."

"Why don't they launch some satellites from the command ship so we can get our own GPS system running?" asked Stinson.

"And how long do you think the greenies would let those satellites sit up there before they blew them up with some of their A-22s?" Callahan responded. "Ten minutes maybe?"

"I guess," Stinson grunted. "This is just a royal pain in the ass."

"So are you, Stinson," Callahan told him. "Now just update your fucking map and lets get up that hill, shall we?"

Going up the hill turned out to be the hardest thing they tried so far. The slope was only twenty to thirty degrees, less than the ramp that had taken them down from the ship, but the ground was uneven, with boulders and rocks strewn everywhere and loose, sandy dirt that did not make for good footing. Whenever a rock would move underfoot, whenever a foot would slip, the men would teeter back and forth trying to regain their balance in an unfamiliar gravitational pull. Several men went tumbling down the slope, bouncing off of boulders and creating small dust storms. Others turned ankles painfully and were forced to limp their way upward. Corporal Peterson of second squad became the first casualty of the ground war when he stepped in a small crevice between two rocks and fell backwards. His foot remained into the crevice while the rest of his body fell backwards, snapping his fibula and tibia at the ankle.

"Goddammit," exclaimed Callahan as he received this report from the squad medic. "This fucking planet is going to kill us before the greenies even get a chance to take their shot."

"Sorry, LT," Peterson said, grimacing through the pain. "I just missed my step. Its hard to walk in this gravity."

"I know, Peterson," Callahan said with a sigh. He motioned to two privates and ordered them to carry him back to the ship for treatment. They picked him up and began to clumsily lug him back the way they had come. Before they even made fifty meters they dropped him twice, causing him to scream out.

"Clusterfuck," Callahan muttered to himself as he resumed his own trek up to the top of the hill. He reached the summit five minutes later, the last of the platoon to do so, and spent a moment surveying the scene. Everywhere, as far as the eye could see, was the grimy, bleak Martian landscape, dotted with boulders and rocks and blasted by the dust flying on the prevailing winds. The horizon was very close here, seemingly just over the next rise. Except for the outline of the ship behind him, there was not a single man-made object in view. It was like looking out at a red desert.

"This place is some kind of shithole, ain't it?" asked Sergeant Mallory, who was standing next to him.

"I got to agree with you there," he said. "I can't imagine why those damn greenies are willing to fight for this place."

"Me either."

They continued to scan the immediate area for a moment, both of them checking their map displays and finding that the inertial navigation system still had them more or less locked on target. Both noticed however, that they were not getting an elevation reading.

"It's because the GPS is down," Callahan concluded after a moment's thought. "That's how we usually determine elevation."

"Can't the combat computer use barometric pressure as a back-up?" asked Mallory. "It's giving a temperature reading and a millibars reading. It should be able to compute that into an elevation."

"That doesn't work here," Callahan said. "Remember that briefing they gave us back when we first embarked? Martian atmospheric pressure isn't a constant. It changes day by day as parts of the atmosphere are frozen and thawed at the poles. Not only that, there's no real place to set as the zero elevation. We have oceans on Earth so we use sea level for that number. There ain't no oceans here. The greenies use New Pittsburgh elevation as their base."

"So why can't we do the same thing?" asked Mallory.

"We do," Callahan explained. "All of our elevation readings are based on that if we can manage to get some GPS data. The problem now is that we don't know exactly what the atmospheric pressure at this moment in New Pittsburgh is. And somehow I don't think that the greenies are going to volunteer that information for us. Without that information, we can't calibrate our altimeters."

"So we're not going to know what our elevation is?"

"Not until intelligence manages to hack into the GPS system," he replied.

"Great," said Mallory. "That's really going to play hell with the hover pilots, ain't it?"

"I guess it probably will," he said. "And it'll play hell on our artillery gunners even if they do manage to get an exact position fix. We'll just have to bring arty down the old fashioned way and adjust fire by radio."

"If they don't drop the shells on us first."

Callahan shrugged. "War is hell they say. Like I said though, I don't think we're gonna have to worry about that. The greenies are three hundred klicks away from us. We shouldn't be seeing any until the second or third day of the march at least and by that time, intel should have the GPS up and running again."

"Let's hope you're right," Mallory replied.

"Let's hope," he agreed. "In the meantime, why don't we start digging in up here? Let's get the boys working. I want fighting positions lined with sandbags every ten meters around the top of this hill."

"I'll get them working on it," Mallory said. "At least the gravity should make it easier to dig, huh?"

"At least there's that," Callahan agreed.

Seventy-five kilometers to the northwest, on the other side of the range of small hills, a Hummingbird was flying along at 500 kilometers per hour, twenty meters off the ground. It pulled up and dove down in a near-suicidal manner, barely clearing the rolling hills in its path. It turned and banked, its large wings dipping and rocking as it changed heading every few seconds. Inside of its belly was a ten-person squad of special forces soldiers — Third Squad of Second Platoon of Bravo Company from the Eden Battalion — with Sergeant Lon Fargo in command. The soldiers of this platoon were dressed in their specially modified model 459 biosuits. The modification was in the form of camouflage that helped them maintain invisibility in the Martian landscape. The entire outside layer of the suits had been sprayed with a polymer, granular substance that was remarkably similar in appearance to the Martian soil itself. It was in varying shades of red and would blend in perfectly with the ground when viewed from above or from a distance. Attached to the helmet portions of the suits, in addition to the polymer granules, were artificial rocks of differing size and shape which would help break up the round silhouette of a soldier peering over a ridge or out of a hastily dug foxhole. Each soldier carried a pack on his or her back that contained extra ammunition, a shovel, and spare charges for the anti-tank and anti-aircraft laser Lisa Wong would be packing.

Though this team, as well as all of the other special forces squads in every Martian city, had made many combat drops out in the wastelands since the revolution, the knowledge that this drop was for real, that this was what they had done all of that training for, weighed heavily on every mind. The ammunition they carried in their weapons, in their packs, in magazines stuffed in pockets of their biosuits weighed exactly the same as the training ammunition and was carried in the same amounts, but all the same it felt heavier because it was real. Soon that ammunition would be fired at real enemy soldiers instead of fellow MPG members and it would really wound or kill them when it hit. And those enemy soldiers would be firing real ammunition back at them, would be calling down real artillery shells, would be sending real hovers out in a quest to destroy them. The possibility that some of them, maybe all of them, would die out here, would never see the conclusion of this war they were participating in, was now much more than just an academic thought.

"Ten minutes to LZ," announced Mike Walters, the pilot, over the intercom system. "Ten minutes and closing. Gonna get a little rough now."

"Oh? It's gonna get rough now?" asked Horishito, who's Oriental featured face was visibly green through the tinted helmet. He pulled his SAW a little tighter against his chest and swallowed nervously.

"Sorry, Hoary," Walters apologized. "We're getting strong active sensor activity from the target area now. We're going to drop down a few more meters to make sure they don't get a hit on us."

"I'm all for that," Horishito said. "I just hope I don't puke. I don't really want to spend the next twelve hours out there with puke in my helmet."

"Its funny," said Lisa, who was cradling her laser tube and her weapon as the aircraft began to pitch up and down even more violently than it had been. "I used to think that the insertion wouldn't bother me. I have an iron stomach, I've seen people beaten to death and shot and shitting on themselves out on the streets and its never even made me queasy."

"We all used to think that," Lon told her. "We all heard about how insertions made everyone sick but we thought it could never happen to us. And we were all wrong. I've made well over two hundred insertions now and every last one of them has made me sick."

"Any chance we could talk about something else?" Horishito pleaded. "All this discussion about puking is making me want to do it. Why don't we debate the planetary economy under the Whiting reforms again?"

Everyone had a laugh but they took his words to heart and stopped talking about vomiting and motion sickness. The aircraft bounced and rattled and turned and dove its way onward and they all held tightly to their weapons and equipment as their restraints held them firmly in place. Soon Walters was reporting one minute to the LZ.

"Okay," said Lon, his voice calm but series. "You know the routine. Just like a training mission. Lock and load."

Everyone jacked the first round into their respective weapons and prepared for the violent maneuvering of the landing.

"LZ is in sight," reported Bill Padres, the Mosquito's gunner. "Scanning clear. No signs of enemy activity."

"Coming in now," said Walters. "Brace for landing."

Two seconds later the nose pitched upward and the aircraft began to shudder violently. Everyone was thrown tightly against their restraints as 500 kilometers per hour of forward speed was bled off in a few seconds. They banked sharply to the right for a second and then leveled. The nose went back down and there was a shudder as the landing gear contacted the surface of the planet.

"We're down," Walters' voice announced. "Ramp going down."

The rear of the aircraft opened and the ramp extended downward. There was nothing visible outside since the dust from the landing was obscuring everything. The restraint harnesses released and at an order from Lon, everyone got to their feet and began to move in the careful, orderly way that they had practiced hundreds of times before. Within twenty seconds everyone was belly down on the Martian soil fifty meters from the aircraft, their weapons pointed outward. The ramp went back up on the Mosquito and its powerful semi-rocket engines pushed it back into the air and sent it accelerating on its way.

Back at the landing ship, where a sensor array had been extended upward from the ship to a height of nearly a hundred meters, the heat from the landing and take off had shown up on a technician's screen as dim flares in the high infrared spectrum. The technician dutifully reported this development to his commander, who replayed the brief episode on his own computer screen. Since the flares were bearing only and had not been accompanied by a detection of any kind on the active sensors, he concluded that it must be either a sensor glitch or some sort of Martian atmospheric condition. He did not inform his superior and the detection techs all went back to the boring job of watching their blank screens.

None of the WestHem marines on duty would have any idea that a squad of heavily armed soldiers had just been dropped less than five kilometers from their position.

The landing ship at Libby was the second of the four to touch down. It came down neatly in a flat valley 324 kilometers north of the city. The third ship touched down in the rolling plains 356 kilometers south of the industrial and manufacturing city of Proctor in the mid latitude. The last of the four came to rest 316 miles west of New Pittsburgh in flatlands that had once been a river delta in the days when Mars had featured flowing water. At these three landing sites, just like at the Eden site, the marines exiting the ship looked more comical than fierce as they learned to negotiate in the reduced gravity. A total of sixteen injuries, two of them quite serious, were attributed to falls in the first hour of the WestHem presence on Mars.

In all, more than a thousand troops were deployed at each landing site. They fanned out in four directions, occupying high ground around the perimeter of where the main landing zones would be. They began to dig in so that machine gun and mortar nests could be set up. Almost to the man, they thought they were doing nothing more than going through the motions in order to satisfy the requirements set down in their doctrine. Meanwhile, engineers scoured the rest of the landing zones themselves, setting up navigational beacons for the remaining ships that would soon be coming down.

And, at each site, Mosquitoes dropped off MPG special forces teams just outside of the perimeter. On three occasions sensors were able to pick up the heat flash of the landing Mosquitoes. In none of the cases were these flashes recognized for what they were. None of the troops were sent out to investigate the phenomenon, nor were they informed of it. By the time two hours had gone by since the first touchdown, each landing site had four squads of special forces troops on the ground and moving in towards them.

Corporal Carl Jefferson was Lon's electronics and communications specialist. In addition to his M-24 he carried a powerful communication receiver and transmitter set that was capable of making contact with their command center and receiving radio, infrared, or radar signals from the enemy forces. He was atop a large boulder near the base of a small hill half a kilometer from where they had been dropped. Lon was crouched just below him, clutching his weapon. The rest of the squad was spread out in a circular pattern that had a perimeter of two hundred meters, their eyes alert for enemy patrols.

"What are you getting, Jeffy?" asked Lon as he watched Jefferson peruse the display on his screen.

"All kinds of shit, sarge," Jefferson replied. "I'm getting radar sweeps of the sky every ten seconds, active IR every four seconds, and a shitload of radio waves coming from bearings 96 through 120."

"Can you interpret any of the radio waves?"

"Negative," Jefferson said. "It's all encrypted. I'm just getting bursts of signal that come across as static. The frequency suggests that they're probably biosuit combat computer communications between individual field soldiers. And they're sure chattering a lot out there too. Those communications sets that they use are a lot more powerful than they need to be."

"Well, you know how the Earthlings are," Lon said. "They think more power is better. We should thank them for making their signals strong enough for us to pick up."

"I guess we should," Jefferson agreed.

Of course the Martian forces were communicating with radio signals as well, signals that could potentially be detected by passive sensors in the hands of the Earthlings. The difference however was that the Martian engineers who had designed the MPG tactical sets had made them extremely low power and short range. Tests in the field had shown that even the most powerful receiver could not pick up the radio signals if it was more than a half of a kilometer away. And that half-kilometer distance was under ideal atmospheric conditions and with a direct line of sight.

"Can you lock onto a com sat from here?" Lon asked next.

Jefferson checked his map display for a moment. Unlike what the Earthlings were experiencing, the Martian combat computers were receiving GPS data from the satellites in orbit and, as such, geographic and elevation data, accurate to within fifteen centimeters, were showing. "Yes, we should have a direct line with the 11-C bird from here," he said. "I'll get it set up."

Lon gave him a thumbs-up instead of verbally responding. Despite the fact that the Earthlings wouldn't be able to pick up their transmissions, special forces doctrine was to speak as little as possible in enemy territory, just in case.

Jefferson set his radio down on a relatively flat portion on the highest part of the boulder. The set was twelve centimeters square and plugged into the front of Jefferson's suit. Small legs on the bottom automatically leveled the device. Once level, a tiny laser transmitter extended from the top. Speaking softly to his combat computer, Jefferson commanded the device to lock onto communication satellite 11-C, which was in geosynchronous orbit over Eden. The communications set, utilizing the GPS data, spun the transmitter around to the correct position.

"Ready to go, sarge," Jefferson said.

"Okay," Lon said. "Tell them that we're down safely and in position. Moving in for recon now. Will report composition of enemy forces and make attacks if conditions are favorable."

"Got it," Jefferson replied. He repeated this message to the computer and ordered it transmitted. His words were converted into binary code and then the laser flashed for four tenths of a second. The message hit the dish on the orbiting satellite six centimeters off center and was then transmitted to MPG headquarters in Eden. An acknowledgment was returned two minutes later by an encrypted radio signal from the same satellite.

"No further orders," Jefferson read once his computer decrypted the message. "Just 'proceed with mission, utilize best judgment. Free Mars'."

"All right then," Lon said. He flipped his radio to the command channel, so he could talk to everyone. "No change in orders," he told them. "We're getting a lot of chatter from our Earthling friends coming from bearing 96 through 120. Let's get a little closer and see what there is to see. Matza, you're on point."

"Right, sarge," Matza said, standing up from his position.

"Wong, get that laser charged up and ready. They probably don't have any hovers on the ground yet but we don't know that for sure. Remember doctrine. We hide from them if we can."

"Right, Sarge," she said, pulling a battery from her pocket and sliding it into the tube. She hit the charge button and the energy began to transfer to the laser. Ten seconds later, it was done. "Charged," she reported, putting it back in her pack with the safety switch engaged.

"Good," Lon said, climbing down from the rock. "Let's move out. Wedge formation, ten meters of separation."

They formed up and began to move across the surface. They stepped carefully and confidently, with the air of people that had spent countless hours training in their environment, moving from one hill to the next, not climbing them, just using them for cover. As they walked they left footprints in the dusty surface but within a minute of their passage the constant wind would obscure these tracks with fresh dust. All had their primary weapons out before them, their gloved fingers near the firing buttons, the red targeting recticles bouncing up and down in their combat goggles. Their pace was brisk despite the cautiousness of their steps and they covered more than two kilometers in twenty minutes. As they neared the area of their targets, Lon motioned for them to spread out a bit more.

Soon they were spread at the base of two large hills, which rose thirty to fifty meters above them. Jefferson was still getting bursts of radio transmissions and active sensor sweeps although the bulk of the hills were blocking much of it. Lon gave a series of hand signals to his team and they split up into two elements, half trotting over to the adjoining hill, half staying put. Lisa remained with Lon at the first hill, her M-24 in the firing position as she scanned the hills beyond their position for opposition.

"Everything clear over here, sarge," said Horishito, who was in charge of the group that had gone to the adjoining hill.

"Copy, Hoary," Lon replied. "I think we're getting close. Go on up and let's see what we can see. We'll head up from here. Weapons tight."

"On the way up," Horishito said. "Weapons tight."

Lon gave another signal to his half of the squad and they started up the hill. They made it up in less than three minutes, all of them moving with sure-footed ease. After the hills that they had regularly climbed during their training missions, this particular thirty-degree rise was nothing. When they got within ten meters of the summit, they dropped down to their bellies and crawled, careful to keep their heads close to the surface.

As they peered over the top the view opened up considerably, showing them what they had come to see. Stretching out before them were two small ranges of shallow hills with a broad plain beyond it. The broad plain, they already knew, was where the landing ship had come down. They could see it now, in the distance, a large, straight-edged shape, obviously man-made, in a landscape full of hills and curves. The sensor mast and the three 150 millimeter artillery guns could be plainly seen poking out. Around the ship, moving about here and there, were the tiny figures of men, visible both visually and in the infrared spectrum. Closer in, on most of the hills before them, other soldiers could be seen. Many were in the process of digging into the surface and stacking sandbags. Others were standing around and watching. Almost all of them were carrying objects that were undoubtedly M-24 rifles.

"They're digging in," Lon said. "At least company strength just on this series of hills."

"Standard doctrine?" Lisa asked.

"Standard WestHem doctrine," Lon said with a nod. "Secure a perimeter around the LZ, send out patrols to secure everything out to five klicks, and then bring down the rest of the forces."

"How long until the patrols come out?" Matza asked.

"Probably not until they have their foxholes done. They'll want secure positions to fall back to in case they have to make a stand."

"Seems reasonable," Matza said.

"Yes," Lon agreed, increasing the magnification on his goggles so he could get a better look, "marines are nothing if not by the book. Unfortunately for them, that also makes them predictable."

He continued to stare at the hills before them, his eyes moving from one magnified view to the other, trying to get a rough count of the force composition against him and trying to identify each position that held enemy troops. As he identified and counted each position he made notations on his map screen, updating the schematic with the concentrations and locations. Soon his tactical map was filled with red marks to go along with the blue marks of friendly forces. Since all of their combat computers were data linked, this information showed up on everyone's map.

"Let's send off this data to Eden," he said when he was done. "Jeffy, we got a line of sight?"

"I can still lock onto 11-C from here," he answered from his position on the other hill.

"Good. Get it done. And let them know we'll be moving in closer and setting up to ambush. We'll hit them when they start sending out patrols."

Back at MPG headquarters General Jackson now had a pretty clear idea of the forces that had so far landed on the planet. Reports had come in from all of the special forces teams that had been deployed which allowed him to update the maps with solid intelligence figures. As far as he knew, none of the special forces teams had been detected by the enemy. None had been engaged anyway.

Jackson directed his computer to initiate a conference with Laura Whiting, who was in her own office four kilometers away. The link up took less than thirty seconds to accomplish. If anything, Laura looked even more fatigued than Jackson himself.

"What do we have, Kevin?" she asked him, stifling a yawn.

"Reports are in from the recon elements at all sites," he told her. "We have approximately twenty thousand enemy troops landed, approximately one thousand of them deployed. Battalion strength at each of the landing zones, making a perimeter and digging in according to standard doctrine. No heavy weapons, armor, or hovers have been spotted as of yet. My guess is that those will come down in the second wave."

"So they're vulnerable right now?" she asked.

"I plan to make them vulnerable every second they're on our planet," he answered. "But yes, they are about as defenseless as they'll ever get right now. If we had a couple of battalions of tanks out there we could destroy their beachheads in less than an hour."

"But we don't," she said.

"No," he said with a sigh. "We don't. That's why they land all the way out there after all. Anyway, we do have platoon strength special forces teams at each LZ and more on the way. Mortar teams have just deployed from each of the cities. They should be on the ground within the hour and able to make attacks thirty minutes after that. They will be utilizing shoot and scoot methods. They'll lob some shells into the Earthling perimeter and then pack up and deploy somewhere else and do it again. Before that happens though I expect some of our fire teams out there will start getting on the scoreboard. The Earthlings will be sending out patrols soon."

"It sounds like you have things well in hand," she said. "Why don't you try to get a little sleep? You look like shit and you'll need to be refreshed when the rest of the troops come down."

"I'll catch a few after the first attacks are carried out," he told her. "I don't think I'll be able to turn my mind off until I know that things are working out there." He smiled a little. "I would suggest that you catch a few hours though. You look like someone who's had a few too many cups of coffee."

"I'll make you a deal," she told him. "I'll sleep when you sleep."

He laughed. "Deal," he told her. "I'll keep you updated as things start to happen here."

It was now three and a half hours since the landing ship had come down. Lieutenant Callahan was standing atop of his hill and surveying the work that his platoon had accomplished. All along the top of the hills around them, trenches had been dug to a depth of 1.5 meters. The rocky soil that had been extracted from these holes had been placed into sandbags that now lined the front of each position. The material of each sandbag was reinforced with Kevlar material, which, thought not impervious to high velocity rounds, would, when coupled with the dirt inside and the other layer of Kevlar on the back, prevent them from penetrating through into the hole. They would also stand up quite well to mortar fire in the unlikely event that the greenies managed to throw some at them. Mounted between two sets of the sandbags in each position was one of the squad automatic weapons. Other firing ports for the smaller M-24s had also been constructed. The positions were by the book and very formidable. By staying within them Callahan's single platoon could find off an entire company of greenies provided that they didn't have tank or hover support.

"Not bad, guys," he told his men on the command channel. "This almost looks like a fighting position."

"Yeah," said Stinson, who was manning one of the SAWs, "and I used up a quarter of my fuckin air supply digging it. Talk about a waste of oxygen."

"Well, it's true that we probably won't get much use out of them," Callahan said with feigned sympathy. "But they sure do look pretty. Has anyone taken a picture of them yet? You can impress your grandkids later on. Show them the holes you got to dig on Mars."

There were some dutiful chuckles at his words, but not many.

"What now?" asked Sergeant Mallory, who was sitting on an ammunition box and cradling his rifle.

"I'm real glad you asked that," Callahan said. "Real glad indeed."

A chorus of groans met his words. The men hated it when he talked like that. Experience had taught them that something unpleasant would soon follow.

"Now, let's not get our panties in a bunch, gentlemen," he said, leaning against one of the sandbag walls and looking at his men. "Its not all that bad, we just have to follow doctrine to the letter. Mallory, I need you to take three men and make a patrol of the area."

"Ahhh man," Mallory said. "We gotta go walkin around out on this abortion of a planet?"

"Yeah, LT," Stinson put in. "Can't we just not do it and say we did? There ain't nothing out there but a bunch of fuckin rocks and this goddamned dust."

"That ain't no shit, LT," another of the men put in. "I think we've seen all there is to see right here."

"And you are undoubtedly correct, my good men," Callahan told them, "but doctrine is doctrine. Think of it as training for if we ever have to fight a real war."

The sound of thirty-eight sighs came over the radio set.

"All right," Mallory said, standing up and hefting his weapon. "You heard the lieutenant. Zimmerman, Spanky, Trower, you just volunteered. Grab your weapons and lets get to it."

The three men who had been chosen slowly rose to their feet and grabbed their own weapons.

"Take them out at least two klicks to the north," Callahan said. "You don't have to pretend we're securing a position in Salta or anything, but do at least check around all the hills out there. Its theoretically possible that the greenies made a lucky guess and landed a few recon elements out here before we came down."

"How the hell could they have done that?"

"Lucky guess, like I said. After all, our fearless leader up on the command ship told them what cities we were going to be landing at. They might've put people out at the likely places."

"You don't really believe that do you, LT?" Mallory asked.

"No, of course not, but it is within the realm of possibility, isn't it? So go out there and put our minds at ease. It shouldn't take more than hour, right?"

"I guess not," he sighed, climbing out of the trench. "All right, boys. Lock and load and lets go look at some more rocks and hills. Spanky, you take the point."

"Right," Spanky said. "I'm on the point."

"Let's switch down to sub tach channel Charlie."

They all switched their radio frequencies so that their chatter during the patrol would not bleed onto the main tactical channel.

"Be back in an hour," Mallory told Callahan on the main channel. "How about having some hot food for us?"

"You got it," Callahan said with a grin. "I'll throw a couple of beers on ice too."

"You do that," he said and then turned towards his patrol mates. "Okay, lets get this shit over with. Spanky, lead us off. Check the hills as we go."

They all climbed out of the trench and began to make their way down to the bottom of the hill on the north side. Before they even made it ten steps Zimmerman overbalanced and went tumbling all the way down.

"Shit," Callahan said, shaking his head slowly. "I hope those fuckin greenies give it up soon before we all break our goddamn legs."

Lon and his squad had moved 700 meters closer to the WestHem positions on the north side of the landing zone. They were now spread out in three groups, all of them peering between boulders on the tops of a series of small hills. They were lying on their bellies, their weapons cradled next to them, their goggles set on medium magnification. All had plainly seen the four men climbing off the hill and starting down.

"And here comes a patrol," Lon said quietly, his words broadcast at ultra low power to the rest of the team.

"Did you see that dumbshit fall off the hill?" Horishito asked from the next hill over. "Christ. They can't even walk out here. How the hell do they expect to fight?"

"They're marines, remember?" Matza said, his finger playing over the firing button of his SAW. "They don't have to be able to walk. They can kick ass buried up to their necks in sand. At least that's what they always say."

"All right, guys," Lon said. "Let's keep the chatter to a minimum, shall we? No sense giving ourselves away with leaking radio waves."

Everyone kept quiet, watching as the four men, now safely on the bottom of their hill, formed up in a diamond formation and began to move clumsily forward. They disappeared momentarily behind one of the other hills and then emerged a few minutes later on the other side of it.

"How far out will they go, sarge?" Lisa asked.

"At least two klicks," he responded. "If they follow doctrine that is. We should wait until they're out about as far as they're going to go before we hit them."

"Shadow them?" asked Horishito.

"Yes," he responded. "Three at a time. The rest of the squad will leapfrog around out of sight and set up. Hoary, you and your team will be the first trackers."

"You got it," he said.

"You should be virtually invisible to them at more than three hundred meters as long as you don't silhouette yourselves. Stay low and keep your distance. Just like we've trained."

"Right, sarge," he said. "We're on the motherfucker."

The marine patrol began to angle slightly off to the right. They walked awkwardly and every few minutes one of them would trip and fall down. They would walk up to each hill, make a turn around the base, and then move on to the next one. They kept their weapons slung around their shoulders as they did this. As they came to within half a kilometer of where the special forces team lie on the hill, Horishito, Gavin, and Salinas began to inch backwards, back down to the bottom of their own hill. Once on the ground they began to trot to the east, keeping low, moving from one piece of cover to the next. They stopped behind boulders, at the base of hills, leapfrogging each other one by one until they had moved around to the other side of the advancing marine patrol, which, by this point, had moved out of the view of Lon and the rest of them.

"We got them, sarge," said Horishito's voice. "They're moving northeast around the base of hill 171 right now. They've slowed their pace down a bit. I think they're checking their maps."

"Yes," said Lon thoughtfully, "I guess that makes sense. They'll be running on inertial navigation."

"Wouldn't that be a shame if they got lost out here?" asked Matza.

"A damn shame," Lon agreed. "Come on. Let's displace. We'll hook north around hill 222 there. That should give us defilade from our friends. We'll re-deploy on hills 123 and 201. Everyone clear?"

No one answered, which meant that everyone was clear.

"Okay, let's do it."

Sergeant Mallory was not having a good time. His right ankle was throbbing from the twist he'd given it a few minutes ago and he was nursing a thirst that the water from his supply reservoir simply could not satisfy. His heart was pounding uncomfortably in his chest with the exertion of walking in the Martian soil. Christ, why hadn't they exercised more on the trip here? He had not been so out of shape in years, since before being accepted into the Marine Corps more than twelve years ago.

"Motherfuck," grunted Zimmerman as he stepped on a loose rock, which rolled out from beneath him. He tried to keep his balance and would have easily been able to do so had he been in standard gravity but here, with the unfamiliar pull and the awkward suit he was in, he went down. It did not look like a fall on Earth however. It was a slow tumble, looking almost like it was being viewed in slow motion. He landed on his chest, bounced once, and then came to a rest.

"You all right, Zim?" Mallory asked, adjusting his rifle on his shoulder.

"Yeah," he grunted sourly, starting the rolling motion that would get him back to his feet. After a moment he was able to get his knee beneath him and stand up. "Christ, sarge, haven't we gone far enough out yet?"

"Yeah," agreed Spanky. "Their ain't no fuckin greenies out here. Even they're not that dumb."

"Another half a klick or so," Mallory said. "We need to check that group of hills in front of us."

"Christ," Zimmerman swore, brushing dust from his faceplate. "We oughtta just give this fuckin place to the greenies. Who the hell else would want it?"

"Well, Agricorp seems to think it's a nice planet," Mallory said.

"And that's who's giving us our goddamned orders, right?" Spanky asked bitterly.

"Ours is not to question why," Mallory said. "Now lets move out and get this shit over with. Lead off, Spanky."

"Leading off," Spanky said, walking forward.

After a moment, the rest followed. Their eyes were kept on their feet instead of on the terrain around them. You fell down less that way.

"Here they come, right on schedule," Lon said, watching as the group of four emerged from around another of the hills. They were now well out of sight of the ship and the perimeter positions surrounding it. The patrol was almost two kilometers out from their sandbagged positions. Lon and his group were deployed atop three hills 700 meters directly in front of their avenue of advance.

"Still walkin dumb I see," Horishito said. "I bet we can take them right here."

"Undoubtedly," Lon agreed. "But let's let them close a bit more first. We go with ambush plan Alpha-Bravo seven. Everyone got that?"

No answer, which meant that everyone got it. Plan AB-7 was one of many ambush plans they'd practiced over the last few weeks. It was one that fit this particular situation perfectly in that it would not only eliminate the patrol, but also draw a larger group into the same trap.

"I'll assign targets when they come into optimum range," Lon said. "For now, just keep trained on them and keep down."

They waited, watching as the four men walked from hill to hill, circling around and then moving onto the next. They did not look up on the hills as they passed them. They stared downward.

Jesus, Lisa thought to herself as she kept the point man on the patrol covered with her targeting recticle. This is almost too easy.

It took the better part of ten minutes but finally the patrol passed to within 500 meters. They were in a lengthy gully now, open ground all around them, heading directly towards the hill where Lon, Lisa, Matza, and Jefferson were waiting.

"Okay," Lon said, "they're coming up to us. We'll take them down. The rest of you hold in place and mop up anyone if they get away from us. As soon as the shooting's over, we displace to hills 233, 422, and 397 respectively. We need to be off of these hills before they can bring some arty down on us. Everyone got it?"

Everyone got it.

Lon looked at Lisa. "Wong, you take the point man out. You'll shoot first on my command."

"Right, sarge," she said, hiding the nervousness that she felt. "I take the point man."

"I'll take the man right of point," he said next. "Matza, you give a burst to the man on the left of point and then shift fire to the area around the rear man. Wong, you hose down the area around him too, but remember, don't hit him. He has to be able to put out a broadcast or Alpha-Bravo seven is blown." He turned to Jefferson, the communications tech. "Jeffy, you tell me the instant that rear man broadcasts back to the rest of them."

"Right, sarge," he said, his radio set down on a rock, his weapon tucked against his side.

"Let's do it then," Lon said, aiming his rifle out over the open space. "Wong, are you on target?"

She adjusted the barrel of her weapon just a bit, laying the targeting recticle over the faceplate of the man on point. The range indicator told her that his head was 486 meters away. She increased her magnification until his head was practically the only thing in her view. She could see his face beneath the lightly tinted plate. He was a Caucasian and he had a short, neatly trimmed mustache. His mouth was hanging open as if he were breathing hard. He had no idea that he was taking the last breaths of his life. "I'm on target," she said.

"Fire," he told her.

Slowly, smoothly, without stopping to think about what she was doing, she pressed the firing button on her rifle. It kicked against her shoulder with a flash of red fire from the barrel and a sharp crack that sounded loud to her ears but that would be completely inaudible to anyone more than twenty meters away. Sound traveled very slowly and very inefficiently in the thin Martian atmosphere. The bullet that shot out of the barrel moved much more efficiently though. It was four millimeters in diameter and moved nearly ten times faster than the sound waves. There was little in the way of air friction to slow it down or push it off course. It traveled over that 486 meters in two tenths of a second and drilled into the point man's face shield less than two millimeters from where Lisa's targeting recticle was placed. It smashed through the Kevlar reinforced plastic of the shield like it was tissue paper, drilled into the man's face, through his brain, and out the back of his skull with enough velocity left over to punch a hole the size of a man's fist in the back of his helmet. Blood, skull fragments, pieces of brain matter, and chunks of helmet flew in a messy spray behind him. The blood boiled away into a misty red vapor the moment it hit the air. The point man never knew what hit him.

Even before he could fall down Lon and Matza fired too, sending their bullets out towards a lethal intersection with their targets.

It happened so fast that Mallory had a difficult time processing things. One second he was walking in the rear of the formation, putting one foot in front of the other, and the next, all three of his comrades were down. Spanky got it first, his head snapping back in a spray of gore and boiled blood. Zimmerman went a half second later, another headshot, another spray of red vapor, skull chunks, and mushy brain flying out through a large hole in his helmet. And then Trower was hit with a burst of machine gun fire right in the midsection, at least four rounds. They blew out the back of his biosuit, exploding two of the compartmentalized air chambers in the tank with a loud bang. Trower managed a grunt of surprise and then he fell forward in the curious slow motion style that was all the rage on the Martian surface.

"What the..." was all Mallory had time for before bullets were slamming into the ground all around him. They plinked off rocks and kicked up dust around his feet. They whizzed through the air as streaks in the infrared spectrum of his combat goggles. He was under fire! He was under fire and three of his men had already been hit!

Mallory was a veteran of ambush attacks by Argentine rebels. His brain reacted instantly once the message that he was under attack was processed. He threw himself to the ground. Only he didn't drop immediately as he did when he was on Earth in normal gravity. Instead, he seemed to float downward at an almost serene pace. When he hit the dirt, he bounced back up and then slowly landed back down again. Two bullets came plinking in less than a half meter from his head.

"Fuck me!" he barked, feeling the adrenaline start to flow now. There were greenies out there and they were shooting at him! He could see the muzzle flashes from their weapons now, coming from the hills about half a kilometer in front of him. Half a kilometer! They were putting down frighteningly accurate fire from half a klick away. God help him.

He began scrambling to get under cover, trying to crawl behind a large boulder a meter to his right. His movements were ungainly and did little more than kick up more dust for a moment. Finally he started to inch along, bullets still flying all around him. A rock near his right hand was hit and flipped nearly a meter into the air, chips of it exploding everywhere. Finally his hands were on the rock. He pulled himself around it, putting its bulk between him and the enemy, praying that it was large enough to provide cover.

Bullets began to slam into the rock now, throwing chips of it into the air to rain down upon him. Acting quickly, not stopping to wonder how he had been miraculously spared when the other three men had been potted as easily as pop-up targets on a shooting range, not knowing that he was doing exactly what his tormentors wished him to do, he switched his radio frequency to the main tactical channel, calling up his mapping display in the same instant.

"Callahan, this is Mallory. Emergency traffic!" he screamed.

Callahan came on the air immediately. "What is it, Mallory?" he asked, his voice calm.

"I'm taking fire!" he said. "I have a squad sized unit shooting at me from grid three-one-bravo. The hill marked two-three-four. I repeat. Hill two-three-four in grid three-one-bravo. The rest of the patrol is down. Requesting immediate arty support!"

"Confirm the rest of the squad is down?" Callahan asked, his voice kicking up a notch in excitement.

"That's affirm," Mallory said, wincing as another burst of fire came stitching into his rock. "I've got small arms fire coming from that location. I'm pinned down at grid three-one-charlie, half a klick south of the hill! Get some arty down on those fuckers!"

"He's broadcasting, sarge," Jefferson said. "No doubt about it. Encrypted 900 megahertz frequency from his bearing."

Lon nodded, squeezing off another two shots into the dirt around the rock where he was hiding. Beside him Matza blasted an extended burst with the SAW, the expended casings flying out behind him. "Wong, do you got a shot on him?" Lon asked. "He's under cover from my direction."

"Mine too," she said. "I can see part of his foot if you want me to put one there."

"No, no sense torturing the bastard. Hoary," he hailed to the Horishito on the adjoining hill. "You have a clean shot of him from over there?"

"Fuckin' aye, sarge," he answered.

"Take him," Lon said.

Two hundred meters to the east, Horishito moved his weapon and sighted in. The remaining marine was crouched down, as low as he could make himself, but the side of his head was clearly visible from this angle. After all, the poor bastard didn't know that there was another group of armed Martians on the adjoining hill. Horishito felt an instant of pity for him and then buried it deep. He pushed the firing button and watched the marine's head snap to the side with the impact. His body slumped over and lay still.

"He's down," Horishito reported.

"Okay," Lon said. "Let's displace. You all know the drill. Let's get moving."

Within fifteen seconds all ten of them had their weapons and gear stowed and were rushing down to the base of their hills. The entire attack had lasted less than one minute.

"Mallory!" Callahan barked, his voice being transmitted across the ether. "Mallory, your condition?" Nothing but silence answered him. "Goddammit," he muttered.

He called up his map display and ordered it to show the locations of everyone in his platoon. This information was provided by ultra high frequency radio signals from each platoon member's combat computer. It was displayed as blue dots on the terrain of the map. He ignored the cluster of blue dots deployed in the trenches on the hills they occupied, concentrating instead on the four, unmoving dots that were 1600 meters north of this. Three of them lay in a neat diamond pattern, as if they had fallen instantly during their patrol. The fourth lay a few meters out of formation. That one was Mallory. He instructed his combat computer to give him a view from Mallory's combat computer. The computer reported a malfunction from the visual display. Similar malfunctions were reported from Zimmerman's and Spanky's computers. Trower's was able to give him a picture but it wasn't very helpful. It looked only at the ground.

By now everyone else in the platoon was looking at him expectantly. All had heard Mallory's broadcast. All had heard the lethal way it had suddenly been cut off. They had picked up their weapons and were gripping them tightly, itching to go out there and deal a little payback.

"Stand to and get ready to move out," Callahan told them. "I'm gonna get some arty flying at that hill." He switched radio frequencies to the one that had been assigned for fire support. He struggled for a moment to remember his call sign and then began to speak. "Fire control main this is Perimeter five-alpha. I have a fire mission for you."

Nobody answered him and he had to repeat his hail two more times. Finally a weary voice came on.

"Perimeter five-alpha, this is fire control main. What did you just say?"

"I said I have a fire mission for you. Coordinates are..."

"Wait a minute," the voice interrupted. "I haven't received any authorization for a live fire drill."

"This is not a drill, fire control," Callahan said, barely maintaining control of his voice. "One of my patrols has come under fire. Coordinates are..."

"Stand by, perimeter five-alpha," the voice interrupted again. "I need to get authorization for this."

"Authorization?" Callahan nearly screamed. "I just told you my men have come under fire! Now get those guns firing goddammit!"

"Stand by. I need to talk to the captain about this."

"Shit," Callahan said, grunting in frustration.

"Perimeter five-alpha," another voice cut in, this time on the command frequency. Callahan recognized it as belonging to Captain Ayers, the company commander who was, in the tradition of all great commanders, still back on the landing ship. "This is Perimeter five command. What the hell is going on?"

"My patrol has been shot up, cap," he said. "Mallory reported being fired on from hill 234 in grid three-one-bravo. He stopped transmitting a few seconds later. All four of the patrol team are down. Unknown what their status is. That fuckhead in fire control main won't take my fire mission until he checks with his captain."

There was a long pause as Ayers digested this information. Finally he said: "Take two of your squads and start moving in on the location. I'll send the reserve platoon up to cover your position."

"And the arty?"

"I'll have a talk with fire control. The arty will be on its way before you leave the hill."

"Thanks, cap. We're on the way."

"Get those terrorist fucks," Ayers said. "Try to capture one if you can but don't show them any mercy."

"You know it," Callahan promised. He switched back to the tactical frequency. "Second squad, fourth squad, let's move out. Second, you're on the point. First and third squad, maintain security here. The reserve platoon is moving up to reinforce you."

The ten men of second squad and the nine men of fourth quickly jumped out of the trench. After a tumbling, clumsy climb down to the bottom of their hills, they began to form up. And, as promised, before they even started to move out, artillery shells from the 150-millimeter guns on the landing ship began to fly over their heads.

"Arty, incoming," reported Matza. "Eleven o'clock high, moving left to right."

They were deployed on another three hills, this time to the west of where they had ambushed the patrol. They were still overlooking the gully and all ten of them could plainly see the bodies lying in the dirt 400 meters away. At Matza's report everyone looked towards the eleven o'clock position, easily seeing the incoming rounds.

The artillery shells made no noise, at least none that was audible from this distance. They showed up only with the infrared enhancement of the combat goggles. They were white streaks, moving rapidly in a ballistic arc. As they watched they passed over them and disappeared well beyond the hill that they had made the attack from. There were flashes from the explosions but no vibration or sound.

"Jesus," Wong said. "They're at least a kilometer off target."

"We could've stayed on those hills if we'd wanted," Horishito put in.

"They don't have accurate elevation or position data," Lon said. "It throws their shells off course because they don't know where they're firing from, where exactly their target is in relation to their guns, and what exact elevation they're at. That's kind of what we figured would happen in our briefings before they landed. I wasn't sure enough to rely on that though and take the chance of getting us all smeared."

Three more shells came arcing over and then three more and then yet another three. All of them followed the same basic path as the first set, impacting well away from their target area.

"Okay," Lon said. "It would seem that we're safe from artillery. Wong, Hoary, go do your stuff. You know the drill."

"Damn right we do," Horishito said. "Come on Wong. Let's go trap some boobies."

Lisa and Horishito picked up their weapons and quickly scrambled down the backside of the hill. Holding their rifles out before them they began to advance towards the four bodies on the ground.

"How's it look?" Callahan asked Private Scalzi, who was on the point. Of course Callahan could look through Scalzi's combat goggles and see for himself but he didn't like cutting off his own vision in order to do that.

"They're lying on the ground," reported Scalzi, who was peering over a boulder that lay between two hills. Before him was the gully where Mallory and his patrol had fallen almost forty minutes before. "No movement. No outgassing of CO2 on any of them."

"They're dead then," Callahan said, mostly to himself although with the intercom still active. In truth, that was what he had known in his heart the entire time. Greenie terrorists were no different than Argentine terrorists it seemed. They wouldn't leave a man alive on the ground if they had a chance to kill him. "How's the surrounding area look?"

"The target hill looks clear. No heat sources, nothing on visual. It doesn't look like the arty came down there though. I don't see any impact craters."

"Great," Callahan sighed, although that was exactly what he'd suspected would happen.

"What now, LT?" Scalzi asked. "You want me to move up to the bodies?"

"That's right," Callahan said. "Take Hunter, Bingham, and Frank with you. Doc?"

"Yeah, LT?" said O'Leary, the medic.

"Go with them. They're probably KIA but you never know."

"Right, LT," he said.

"Go to it," Callahan ordered. "Everyone else, keep a sharp eye out. I don't like the way this looks out here. Those greenies could be anywhere, and this has the smell of a trap to me."

Scalzi and the four others stepped out into the open and began to move towards their fallen comrades. They spread out into a line formation, five meters separating them, their rifles gripped tightly, fingers on the firing buttons, eyes tracking the terrain before them. And, of course, since they weren't looking at their feet as they walked, one of them — Corporal Bingham — promptly tripped and fell down. His finger twitched on his firing button as he fell and a three round burst shot out of his rifle, blasting into the ground before him and raising a cloud of red dust that was quickly blown away in the wind.

"Sorry, LT," Bingham grunted as he pulled himself back to his feet.

"That's okay, Bingham," Callahan responded. "We all know how it is."

They continued on, all of them relaxing a little when they weren't fired upon. Scalzi, slightly in the lead, reached Mallory first. O'Leary trotted up behind him, took one look, and shook his head.

"Mallory is gone, LT," he said. "The whole side of his helmet is blown out. Clean head shot."

"All right," Callahan said, suppressing a surge of anger and grief. Mallory had been his first sergeant for the last three years and the two of them had been very close. "Check on the rest."

O'Leary and Scalzi walked to the next body, which belonged to Zimmerman. This too was an obvious death, as was evidenced by the huge hole in the back of his helmet. Spanky was in exactly the same condition.

"Holy shit," Scalzi said, as he took this all in. "Three fuckin head shots, LT. I'll tell you what. If those greenies really did this from that hill over there, they're wicked good shots. That's got to be at least a half a klick out."

"It's their home ground," Callahan said slowly, as if the idea were just occurring to him. "They've got combat goggles to line them up nice and neat and they've been practicing out here for weeks."

"Hey," said O'Leary, "look at Trower. He wasn't head shot."

"No?" Scalzi said.

"No, it looks like he took a burst in the torso. Blew out the back of his tank. Help me roll him over. He might still be alive if the suit was able to seal."

Scalzi walked over and leaned down next to the medic, who was reaching down to get a grip on Trower's side. Hearing that he might still be alive, Hunter and Bingham came trotting over as well. Hunter leaned down to grab a piece of Trower while Bingham stood behind them. Private Frank, who had decided that someone should keep an eye on the terrain, hung back about three meters. This was a decision that would end up saving his life.

"Pull," O'Leary said. "Let's get him over."

As one, the three men began to pull on their fallen comrade and in doing so they activated a trip mechanism that Lisa Wong had planted beneath him. When the weight came off of the mechanism a simple spring was allowed to open, therefore completing a circuit. The circuit sent a radio signal out to a Stevenson mine — a little explosive device the MPG research and development teams had come up with ten years before — that Horishito had planted less than two meters away. The mine looked exactly like one of the innumerable Martian rocks that littered the wastelands, but it actually contained one kilogram of high explosive surrounded by thousands of razor sharp slag diamond chips. The mine exploded with a sharp crack, spraying the diamond chips and chunks of rock outward at suicidal velocity. Hunter took the worst of it. The shrapnel ripped through his helmet and upper torso, literally ripping his head and right arm right off his body. Bingham and O'Leary didn't fair much better. Well over a hundred shards tore into the torso portions of their suits, exploding their air tanks, destroying the computers that controlled their environmental controls, and finally penetrating into their chests, tearing apart vital organs and sending their blood boiling out into the atmosphere. Scalzi, who was fortunate enough to have the other three between him and the mine, only had five or six pieces of the shrapnel hit him. Though his air supply tanks remained intact and though the self-sealing material of his suit was able to do its job and keep him pressurized, several major veins and arteries, as well as his right lung, were hit. He fell to the ground, screaming, trying desperately to keep breathing. Only Frank was untouched by shrapnel. Even so, he was thrown nearly two meters backwards by the concussion, which was quite intense in spite of the thin air to carry it. He landed on his back, dazed, wondering just what the hell had happened.

Callahan and the rest of the men with him watched the explosion with horror, all of them crouching downward instinctively, their eyes looking for the perpetrators and seeing nothing, their weapons tracking back and forth, trying to engage something that wasn't there.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Callahan said, watching in horrified fascination as the clouds of red vapor boiled up from the bleeding bodies and was whisked away in the wind.

"What the fuck happened?" someone else, it sounded like Sergeant Hamilton, asked.

"A booby trap," Callahan said. "They rigged a fucking explosive on Mallory!"

"Those motherfuckers!" someone else raged.

"Goddamned terrorist assholes!" said yet another.

Callahan took a deep breath, fighting to remain calm. His only medic had just been blown to pieces and he had at least one wounded man out there. Scalzi's screams were plainly audible to everyone on the tactical channel. "Scalzi, chill out, man," he said soothingly. "We're coming to bring you in. Try to relax."

"I can't... breathe... el... el tee," he gasped.

"Hang in there," Callahan told him. "Frank, you with us?"

"I... uh... I think so," he said softly. "What happened?"

"Are you hurt?"

"I don't... I don't know."

"Okay, just lay there, we're coming to get you. Second squad, move in. Drag Scalzi and Frank back over here and whatever you do, don't touch those other bodies. God only knows what other kind of shit they got rigged up."

Second squad, from which Scalzi, Bingham, and Hunter had been drawn, was down to only seven members. Six of them jumped to their feet to go drag their wounded teammates out of the gully. The seventh, Corporal Dixon, moved up a little to help cover them with his SAW. Fourth squad and Callahan all moved up as well, their weapons trained out over the landscape.

"Let's get this done quick," said Sergeant Hamilton, the leader of second squad.

They were about halfway to their destination, well out into the open, when flashes erupted from the peaks of the hillsides beyond them, three to four flashes on each peak, at least one from a SAW. High velocity bullets slammed into the line of marines, hitting them so fast that most of them didn't have a chance to dive to the dirt. Air tanks exploded, helmets were blown apart, legs were cut out from beneath, and the air was filled with the boiling blood vapor. Screams of pain and horror were broadcast over the tactical frequency. And then, less than five seconds after it had begun, it was over. Six men lay dead or dying on the Martian soil.

The speed and violence of the attack was shocking to the remaining marines who witnessed it from behind their cover. All had experienced hit and run attacks by Argentine rebels in Salta, but none had ever seen six of their comrades shot down in less than five seconds. They all stared for a moment, even Callahan, the most experienced among them, not talking, their mouths gaping under their protective visors.

Corporal Dixon was the first to react. "Motherfuckers!" he screamed in rage, his finger slamming down on the firing button of his SAW. It began to buck on its bipod, sending a stream of bullets out towards the closest of the hills from which the fire had come. He raked it back and forth, thoroughly hosing the top of the hill, watching as a cloud of dust was raised from the impact of his shells.

The sound of his gun firing stirred the rest of the marines to action. Reverting to their training, they began to fire as well, sending three round bursts downrange and peppering the hills. All could plainly see that the flashes from the enemy had stopped but no one let that deter them. Hundreds of rounds flew, the shell casings littering the ground beside them. Callahan fired a few bursts himself and then reverted to his training, which was to act as commander. He radioed fire control main back at the ship and called for an artillery strike on the three hillsides. Having been talked to by Captain Ayers and Major Wild after the last debacle, the support officer on duty immediately relayed the coordinates.

By the time the artillery request was taken care of, most of the marines had fired the first of their 100 round magazines empty and were reloading. Callahan, noting that there still was no enemy fire being returned at them, ordered them to cease fire. Over the intercom several new sets of screams were being broadcast now.

"We need to get out there, LT!" yelled Sergeant Barley, commander of fourth squad. "We need to get the wounded in!"

"Everybody hold in place," Callahan ordered. "You saw what happened when someone walked out there. The fuckin greenies cut them to pieces. We're not giving them any more easy targets."

"But, LT..." Barley said helplessly.

"That's a goddamned order!" Callahan yelled. "Everybody stay right the fuck where you are. Arty is coming in."

"Callahan!" the voice of Captain Ayers suddenly cut in over the command channel. "What in the hell is going on out there?"

"We were ambushed, sir," he answered. "We are in contact with a greenie force of unknown composition, probably squad sized though. They rigged the bodies of our men with explosives and took out the retrieval team. When I sent second squad out to retrieve the wounded from that they hit us from the hillsides with concentrated fire. All of second squad is down now except for Dixon on the SAW. We have several wounded that need to be evacuated and we can't get to them. I just called in arty. It should be coming down any second."

"With only three guns firing," Ayers said. "Goddammit, we need more artillery guns down here and we need some fucking hovers in the air. The greenies probably had a squad positioned out here before we even landed."

"Agree, sir," Callahan said. "And they're very good shots. We need to eliminate them quickly."

"I'm sending second platoon up to reinforce you," Ayers said. "Sweep that area when they get there and make sure every last one of those greenies is neutralized."

"Yes, sir," Callahan told him. "I'll be sending some of the men back with the wounded as soon as we can get them."

"I'll get a shuttle coming down from orbit for evac up to the hospital ship. Update if there is any more contact."

"Yes, sir," Callahan said, signing off.

The artillery rounds came flying overhead a few seconds later. Everyone looked up to see the white streaks moving through the pink sky. It was quite obvious that they weren't going to land anywhere near the target. They arced over the hillsides and disappeared, so far distant that not even the flashes were visible.

"Goddammit," Callahan swore, shaking his head in disgust. He switched frequencies on his radio. "Off target," he told fire control. "I repeat, you are well off target. Adjust back one klick."

"One klick?" the fire control officer said in disbelief. "That's impossible, Lieutenant. We can't be that far off target."

"And I'm telling you that you fucking well are!" he yelled. "I'm sitting here looking at your shells and they just passed over the tops of those hills still more than five hundred meters above the ground. Now adjust back a klick."

"Copy," the man said doubtfully. "Adjusting back a klick."

Twenty seconds went by before another salvo of artillery shells came flying in. This set was closer to the hills but still arced well over the top of them, exploding several hundred meters on the other side.

"Still off target," Callahan reported, his voice flirting with frustration. "Adjust back another 300 meters."

The next salvo landed well short, the shells' proximity fuses detonating them just above the open ground in front of the hills. Callahan had them adjust fire again, and then yet again before the rounds finally started to land where they were supposed to. He told them to fire for effect and they plastered the hills with twelve rounds apiece, raising huge clouds of dust and spraying lethal shrapnel about.

And of course it was all for nothing. Following special forces doctrine, Lon and his squad had vacated the hills in question less than thirty seconds after they fired on the marines. By the time the shells came down on their hiding spots they were nearly half a kilometer to the east, occupying yet another overlook. When Callahan led the reserve platoon forward to check the hills twenty minutes later they found impact craters and scattered piles of expended shell casings but no bodies, no weapons, nothing that indicated any of the greenies that had made the attack had been so much as scratched by either the return fire of the artillery.

In the meantime, Scalzi, who would most likely have been saved had a medic been able to attend to him, slowly died as his right lung collapsed around his heart and strangled the organ. Two of the other wounded, Metzinger and Valdez, both of second squad, also died while awaiting help, both of them bleeding to death from severed arteries. Only Private Frank, who had been blown clear by the detonating mine, and Private Kinnaman, who was hit with three bullets in the leg and lower torso, were eventually pulled alive from the killing zone.

"It appears at this time," General Wrath told the assembled reporters in the briefing room, "that the terrorist elements who are holding Mars somehow got lucky and were able to have a team of their operatives pre-positioned near the north side of the Eden landing site. My guess is that they placed several of these teams in likely locations where they thought our landing ships might come down and that the law of averages simply allowed this particular guess to be a correct one. This group of terrorists engaged some of our marines as they were on patrol around the northern perimeter of the landing zone. My information is that several marines were wounded during the exchange. I have just ordered a shuttle down to the surface to evacuate them. Our troops right now are sweeping the area where the engagement occurred and will capture or destroy these cowardly terrorists before they can make any more such attacks."

"How many were wounded?" asked the crusty old reporter from ICS. "And were any killed?"

"I don't have complete numbers on that yet," Wrath lied, "but my information is that there were a few moderate wounds from the exchange of gunfire and from explosive devices that the terrorists planted."

"Do you believe that any more of these teams might be in the vicinity of any other landing zone?" asked the pretty reporter from InfoServe. "And if so, what steps are you taking to ensure that they will not jeopardize the landing of the rest of the forces?"

Wrath, a veteran of live briefings, pretended to ponder her question, as if the reporter had not been briefed to ask that very thing in those exact words and as if he had not already formulated a response. "Well, Cindy," he said, addressing her by name, "I cannot actually guarantee that there are no other teams of terrorists lying in wait near any of the other landing zones, but I would guess that it is very unlikely. As I said, the terrorists probably placed several teams outside at several of the landing areas in the hope that we would just happen to set down near them. We just happened to show up next to this team. I hardly think that Laura Whiting and her thugs have an unlimited supply of such men to waste on futile attacks such as these. This attack will not affect the landing of the rest of the forces in any way."

There were a few more questions, most of them reworded versions of those that had already been asked, and then Wrath, citing the need to get back to work coordinating his assault teams, brought the briefing to an end.

Two minutes later he was back in the CIC, where Major Wilde delivered more bad news to him.

"Perimeter forces on the west side of the New Pittsburgh LZ are in contact with an unknown size force of greenies," he said. "Reports are that another patrol was taken down in almost the same manner as the patrol at the Eden LZ and that the responding platoon was once again ambushed from cover. Twelve dead, four wounded are the damages so far."

"I see," Wrath said slowly, with barely restrained rage. "And greenie casualties?"

"None as far as can be determined," Wilde told him. "We pounded the area where the fire came from with arty, but, just like at the Eden site, it took far too long for the rounds to get on target. It's the same situation. The lack of GPS data and our unfamiliarity with gunnery in that variable air pressure is making it extremely hard to put down accurate fire. By the time we plastered the hill and got some troops up there, the greenies were long gone. A sweep of the area is underway right now. So far it has turned up nothing."

"Nothing," Wrath said, shaking his head in frustration. Nothing was exactly what a sweep of the Eden ambush zone had turned up as well. "How in the hell are they getting away from us? How can they just disappear into the wastelands like that? There not a goddamned thing for them to hide behind out there."

"We don't know," he answered. "Intel says that the greenie biosuits have a lower infrared signature than the ones we wear, but even so, they have to putting off heat don't they? And then there's the fact that its broad daylight. They should be visible for up to two kilometers with nothing more than an eyeball looking for them. Goddamned if I know where they went, sir."

"Tell the commanders down there to keep sweeping until they find them. I want those landing sites secure in the next three hours so we can start bringing down our heavy equipment before it's dark at the LZ's."

"Yes, sir," Wilde told him. "We'll get them. After all, how many could there possibly be?"

"Those greenies have been supernaturally lucky so far," he said with a grunt. "Their luck will run out as soon as we get our armor down there though." He paused for a moment. "What about the evac shuttle? Is it on its way?"

"Completed it's de-orbit burn about forty minutes ago. It should be entering the atmosphere soon and down on the ground about twenty minutes after that. I sent two doctors, three nurses, and four medics down with it."

"Excellent," he said. "I guess we'd better send another shuttle down for the wounded at the New Pittsburgh LZ."

"I've already taken the liberty of arranging that, General," Wilde told him. "They should be leaving Mercy in about ten minutes. Estimated landing time will be..."

"Major Wilde," a young communications tech suddenly called from his terminal across the room. He sounded excited.

"What is it?" Wilde yelled over to him.

"I just received a message from Colonel Brandywine at the Proctor LZ. A patrol was just ambushed by a force of greenies on the south side."

"Fuck me," Wrath said, his words coming out almost as a groan. It was starting to look like things weren't going to go as smoothly as they had in the simulations.

Lon and his squad had tightened up into two teams of five apiece and were now deployed atop of a high ridgeline just over a kilometer from where they had made their attack on the squad of soldiers. They were all tired and increasingly cognizant that they were in hostile territory and being hunted but their spirits were high, particularly after their successful evasion of the manhunt that had been sent out after them.

After cutting down the squad of soldiers from the hilltops they had fled to the east, taking up observation positions on another set of hills and watching with amusement as the marine gunners tried to hit their previous positions with artillery. Their amusement had turned to fear however when they saw an entire platoon fanning out over the landscape thirty minutes later to track them down. They had moved off of their hillside and put into action their evasion plans, which took advantage not of their speed and agility in the wastelands but of the nearly zero heat emission qualities of their biosuits. They had spread themselves out in a large field of boulders in one of the many gullies, lying down at the base of rocks and remaining immobile. Since it was high noon on the Martian equator, the outside temperature of the air was about as warm as it ever got on the planet, a balmy sixteen degrees Celsius. This made it quite easy for the heat dissipation mechanisms of their suits to keep them exactly the same temperature as the ground around them, which kept them from registering in the infrared spectrum of the marine's combat goggles. And when lying in the boulders the camouflage patterns on their suits made them blend in almost perfectly with the background in the visual spectrum. From anything more than a hundred meters away they would look like nothing but rocks among rocks, dirt among dirt. A squad of marines had walked right by the edge of their hiding spot during the search, had looked directly at them, and had passed on without the slightest hint of recognition.

From there the squad had waited almost an hour and had then moved out again, dashing from one piece of cover to the next until reaching their current position. They were now looking out at the landing ship and the perimeter of the landing zone once more. To the east of them they could see another platoon of marines, or maybe the same one as earlier, still searching from hill to hill, trying to locate them, with no idea that the men they sought were actually between them and the safety of their trenches now. In the other direction, in the trenches themselves, other marines were lounging about, walking to and fro along the trench line, keeping half an eye out towards the wastelands beyond but mostly just chatting with each other based on the amount of radio waves that Jefferson was picking up. Beyond them was the landing zone itself, with the ship sitting on its supports. Well over two hundred marines were moving about in that area, some engineers setting up further landing areas for the rest of the ships to come down, others combat marines that were guarding them.

An encrypted radio message had just been broadcast from Eden special forces headquarters. The message had asked any team on the perimeter — and just how many teams there were neither Lon nor anyone else in the squad knew — to send in an activity report for the LZ itself. The message had not explained why HQ wanted this information but nobody really needed to know why. All of them knew that part of special forces doctrine was to send mortar teams out to the perimeter of any hostile landing zone. And mortars were much more effective when they had accurate targeting information.

"Can we transmit from here safely?" Lon asked Jefferson.

"I'm pretty sure we can," he said. "I can still get a lock on the com sat from here and unless one of those earthling fucks actually gets a visual on me they won't pick up the com laser."

"How about if we send a photo?" Lon asked.

Jefferson thought for a moment. "The transmission time will increase about tenfold for a picture," he said. "But again, it should be fairly safe."

"Okay, do it," Lon ordered. "Snap a frame shot with your combat goggles and be sure to get the ship in the shot. Be sure you label it as coming from the north side. I'm sure they would know that already, but its best to be sure."

"You got it, sarge," Jefferson said.

A moment later the shot was taken. He ordered his computer to download it to the communications computer and to then encrypt it for transmission. The communicator sent up its laser transmitter, locked onto the satellite, and sent out the laser pulse, which in this case took a full five seconds from start to finish. Two minutes later the photo was on the screen of Colonel Bright in the command center. Bright quickly made a few marks on the photo and then transmitted it through the satellite link to the six person mortar team that had been deployed on the east side of the Eden landing zone, about two kilometers from the perimeter, about four from the ship itself, a range that was well within the capabilities of the 80-millimeter weapons they fielded.

Armed with the picture and the GPS data that Bright had noted on it, the team set up their three weapons in a line and programmed the firing computers to stagger the rounds throughout the area of the LZ where the heaviest human activity was taking place. These computers, which knew exactly where the weapon they were mated to was located, exactly where the target area was located, what the barometric pressure was and what the current wind conditions were, quickly leveled the mortars and adjusted them to the proper angle. Green lights flashed telling the operators that the weapons were locked and ready to fire. The gunners then arranged a total of nine high explosive rounds around them — three for each weapon, which was as much as they dared fire from one location — and set them for ten-meter airburst. At a command from the sergeant in charge, the first three rounds were picked up and dropped into the tubes. They fired less than a tenth of a second apart. Before the rounds even reached the top of their ballistic climb, the next rounds were being put in. These too fired off, and then the last rounds were dropped in as well.

Like the artillery shells fired from the 150-millimeter guns, the rounds made no audible sound as they flew through the thin air. A search radar mounted on the landing ship picked them up in flight and automatically calculated their path both backward and forward, telling the operator both where the shells had been fired from and where they were heading, but there simply wasn't enough time to alert anyone. Some of the marines on guard duty saw them coming in as well, white spots in the infrared spectrum against the relatively cool sky. Cries of "incoming!" went out across the emergency frequency. Unfortunately most of the soldiers on duty inside the LZ itself were not combat veterans, and, as such, they did the predictable when they heard the warning. They looked up to see just what was incoming. As a result, most were still standing when the first three mortar rounds exploded ten meters above their heads. Razor sharp shrapnel ripped into a group of engineers that were performing a land survey, blowing off arms, heads, legs, exploding air tanks, shredding internal organs. The next salvo landed twenty meters further west, blasting a squad of MPs who were providing overwatch for the engineers. The third salvo did not cause any casualties but instead destroyed a generator and several equipment carriers. Eleven men were killed outright and eighteen were wounded, five of them serious enough to require immediate evacuation.

In all, the mortar attack lasted only four seconds and the team that had performed it was already packing up their weapons and hustling off into the wastelands by the time the last round exploded. The 150-millimeter guns atop the ship turned towards the west and unleashed a barrage of counter-battery fire, a total of fifteen rounds per gun, none of which landed within 400 meters of the spot that the Martian mortar team had fired from. Even before the counter-battery fire was complete a platoon of marines from the western perimeter were heading out beyond their trenches to try to track down those responsible. By that point they had heard about the ambushes that had taken place and they went out with a sense of wariness that even the combat vets among them had never experienced before. It was starting to seem that these greenies were a little more dangerous than Argentine or Cuban rebels. They stepped carefully and slowly, their fear increasing exponentially with each step that they took away from the safety of their sandbagged positions.

As it turned out, their fear was justified. They made it to the spot where the mortar fire had issued without incident. They found nothing there, not a body, or a limb, or a footprint, or an expended shell casing, or even an impact crater from the counter-battery fire. They turned to the south because their commanding lieutenant figured that that was the most likely direction the sneaking greenies would have fled in. They made it less than a half a kilometer before flashes began winking at them from the hillsides in front of them and bullets began to cut through their ranks. The attack lasted only six seconds, and in it, six of the marines were killed and nine wounded. Of the wounded, three would die before they could be carried back to safety.

The illusion that Callahan and the remains of his platoon held that they were safe inside of their perimeter was shattered about fifteen minutes after the word of the mortar attack on the LZ reached them. They were inside their trenches, looking out to the north. They could see nothing out there, though they knew that two platoons of marines were currently sweeping the area, searching fruitlessly for the greenie infiltrators that were causing them so much trouble. Callahan was feeling quite morose over the loss of so many of his men, including his first sergeant. He had lost people in combat before, of course. Every platoon commander that had served in Argentina had suffered losses. Never before had he had an entire squad decimated at one time though. He still couldn't quite believe it had happened, that they had been cut down almost effortlessly by a bunch of civilian greenies operating three hundred kilometers from their nearest defensive position.

It was now quite clear that his platoon's contact with the greenies was not just an isolated incident either. From the command channel he heard reports of quick, violent engagements from all sides of the perimeter. Hit and run attacks on patrols and the platoons going out to search the area by groups of greenies that struck like lightening and then disappeared into the landscape like smoke. Nor was the Eden LZ the only one under attack. Captain Ayers had told him that all four of the landing sites were reporting similar engagements.

"How in the hell are they doing it?" asked Sergeant Barley, who was sitting atop one of the sandbags, supervising the redeployment of a SAW. "How can they get those teams out there without us seeing them?"

"Those aircraft they have," Callahan said bitterly. "I'll bet you a thousand bucks to a bucket of shit that they're dropping them off outside of our perimeter with those things."

"Why ain't our sensors picking them up then?"

"They probably have a very low IR signature," he speculated. "They're winged aircraft, remember? Designed by greenie engineers to operate in this atmosphere. Since they have wings they don't need to use the same amount of thrust to keep aloft. Less thrust means less heat. They probably glide in low and set down on the flat ground somewhere close by, drop off a squad, and then take off again and go home. They can support them indefinitely that way and then pull them back out again when things get too hot."

"Yeah," Barley said, "but what about..." He got no further in his statement. His head suddenly snapped to the right as a single bullet penetrated through his helmet and blew out the other side. The red vapor that Callahan was starting to become horrifyingly familiar with boiled out of the hole and Barley fell lifelessly into the trench.

"Fuck!" Callahan barked, adrenaline flooding his veins. "Get down!" he called over the tactical channel. "We're under fire!"

Everyone quickly assumed attack positions, sticking their weapons out through the firing holes and manning all of the SAWs, all of them ready to pour fire onto the greenies that were attacking them. But there was no one out there. There were no flashes of weapons firing from the hillsides.

"Where the fuck did that shot come from?" someone yelled.

"A sniper," someone else said. "They got a goddamned sniper out there!"

Yes, Callahan thought sourly, it seemed that a sniper was just what they were dealing with here. He or she had crept up atop some hill, probably nearly a kilometer away, and had potted yet another of his sergeants right through the head. Such things had happened in Argentina from time to time but here there was no sound of a gunshot to help identify the location. "Did anyone see the flash from the shot?" he asked.

There was some muttering on the net, some profanity, even a few death threats, but no one was able to say that he had seen the shot. Even if they did have accurate artillery fire available to them, there was no place to call it down to.

"Everyone keep down from now on," Callahan said. "Don't put your head above the sandbags unless you have to. And if you do, make sure you keep moving. I'm going to get on the air with command and report this."

Captain Ayers was a twenty-year veteran of the Marine Corps. He had risen from a buck private manning a trench in Alaska to commander of Charlie Company of the 314th. During most of that time he had been stationed in hostile areas — parts of WestHem where the natives just didn't agree with federal rule and usually tried to show that by force of arms. He was about as effective a company commander as the WestHem armed forces — which relied on blind obedience and unwavering political correctness — could produce. And he most certainly didn't like the way his men were being whittled away by the invisible greenies out there in the wastelands.

"Another contact report from my third platoon," he told Lieutenant Colonel West, the commander of 2nd Battalion. "A sniper hit them while they were in the trenches. Took out a squad sergeant. Potted him right through the head."

Colonel West, who was sitting in a chair before a tactical display on his screen, took a deep breath but kept himself composed. After all, this was not the first contact report that he'd been given today. "Any sign of the greenie that did it?" he asked.

"No, sir," Ayers told him. "No one even saw the flash."

"Great," he sighed, puffing on the cigarette that he was smoking. "And if there's one sniper out there they'll be others."

"That's my thought as well, sir."

"I'll get the word out for everyone to take precautions against this latest threat. I also have more combat troops suiting up for deployment. We're going to keep sweeping this area until we get rid of those sneaking greenie fucks. They can't hide from us forever."

"It would be a lot easier to track them down," Ayers suggested, "if we could get some hovers down here. Right now our men are just chasing ghosts out there. All we're finding are little piles of shell casings and booby traps. And half the time the men get hit from another hillside while they're examining the first ones."

"The hovers are in the cargo landers. You know that."

"We need to bring them down here, sir. We need hovers, more artillery, and some armor to flush these greenies out. Once we can send a few tanks and APCs out there with an umbrella of hover support I don't think the greenies will try to engage us anymore even if we can't find them."

"I've suggested that to General Wrath personally," West said. "He rejected the idea. He won't send down the rest of the landing ships until the LZ's are secure."

"But we can't secure the LZ without armor and hovers. Christ, doesn't he know that?"

"Apparently not," West said with a grunt of frustration. "After all, he's sitting nice and safe up there in orbit. Wrath hasn't been in the field since well before the Jupiter War, you know."

"So I hear," Ayers said with a frown. "And in the meantime, the casualties keep piling up. We have almost thirty wounded that are waiting for evac."

"The first evac shuttle is on its way down now. Should be here in less than twenty minutes in fact."

Ninety kilometers to the west of the Eden landing zone, two Mosquitoes were skimming along the ground at 500 kilometers per hour. Inside the lead Mosquito were Brian Haggerty and Matt Mendez. Both men were concentrating intently upon their respective instruments.

"I've got a definite hit in the high IR from bearing two six eight," Matt told his pilot, his eyes staring at the four bright points of white on his screen. "It's gotta be retro-thrusters on an orbital craft. Nothing else makes that kind of signature."

"I copy two six eight," Brian said, turning the ship in that direction. Behind him his wingman mimicked the motion but no words were exchanged between the two aircraft due to a state of radio silence that had been invoked to keep them from being detected. "Are you tracking?"

"Got a solid lock on it," Matt replied. "The computer is trying to get a range and altitude. Not enough data yet."

"Any active systems from it?"

"Nothing so far," he said. "It looks like the dumb fucks are coming in blind, just assuming that no one is down here waiting for them."

"That does seem to be their forte' doesn't it?"

"What the fuck's a fort-a?" Matt asked.

"Never mind," Brian said with a sigh. He should've known better than to use a big word with Mendez. The kid was intelligent — he had reluctantly concluded that some time ago — but he wasn't very well educated. Though he had graduated high school he was a product of the horrid ghetto school system and the big words just didn't get through to him sometimes.

"Prelim range data coming up," Matt said. "It looks like they're at angels three eight and descending rapidly, forty to sixty kilometers out on bearing two six eight. Their course is zero nine four, speed approximately eleven hundred KPH and slowing. Going to your screen now."

"Got it," Brian said, taking a quick glance down. "Set up an intercept course as quick as you can."

"I'm on it." He began to make notations on his map screen. He worked efficiently even though this particular mission was one that they had not practiced much in training. It had not been thought that the earthlings would be as dumb as they were being and give them such an opportunity as this. Although fighter spacecraft had escorted the shuttle from the moment it had left its mother ship until its contact with the Martian atmosphere, there were no hovers on the surface to escort it the rest of the way in. It was coming down unarmed and alone, the perfect target of opportunity. A little too perfect perhaps.

"Does this bother you at all, boss?" Matt asked as the computer finished grinding up the numbers he had input.

"Does what bother me?"

"Well, that's a medical evac shuttle, ain't it? Its coming down to pick up wounded. Ain't that some kind of war crime, shooting at an evac shuttle?"

"Well, if it were full of wounded being evacuated then yes, it would be a war crime. Right now it's empty so it's a legitimate target of war. And if the earthlings are dumb enough to send it down without an escort then that's too damn bad for them."

"But it can't do any harm to our forces," Matt said. "It doesn't even have guns on it."

Brian took a deep breath. "Look, kid," he said. "To tell you the truth, I don't really like it much either, but you gotta look at the big picture here."

"The big picture?"

"We are on the offensive against an armed force that has invaded our planet. We need to do anything we can to attack these people and convince them that Mars isn't a good place for them to be. One of the ways that we do that is to break their morale. A demoralized soldier is a shitty soldier. A good way to demoralize them is to take away their illusion of safety and security. The special forces teams are down there doing that right now. They're gunning those earthlings down right in the middle of their own camp. They're showing them that they won't be safe anywhere on our planet. We're helping with that by cutting off their escape route. They're down there thinking that at least if they get wounded, someone will take them to safety. When we down that shuttle that illusion will be shattered. It will chip away at their morale a little bit more. It will also force their commander to do what we want in this battle."

"And what's that?"

"It will force him to react to what we are doing instead of the other way around. When you have to react to the other guy's moves you aren't able to make any of your own. That's why we're going after that shuttle. Not because it will make a difference in and of itself, but because it will be just another thing that they'll be forced to adapt to."

"I guess that makes sense," Matt said, after thinking it over for a second. "It don't mean I have to like it though."

"No, it don't mean you have to like it or brag about it in the troop club tonight. But we do have to do it and there is a good reason for it, so let's get it done. How's our course looking?"

"Right on the line," he said. "We're gonna pull up in four two seconds and climb to angels one five, which will be the intercept altitude."

"Copy that. Count me off."

"Counting off," Matt said. "Four zero seconds." A five second pause. "Three five seconds."

The clock ticked down to zero. Brian pulled up and pushed the throttle lever to full military power. The semi-rocket engine screamed with horsepower and the Mosquito shot upward at a nearly seventy-degree angle of attack. Beside and behind them their wingman matched their maneuver. Matt, feeling the exhilarating push of acceleration slamming him backwards, forgot his uneasiness about their mission for the moment and felt a grin spreading on his face. Over the past few months he had learned to love the violent maneuvering of the Mosquito in flight, had learned to relish the sensation of flight unfettered by artificial gravity and inertial damping.

"They've got to have us on their screens by now," Brian said. "No sense in maintaining radio silence any longer. Get me our wing on the line."

Matt's fingers flew over the computer screen, quickly paging through two different menus and sub-menus to set the frequency. "You're live on the air, boss," he told him, going back to the attack screen.

Brian pushed the transmit button on his stick. "Alpha two from alpha one," he said. "You out there, Carlton?"

"I'm here," answered Rick Carlton, the pilot of the other Mosquito. "We've got a solid track on target. Tell your newbie good mapping."

"Naw," Brian answered, fully aware that Matt was monitoring the transmission. "Wouldn't want him to start thinking he's worth a shit, would I?"

"I guess not," Carlton said with a chuckle.

"Let's separate a little bit as we move in," Brian said, turning to business. "Remember, have your sis go for the engines and the fuel tanks. That fuckin thing is a lot bigger than an APC."

"We're on it," Carlton said. "I've got your rear."

"Three zero to intercept," Matt announced from behind him. "I'm bringing the lasers on line now." He pushed the charge button and energy began to feed from the APU into the weapons. He felt a little chill inside as he realized that this was lethal energy that he was loading and not the training charge they normally used. They were really going to shoot at an enemy. They were really going to try to kill a shuttle full of earthlings.

"How's the target looking?" Brian asked. "They have to have us on screen by now. We're lit up like a fuckin firework and transmitting radio signals. Any signs of evasive maneuvering?"

"Nothing," Matt answered. "It's holding its course. Not even any radio transmissions. You'd think they'd be screaming their asses off for help by now."

"Well, there's not really anyone that can help them. Maybe they're hoping we're not really hostile."

"Maybe," Matt said with a shrug. "Two zero seconds. Looks like we're drifting right a bit."

"Evening it up," Brian told him, adjusting his course.

A few seconds later they reached fifteen thousand meters of altitude, just a thousand below the maximum operational altitude of the aircraft, and Brian leveled them off. Their speed increased and they went screaming towards their target, heading towards it at about forty-five degrees off of head-on. Its speed had slowed considerably — down to only 800 kilometers per hour — and its rate of descent had slowed as well. It was, in short, a nice juicy target coming neatly into their kill zone.

"In range," Matt announced when it crossed the invisible line. "Opening fire."

"Take 'em down, kid," Brian said, his eyes watching his display. "Let's see if that training was wasted on you or not."

It was absurdly easy to do, much easier than acquiring and engaging an armored vehicle on the ground. He moved his head to the left and put the targeting recticles on the bright red and white orbital craft in the middle of his screen. The vehicle was huge on his display and his head movements weren't hampered by G-forces. He trained the recticles near the rear, where the main engine and fuel tank would be, and fired both cannons simultaneously. Slightly behind and below them, Steve Winchester, the sis of the wing Mosquito, did the same a few seconds later.

The laser energy was intense, designed to burn through the thick steel armor of a tank or APC. The thin hull of the shuttlecraft didn't stand a chance against it. The energy burned into the engine and destroyed two of the combustion chambers that provided the thrust. Another beam burned into the fuel tank itself, causing a rupture of both the hydrogen and the oxygen. The entire rear of the shuttle exploded in a flash of bright light and strewn debris. The front half of the shuttle, deprived of pressure, gravitation, power, and air, went tumbling downward, falling like the proverbial rock. It would fall for nearly five minutes before impacting the Martian surface hard enough to leave a crater sixty meters across.

"That's a kill," Matt announced, watching in awe at the nothingness that had replaced the shuttle on his display.

"Yep," Brian said with a nod. "Looks like a kill to me. Good job."

The two aircraft turned around a moment later and began heading for home.

"They shot down the fucking shuttle!" Major Wilde told General Wrath up in the CIC.

Wrath looked at his aide for a moment, his mind refusing to process what he was being told. "Who shot down what shuttle?" he finally asked.

"The greenies!" Wilde said, his hands wringing nervously. "They shot down the evac shuttle that was on its way to the Eden LZ!"

"How did they do that?" Wrath asked, perplexed. "Do they have a mobile SAL set up out in the wastelands somewhere? Surely the greenies aren't that lucky."

"They used aircraft. We think they were those damn Mosquitoes. The Eden landing ship picked up the infrared signatures of two of them climbing off the deck two hundred kilometers east of their position. They intercepted the shuttle as it was making its descent and blew it up with anti-tank lasers."

"Jesus," Wrath said, feeling a fury starting within him. His intelligence reports had assured him that the Martian aircraft were incapable of bringing down anything larger than a hover. "Are there any survivors?"

"No, sir. Eden tracked the wreckage all the way in. It hit hard. And there are no escape pods in an evac shuttle."

Wrath shook his head angrily. "Those goddamn terrorists," he swore. "Sniping at us from the hills, shooting down unarmed evac shuttles full of doctors and medics! They're barbarians!"

"Yes, sir," Wilde said. "And that's not all. We have more reports of contact between greenie forces and our perimeter patrols at all four LZ's. There have now been mortar attacks on all four as well. Casualties are mounting, sir. At the Proctor LZ a fuel storage tank for one of the graders was hit with a mortar round and exploded. Eight of the engineers were killed and more than twenty are wounded. At Libby an entire platoon was engaged from three different directions. Twenty of them are confirmed killed, the rest are wounded and still lying where they fell because the area is not secure enough to haul them out. And then there's the evac shuttles heading for the other three LZ's."

"What about them?" he asked.

"I've taken the liberty of pulling them back to orbit," Wilde said.

"You did what?"

"Sir, our data is that the greenies have a wing of those Mosquitoes stationed at all four of the cities where we have established beachheads. They have already shown that they are willing to and capable of shooting down our evac shuttles with those aircraft. We can't bring those shuttles down until we get some hovers down there to escort them. The greenies will just shoot them down again."

Wrath wanted to scream at his adjutant for daring to make such a decision on his own. He wanted to scream at him to reverse that decision immediately, to get those shuttles down so that the many wounded could be evacuated back up to orbit. He wanted to, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. He knew that Wilde was right. "All right," he said with a sigh. "Send word to the field commanders below that the evac shuttles cannot land right now."

"Yes, sir," he said. "And what about bringing down some more troops and heavy equipment?"

"The goddamned LZ's aren't secure yet!" Wrath exclaimed. "The media are in the other room pestering us about whether or not we've caught the terrorist group that hit at Eden. They don't even know about the other three LZ's yet, let alone the fucking shuttle. How am I supposed to tell them that we're breaking doctrine and sending down more equipment before we've even established secure beachheads?"

Wilde had no answer for him. He was there to make suggestions on operational problems, not public relations. "I don't know, sir," he said. "But one thing is for sure, we need some armor and some hovers down there ASAP. I don't think we're going to be able to secure the beachheads otherwise."

"Negative," Wrath said firmly. "You tell those commanders down there that they need to send more men out beyond the perimeter and find those goddamn terrorists squads that are hitting them! I don't care if they have to send the goddamn cooks and toilet washers out there. Those beachheads must be secure before the rest of the landing craft can come down."

"But the wounded, sir," Wilde protested. "We don't have surgical facilities down there. And there is only one doctor and a few medics per ship."

"They'll just have to care for those men the best that they can until we can safely evacuate them. Get it done!"

"Yes, sir," Wilde said, his voice flirting with insubordination.

Lon and his squad made three more deliberate attacks on the marines during the course of that day, each time engaging platoon sized formations with brief, violent, and stunningly accurate fire and then retreating from their positions after the first volley. Twice the marines tried to bring artillery fire down upon them and both times the shells were well off-target. All three times the marines had come looking for them in company strength units but had been unable to see them in their hiding places and had walked right by.

The constant litany of hiding, creeping around, violent though brief encounters, and dashing off to hide again, began to take a physical toll on them. By the time the sun began to sink towards the western horizon all ten of them were quite exhausted. But mentally their morale was as high as it had ever been. All of their training was paying off and they knew they were putting a serious hurt on the invading earthlings, were forcing them to adapt to a different set of rules. Already the timetable of the landings had been thrown off. The marines had planned to bring down the rest of their landing ships by 1300. It was now looking as if they wouldn't be bringing them down that day at all.

However, the approaching night also meant the their best ally — the warm temperature that kept them from being detected — would soon be deserting them. Twenty degrees would soon become 130 below zero, a difference that would make the heat given off from their suits visible even from orbit. After evading the last group of marines searching for them they began to work their way to the east, away from the perimeter and the beachhead. Jefferson made contact with special forces headquarters and set up a pick-up point. They marched to it, set up their own perimeter, and waited.

At 1634 a Hummingbird breasted the hills to their north and swept down upon them. It circled once to check the area and then set down in a great cloud of blown dust and sand. The back ramp opened and the entire squad broke from cover in an orderly fashion and boarded it. The ramp slammed back up and ten seconds later the Hummingbird was back in the air, flying towards home. Their first deployment of the war was over. Now they would go back to the base for some real food and some well-deserved rest.

Over the next ninety minutes, at all four of the landing sites, the same process was repeated over and over as every single team that had been dropped was recovered. None of the 160 special forces members that had been dropped had been killed that day. Two had been wounded by stray rounds but not seriously enough to have to be pulled out of the field early.

MarsGroup had been reporting to the citizens of the planet all day long, giving out what information they had, which wasn't much. General Jackson had understandably wanted to keep the deployments made so far as secret as possible. But now that the enemy had quite graphically been informed of the presence of MPG troops on their perimeters, Jackson gave a live briefing of the events at 1800 Eden time.

Chapter 13

Aboard the WHSS Nebraska

August 24, 2146

"The last one, making atmospheric entry now, sir," reported Major Wild to General Wrath. The two men, along with everyone else in the room, were in the CIC watching the holographic display as it showed the tracks of the remaining thirty landing ships descending towards the planet.

"Very good," Wrath said, sipping from his seventh cup of coffee of the day. Over the past week, since his marines on the planetary surface had come under increasingly violent terrorist attacks and since his timetable was now well over a week off, he had eaten very little. His face was gaunt and he had large bags under his eyes. Had he bothered to weigh himself he would have found he had lost nearly three kilos. "Still no opposition?"

"Standard assault landings, all the way," Wild responded. "The first ships are already approaching the Eden LZ now. No terrorist aircraft detected, no sign of ground fire. Not that the greenies have anything capable of taking a landing craft down."

"We didn't think they could take down an evac shuttle either," Wrath said sourly. "But somehow they managed to keep our wounded pinned down there for a week."

"Yes, sir," Wild said, not bothering to mention that a one hundred thousand ton landing ship was a bit more difficult to destroy than a two hundred ton shuttlecraft. Nor did he mention that the move Wrath had finally ordered — the deployment of the rest of the invasion force — was something that should have been done on day two.

The marines on the planetary surface had been taking quite a beating over the last seven days. They had been sent outside the perimeter in greater and greater numbers over the past six days trying with increasing desperation to eradicate the groups of greenies that were flitting around and attacking them. To date more than six hundred of them — six hundred — had been killed, some by snipers, some by mortar attacks, most by lightening fast hit and run attacks that came without warning from the cover of the hills. In addition, more than three hundred had been wounded badly enough to be taken out of action and all three hundred were still waiting down there for evacuation, the berthing rooms in the landing ships converted into primitive makeshift hospitals where overworked doctors and medics struggled to keep up with the influx. Men were dying in those hospitals of wounds that were easily treated up in orbit but there was no way to get them up there due to the threat of the greenie Mosquitoes.

And in exchange for these six hundred dead, for the three hundred wounded, the marines had confirmed kills on only sixteen greenies and had captured only four. These casualties were the result of two separate engagements where company strength marine units on search and destroy missions out in the wastelands had literally stumbled onto squads of greenies hiding among the rocks and hills. The first engagement had been five days before at the New Pittsburgh landing site. That had accounted for ten kills and no captures. The second had been at the Libby landing site just the previous day. It had resulted in six kills and the four prisoners, one of whom was badly wounded and not expected to make it. In both cases the greenies had fought back hard and fast, pouring fire into the columns of marines before going down, causing many more casualties and deaths than they were taking.

Wrath had been forced to level with the media and, through them, the citizens of WestHem to a certain degree. There was simply no other way to explain the delays in deployment of the rest of the force and the main thrusts of the invasion themselves. Of course he did not give out truthful casualty figures for either side of the engagement. The media were under the impression that the marines were fighting suicidal groups of poorly armed greenie terrorists who had been sent out in crude biosuits laden with explosives and automatic weapons. They were told that there had been less than fifty marines killed and, by best estimations, several hundred greenies killed. They were told the decision to bring down the rest of the landing ships was because the landing zones were finally being declared secured and not because the hovers, armor, and extra men were desperately needed to get the upper hand on groups of well-trained and highly motivated special forces units.

By now Wrath and the rest of the marines down to the platoon level knew exactly how the greenie teams were being deployed. The thermal signatures of the Hummingbird transport ships as they landed and took off from the drop points had finally been identified as the source of the teams and the means by which they egressed before sundown. This knowledge however did very little to help with the situation. The Hummingbirds were constructed of radar absorbent compounds that precluded detection from that particular active system. Their engine signature in level flight was so low that active and passive infrared could not pick them up either. The only time the aircraft were detectable was during the brief landing and take-off periods. This happened so quickly there was no time to get marines to the location before the soldiers the aircraft had transported scattered and disappeared. Nor could they hit them with artillery rounds since, despite seven straight days of trying, they still had not managed to break into the Martian Internet and gain access to the global positioning data to calibrate their guns. Artillery rounds that were fired were usually at least three hundred meters off target, sometimes as much as a kilometer. In more than one incident the marines who were directing the fire were inadvertently hit by it.

The marine intelligence units had also figured out just how the greenies were able to conceal themselves so well. Examination of the biosuits of the dead and captured greenies had shown how effective of a camouflage they provided during the daylight hours. Those suits and the soldiers within them were literally invisible to both visual and, more importantly, to infrared detection if the observer was more than a hundred or so meters away and the greenie was lying still. Again, the knowledge of how the trick was done did little to help counter it. If anything, it had created an almost supernatural fear among the marines that were fighting them. They felt almost like they were fighting ghosts, spectral images that appeared without warning behind a wall of gun flashes and then disappeared like smoke before an effective counter-attack could be mounted.

"Remember," Wrath told Wild now, "I want those hovers unloaded first. Within the hour I want flights in the air searching out and eradicating any greenie teams found."

"Yes, sir," Wild responded. "They've been advised and the hover teams are already getting ready."

"Good," he said, nodding. "And intelligence is certain the FLIR units on the hovers will be able to pick up those damn invisible suits from altitude?"

Wild hesitated for a second before answering. "That's uh... what they tell me," he said. Of course he could not discount the very likely possibility they were simply telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. As an aide to a top general he had had such a thing happen more than a few times in the past, including several times on this very mission.

"Good," Wrath said, either not noticing the hesitant tone or pretending not to. "And I want the rest of the hovers running escort duty for the evac shuttles. Every available shuttle is to head down to the planet the moment the hovers are ready. I want every one of those wounded men on the hospital ship by 1800 tonight. Every last one."

"I'll see that it's done, General," Wild responded. "And what about the media? They've been asking that a pool group be sent over to the hospital ship to interview some of the wounded. We've been delaying them ever since day two of course since they don't know that none of the wounded have made it to the ship yet, but we really should set something up before they get too antsy."

"Go ahead and assign someone to that as soon as the first wounded start arriving," Wrath told him. "Make sure whoever you assign finds someone reliable to tell our media friends what its like down there on the surface." By "reliable" he meant someone who would spout the official line instead of what was really happening. It simply wouldn't do for a WestHem marine to start going on and on about invisible soldiers and heavy casualties.

"I'll give it to Captain Hovel," he said after a moment's thought. "He's bucking for Major pretty hard. He'll handle it with the discretion it deserves."

"Good man," Wrath said. "And how many correspondents went down on the landing ships?"

"A little more than half, sir. They were shuttled over to the transport ships this morning and distributed pretty evenly among the landing ships. Most of them went down to the Eden LZ since that's where the heaviest action is anticipated."

"And my orders to keep them inside the landing ships were understood?"

"Yes, sir," he replied. "They'll be shut inside the VIP quarters until the greenies are completely eradicated on the perimeters."

"What kind of bullshit story did we give them for why we have to do this?"

"Possible problems with the biosuits we reserved for them," he answered. "We told them a manufacturer recall has been issued and we haven't been able to determine if it applies to that model."

"Nice," Wrath said with a smile. "I like that one. It has class. Give an attaboy to whoever came up with it."

"Yes, sir," Wild said. Of course Wrath didn't ask if the reporters had believed the excuse that was being offered to them. It went without saying that they would know it was nothing but a pretext to keep them inside. But, of course, none of them would question it, at least not publicly. Not if their corporate bosses told them not to.

"Major Wild?" a young communications officer suddenly spoke up from a nearby terminal, his voice timid, as if he was hesitant to interrupt the discussion Wild was having Wrath.

"What is it?" Wild said, somewhat impatiently.

"I have an urgent communications request for General Wrath, sir," he said.

Wild gave him an annoyed look. "Refer it to the mail system like all of the other requests," he barked. "Why are you even bothering us with this?"

"Sir, its from the Martian Planetary Guard command facility in New Pittsburgh," he said. "He says he's General Jackson."

This got the attention of both Wild and Wrath. "Oh really?" Wrath said, raising his eyebrows. Jackson had attempted no communication with Wrath or any other Earthling since his infamous "flying fuck at Phobos" statement just before the first landings. Of course Marine intelligence was monitoring and recording his daily briefings to the Martian public, mainly for the purpose of splicing them up into inflammatory, out of context statements for distribution to the WestHem media, but there had been no direct talks of any kind.

Wrath turned to his aide. "Surrender terms perhaps?"

Wild nodded wisely. "They may very well be," he said. "After all, the rest of the landing ships are coming down. They have to know things are almost over for them."

"Put it on the main screen," Wrath said. "Be sure to record it for intelligence."

"Yes, sir," the officer said. He spoke a few words to his terminal then turned back to Wrath. "On screen now, sir."

Wrath looked up at the large screen at the front of the room and saw the face of his counterpart on the planetary surface, the man he had grudgingly accorded a small amount of respect to for the surprises he'd pulled so far, but a man he still saw as a clear inferior. As always he was dressed in his MPG t-shirt. His eyes had bags under them almost as large as Wrath's.

"Mr. Jackson," Wrath said, his words picked up by the microphone near the desk and transmitted, along with his image, to the open broadcast link. "Rather interesting timing you have, communicating with us right now, while our ships are about to touch down on the surface."

Jackson offered a slight smile. "It seemed appropriate under the circumstances," he said. "Besides, there's not a whole hell of a lot going on at the moment, is there?"

"I assume that you called this conference to talk surrender terms," Wrath said. "If that's the case, you can save your breath. Any surrender will be without dictated terms. Unconditional is all we will accept. I believe I've made that clear from the start."

Jackson smiled wearily. "You assumed wrong, Wrath," he said. "My forces have no intention of surrendering to you. We're dug in for the long haul and we have every intention of repelling you from the surface."

"Jackson, as a military officer you have to know that's simply not possible. Simple math will tell you that. My forces are highly trained, professional soldiers, and we outnumber your thugs four to one. Do the honorable thing and stand down. Don't sentence those misguided men to death."

"Look, Wrath," he said wearily. "I know you're just posturing for the media right now, trying to talk tough to impress your citizens when they see this clip in their daily briefing. Any chance we can drop that now and talk as two commanding generals should? I know and you know that my forces have hit yours quite hard. You don't have to give me a rebuttal on this, since that is not what I wanted to talk to you about. You go ahead and keep telling your citizens that terrorist attacks are what are causing the deaths of your soldiers. There's no point in my disputing you because all you do is chop up my statements anyway."

"What is it that you want then?" Wrath said. "And please keep in mind that my patience for your rhetoric is very limited."

"We need to discuss the prisoners that you've captured from our special forces teams," Jackson told him. "Now I know from those briefings you give you're claiming you've taken more than fifty of my men into custody but by my count I have two squads that reported coming under fire and that are now unaccounted for. That's twenty men although my guess is that most of them were killed in the exchange of gunfire."

"The numbers that I reported in the briefing are accurate," Wrath said with an indignant tone, although he was secretly impressed with Jackson's reasoning ability.

"As I said," Jackson said, "my hope is that we can talk like two military men here and you can save the propaganda for your daily briefing. What I expect out of you is that you treat the men you have captured and the bodies you have recovered according to the established Geneva Accords regarding warfare. By this I mean we are to receive a full accounting of our men that have been killed in action that you've been able to identify, an approximate number of the KIAs you have not been able to identify, and, most importantly, that you immediately release to us the identities of all men you have taken into custody and give us an update on their condition. Those men are to be treated as prisoners of war, which means they will not be subjected to torturous interrogation, paraded in front of your media cameras, or charged with criminal offenses."

"Those men are not prisoners of war," Jackson said firmly. "They are separatist terrorists and they will be treated as such. They will be transported back to our landing ships and they will be extradited back to Earth for trial on charges of treason, murder, and terrorist acts. All of the thugs under your command were warned of that well in advance of our landings here."

"Nevertheless," Jackson said, "this is a war we are engaged in. I know it and you know it. Keep in mind that we have captured more than thirty thousand prisoners of war from your armed forces."

"Which you are holding as hostages," Wrath said. "And our reports are that you've tortured and outright killed thousands, if not all of them."

"Again, Wrath," Jackson said with a sigh, "you know that is not true. We have transmitted to WestHem the name, rank, serial number, and physical condition of every single WestHem armed forces member that we have in custody. We have given you a full account of every one of your soldiers that was killed in the battle to capture the planet. Those bodies have been placed in storage for return to Earth. The prisoners are being kept in Geneva Accord standard POW facilities and will be returned to you when this conflict is over. They have been permitted to send mail home although my understanding is that your intelligence is blocking these communications."

"Lies, nothing but outrageous lies," Wrath said, managing to keep a perfectly straight face even though he knew that everything Jackson was saying was true.

Jackson ignored him. "It is my demand as a military officer involved in open warfare that our prisoners and dead be accorded the same treatment, as is required under international law."

"It's not going to happen, Jackson," Wrath told him. "Those men are terrorist criminals and they will be charged and tried as such."

"Then you, General Wrath, will be subject to indictment by a Martian court for war crimes when this conflict is over," Jackson told him.

That actually made Wrath bark out laughter. "Is that the best you can do for a threat?" he asked. "You're going to indict me for war crimes? Jackson, might I remind you my marines will have your entire planet in custody within three days? Might I remind you it will be you and your so-called governor that will be in federal prison awaiting execution six months from now? There will be no Martian indictments. Your planetary government will cease to exist entirely when this conflict is over."

"That is your opinion, General," Jackson responded. "Myself and my soldiers, we have our own opinions on how this war is going to end. My hope is that you will at least entertain the possibility that my forces might defeat yours and that this planet will gain the independence we seek."

"Impossible," he spat.

"And if that happens," Jackson went on, ignoring the interruption, "we will demand the extradition of any war criminals under indictment as part of any armistice agreement. Keep in mind that if we defeat your forces, we will control the supply of food stocks to WestHem. They will have to take our demands seriously."

Wrath yawned. "You'll forgive me if I don't start trembling in my boots."

"I'll forgive you," Jackson said. "But I would suggest you keep my words in mind. We Martians are not quite the pushovers you seem to think we are. Perhaps you'd care to reflect upon the damage we've done to you so far with these terrorist acts you keep talking about, both in space and on the planetary surface. You might also consider that my forces are well motivated to fight and that we've been training ever since the end of the Jupiter War to repel an invasion such as the one you are mounting. Do you remember your military history, Wrath? You went to the same military academy I did. Remember General Cornwallis? Remember General Westmoreland? They both thought victory was assured, that their objectives were a cakewalk, and neither one of them was fighting a force as equitable as the one you're fighting. We may fall in this battle, Wrath. I am able to acknowledge that fact. You need to acknowledge the fact that it might be your forces that fall and make contingency plans for it. That is all I'm telling you."

Wrath refused to entertain even the possibility of his forces defeat, even deep in his own mind where cold hard facts instead of self-serving propaganda were churned over. "All captured combatants in this battle will be arrested and tried as terrorists," he stated as forcefully as he could. "And if you have any compassion whatsoever for the citizens of your planet, you will unconditionally surrender right now, before our armor and our hovers are unloaded and start putting a serious hurt on you."

Jackson seemed saddened, though not particularly surprised by his words. "I was hoping that somewhere inside of you there was still a hint of the military honor that was instilled in us in the academy," he said. "I guess I was wrong." He gave a little one fingered salute. "Get your forces ready for the next act, Wrath. And keep in mind that you have been warned on the subject of war crimes."

"Jackson, listen to reason. You don't have a..." But the image of Jackson had disappeared from the screen.

"He cut off the transmission, sir," the communications officer said apologetically. "Would you like me to try hailing him again?"

"That won't be necessary," Wrath replied. "We have nothing further to talk about." He turned to Wilde once again. "Now how much longer until those landing ships start touching down?"

Lon lay on his belly behind a spill of rocks atop of a hill. His combat goggles were in magnification mode as his eyes tracked over the array of landing ships that had come down on the Eden landing zone. The full compliment was now on the surface. They had come in from the east, touching down in prepared positions one after the other, their retro-rockets blaring bright enough to overwhelm the infrared spectrum, the roar thunderous even from five kilometers away through the thin air. All of the ship mounted 150-millimeter guns were now deployed, as were the 20-millimeter cannons. The marines themselves had remained inside of their ships while the landings were going on, although this was not standard WestHem doctrine. Most likely their commander did not want them exposed to mortar fire until necessary. Now that all of the ships were down however, there was cautious activity taking place. Ramps had come down and groups of engineers had emerged, followed by armed combat soldiers, all of them walking with that clumsy awkwardness that marked newcomers to Martian gravity.

Lon and his squad were spread out just over two kilometers from the nearest WestHem perimeter position, just over four kilometers from the nearest landing ship. This was his team's seventh straight day of deployment. They were all tired but their spirits remained high. They had done their job and done it well, having ambushed more than fifteen groups of marines ranging from four-man patrols to understrength companies, causing well over seventy casualties without so much as a twisted ankle among their own. They had been combat tested, had come out the better for it, and were now a well-drilled killing and hiding machine, the bane of the invading marines. But they also knew that everything that had occurred until now was just a warm-up. The real games would begin today. The marines were about to inject hovers and armor into the equation, two things that would make things exponentially more dangerous. As such, the team was very heavy on anti-tank and anti-aircraft lasers for this deployment, fielding two of the former and three of the latter. Their packs were heavy with the disposable charging batteries that powered the weapons.

"I've got a bay door opening on LS 5," Lon announced quietly as he adjusted the magnification of his goggles even higher. "Right where all of the engineers are gathered."

Everyone looked at the target that had been designated as Landing Ship 5. It was a specially modified ship designed to launch extraterrestrial hovercraft from bays located on both sides. Behind the hovers would be fuel storage tanks and pumping systems, ammunition storage, crew quarters, and maintenance facilities. In short, everything that was needed to deploy and maintain a formidable force of heavily armed combat aircraft.

"How many hovers does that thing hold?" asked Horishito as he watched two of the bay doors slide slowly open.

"Standard load out is one hundred and ten multi-purpose attack hovers," answered Lon. "They also carry ten to twelve transport and medivac hovers. Intelligence says that the Earthlings might've crammed a few more than the standard load in there for this campaign though. You know how they are on that air superiority thing."

"Yeah," Horishito said nervously. "I know how they are."

"Have we ever actually shot down a hover with one of these shoulder-fired lasers?" asked Lisa.

"Us personally? No." Lon answered.

"I mean anyone, anywhere?" she said. "Or is all just theory that we can take them down? Remember the mess in the Jupiter War?" During the Jupiter War one of the main causes cited for the defeat of the WestHem forces had been the lack of effectiveness of their portable anti-aircraft laser systems. The marines had been able to hit the EastHem hovers but had done little more than damage them. Only three had been shot down by the portable weapons in the entire conflict.

"The technology has improved considerably since the Jupiter War," Lon said. "These weapons are more than three times as potent."

"But they've never been combat tested?" she asked.

"No," he admitted. "They've never been combat tested. Just like everything else we've been doing out here, its just theory for the moment."

She nodded, a grim expression on her face. "Let's hope it's a good theory then."

There was a sharp flare of white in the infrared spectrum from the open bay doors. The military personnel that were standing nearby quickly backed away, several of them tripping and falling as they retreated.

"Engine ignition," Lon said. "They're about to come out. Jefferson, send out a report."

"Sending it," said Jefferson, who was on another hill, one hundred meters to the east. His communications gear was already set up and locked onto the com sat. Now that armor and hovers were being deployed the communications loop had been expanded to the point where all of the special forces teams at any particular landing site were being indirectly linked. Jefferson's message, after hitting the dish and being transmitted to Eden, was then rebroadcast through the satellite link to all of the other teams. In addition, position reports of the other teams on the ground were kept updated on each commander's combat computer. This was a calculated risk since any team captured would be able to give away the locations of the others, or at least their last known position, but it was felt that the sharing of the information and locations and, as a natural extension, the combat power, was a benefit that outweighed the risk.

One hover emerged from each bay two minutes later. They eased out and hesitated over the ground for a moment, the four thrusters on the bottom flaring brightly with the intense heat of burning hydrogen fuel. Slowly the thrusters flared brighter and the hovers rose higher into the air, until they were several hundred meters above the top of the landing ship, high enough that the blast from their thrusters were no longer kicking up dust. Two more emerged from the bay right behind them, performing the same maneuver. Once all four were in the air they formed up into a loose diamond shape.

"EHC-750s," Lon said, identifying them by their official military designator. "Very bad news if they get us in their sights."

"That ain't no shit," agreed Horishito, a hint of nervousness in his voice.

The EHC-750 was the latest development of the ever-changing extraterrestrial hovercraft. It was a multi-purpose craft that was capable of air-to-air combat, close air support for ground troops, and even tactical bombing. Its armament consisted of four high-powered anti-air lasers, two twenty-millimeter cannon turrets, and, most frightening to Lon and his troops, a nose mounted eighty-millimeter gun that could fire sixty high explosive rounds per minute. The 750 was, in short, a flying tank. Even its profile was sinister looking. It was triangular in shape, the weapon pods and guns mounted from stubby wing-like protrusions on the sides. The cockpit, where the pilot and gunner sat, sat up high to give a panoramic view.

"You sending off the reports on this, Jeffy?" Lon asked Jefferson.

"Transmitting it now," he reported. "All units are being advised that they're in the air."

"Good," Lon said. "Luckily, those things are brighter than the sun in the IR spectrum. It shouldn't be too hard to see them coming at us."

"Intel is sure our suits are invisible to their FLIR, right?" asked Horishito.

"As sure as they can be," Lon answered. "We don't have any 750s in the MPG to test with though, so I guess we'll be finding out how good their information is, won't we?"

"More theory then, huh?" asked Lisa, who had one of the anti-air lasers in her hand, her thumb nestled near the charge button but not pushing it just yet.

"More theory," he agreed.

Now that the hovers were formed up they began to rise higher into the air. They turned as one towards the east and then lit their rear thrusters, imparting forward motion. They moved off, picking up speed and gaining altitude.

"Where are they going?" asked Horishito.

"Escort duty would be my guess," Lon replied. "Remember, they have all of their wounded stuck in the landing ships. Now that they have some air-to-air capability they can bring down their shuttles to evacuate them. I bet they started the shuttles down right after the last landing. They're probably approaching atmospheric entry now."

"Makes sense," Horishito said.

They continued to watch and ten minutes later, through the same two doors, another four hovers emerged into the air. These too rose into the air and formed up before moving off to the east. Jefferson continued to update Eden and the rest of the forces on the ground on these developments. On Lon's combat display symbols representing the eight aircraft appeared at the edge of his view to remind him that they were out there; as if he could forget.

The bay doors closed again but before another five minutes went by two more opened. Soon there was the flare of heat again and two more 750s came out into the atmosphere. This pair floated up to about five hundred meters above the landing ship and formed up into the classic lead and wing formation.

"I don't think this flight is going out for escort duty," Lon said.

"Perimeter search flight?" asked Lisa.

"Yep, they want to go out greenie hunting. Now we'll see how well these suits stand up, won't we? Jeffy, still updating?"

"You know it, sarge," he said. "The alert just came back to me from Eden. Everyone knows about it."

As they watched, the two hovercrafts turned to the south and lit up their rear thrusters. They picked up speed slowly, until they were moving at just under one hundred kilometers per hour. Jefferson continued to broadcast their speed and position until they disappeared over the next rise. Within thirty seconds a mortar team stationed on that side of the perimeter announced that they had a visual on them and continued the updates. The combat computers, receiving input from Jefferson's set, continually updated the bright red blips on their mapping screens. They all watched in nervous anticipation as the hovers circled around the perimeter, slowing here and there, speeding up again, coming to a hover once in a while, and occasionally disappearing from view for a few minutes as they passed out of visual range of any of the teams.

"So far they haven't passed near any of the teams," Lon said, watching as they completed the wide circle and began to come back around from the other direction. "The nearest they got was about two klicks from C team on the south."

"Maybe we'll get to be the lucky ones then," Lisa said.

"Yes, it always seems to work out like that for us, doesn't it?" Lon sighed. The blips had just passed out of range of Team D on the northern edge of the perimeter. The last update had it moving directly towards Lon's Team B. A tense minute went by and suddenly, from over the top of a series of hills four kilometers to the north, the flare of white appeared once more. It was moving relatively slowly but unmistakably right toward them.

"Okay," Lon said calmly. "It looks like this is it. Get the lasers charged up, guys."

Lisa, Horishito, and Alamar all thumbed their charge switches, sending the energy surging into the laser units. In the twenty seconds that it took for this to be accomplished the hovers moved steadily towards them.

"Let's all just keep still down here and see if the suits keep them from seeing us," Lon ordered. "Don't engage unless it looks like they're setting up to fire on us."

Everyone lay still, gripping their weapons against their chests. Jefferson, after giving one last position report, had broken down his radio and cradled it to his body. The three team members with the anti-air lasers kept them close, their fingers curled around the safety guards on the firing buttons. The hovers grew larger in their view, the searing heat from the thrusters white points on the bottom. The course they were on was going to bring them within half a kilometer.

"Steady everyone," Lon said. "Let's just be static."

The hovers, still moving at just under one hundred kilometers per hour, passed by them without slowing, close enough that they could hear the muted roar of the thrusters, that they could read the identification numbers on the sides. They continued towards the south, maneuvering thrusters on the left side firing a few times to alter their course just a bit.

"They didn't see us," Lisa said with relief. "They passed right over the top of us and didn't see us!"

"It seems that these suits do what they promised," Lon said, relief in his tone as well. "That means we're in business."

"What now?" asked Horishito.

"Now," Lon said, "we test the other theory we were talking about. Let's take them down before they get out of range. Wong, hit the left one. Hoary, hit the right. Alamar, you're the reserve. Get ready to finish the job if the first shots don't do it."

Lon's order was not questioned. Lisa quickly rolled over and pointed her laser at the two hovers. The heat from their rear thrusters was an easy target to lock onto. She moved the weapon until the targeting rectical of her goggles was directly in the center of the left flare. She zoomed in a little to make the shot easier and then reported readiness. On the next hill over Horishito did the same.

"Fire," Lon said. "Let's see what these weapons can do."

Without hesitation Lisa flipped the safety guard up and gently pressed down on the button, just as she had done a hundred times in training deployments. The weapon discharged its laser energy, not making a noise, not kicking, and hardly even making a visual signature. The shot, moving at the speed of light, hit instantly. The results were quite dramatic, much more than she was expecting. The back of the hover suddenly flared even brighter, overwhelming her goggles for a second. When the flare cleared the entire back of the aircraft had been blown away. All of the rear thrusters had been put out of commission by the explosion but the front thrusters were still firing. The aircraft nosed up violently and was suddenly upside down. It began to drop towards the ground, spinning in a reverse motion as it fell. There was another bright flare from the cockpit as the pilot and gunner were automatically ejected. They flew into the air astride their rocket-powered ejection seats, blasting well clear of the crippled aircraft. The aircraft itself hit the ground two seconds later, smashing into a field of boulders and exploding, sending debris out in a spray of shrapnel.

Horishito's hit was a little less dramatic but no less lethal. His laser simply killed all of the thrusters simultaneously, causing the entire machine to fall towards the ground in a ballistic path. Again the two crewmembers were able to eject before the aircraft hit the ground and exploded. Now all four of them were gently dropping to the surface, the retro rockets on the bottoms of their seats acting as parachutes.

"Good kills," Lon said, obviously impressed. "Nice to know the lasers things work too. Now lets get the fuck out of here. They have a lot more artillery guns to shoot now."

Within ten seconds the entire squad was up and moving down the hill at top speed, heading for their next position. They reached it five minutes later, a furious artillery barrage ripping up the ground behind them but still, even though more than thirty guns were now firing, none of the rounds were landing on the hills they'd fired from. Jefferson quickly set up his radio equipment and reported the good news regarding the success of both their suits and their anti-air weapons. Within minutes of being received in Eden this information was broadcast to the teams at the other landing sites as well.

Two hours later, aboard the Nebraska, General Wrath was receiving a not-so-welcome briefing from Major Wild on the day's combat operations so far. The news was not exactly what he had been expecting.

"They've shot down sixteen hovers?" he asked in disbelief. "Sixteen?"

"As of fifteen minutes ago, sir," he said. "There may very well be more by now. We have them patrolling in flights of four now but even that hasn't seemed to stop the greenies from firing on them. They're fielding AT-50 weapons down there, as you know, and those lasers pack quite a punch. A single hit on the engine compartment inevitably destroys the airworthiness of the entire aircraft."

"And we haven't been able to engage a single team?" Wrath said. "How is that possible? How are those goddamned greenies potting our hovers out of the sky like practice targets and we haven't managed to hit a single one of them?"

"Sir, our pilots report the greenies are not showing up on their screens. In several instances the hovers flew directly over the areas where the attacks came from and did not see a thing until the laser flares came. By then of course, it was too late. Even if the greenies are unable to take down the entire flight at once, they are able to reload and recharge their weapons before the remaining hovers can circle around and line up on the spot. The greenies always hit them from behind."

"Goddamned back-shooters," Wrath said angrily, as if he thought that the enemy should shoot at them head on in the interests of fairness.

"As it stands now, sir, all of the hover crews except one have been able to eject and be recovered by ground forces."

"But we're still down sixteen hovers," Wrath said. "And we don't have any way of getting any more of them out here, do we?"

"No, sir," he agreed. "We don't. It's my suggestion that we send them out in flights of six now. Hopefully there will be strength in numbers. As with the patrols in the field, there has to be a number that the greenies won't attack."

"So ordered," Wrath said. "And what's the status of our evac shuttles? And their escorts?"

"All of them down safely. The greenies didn't go after them at all. Wounded and enemy prisoners are being loaded up for return now. The first of them should be lifting off in less than thirty minutes."

"At least something is going right around here," Wrath grumbled. "What's the status of our armor? Is it unloading?"

"Far behind schedule, but getting there," Wild said.

"What's the delay there?"

"Mortar attacks," Wild told him. "Every ten minutes or so the greenies lob a bunch of shells directly down on top of the unloading crews. They damaged ten or fifteen APCs, caused some casualties, and, most importantly, they're pinning down the crews and slowing down the operation."

Wrath shook his head. He knew, of course, that the greenie mortar crews were even more ghostly than the hit and run terrorists. Operating well away from any prepared marine positions, they were able to stage their attacks with complete impunity, firing off twelve to fifteen shells in a few seconds and then retreating to a different position, long before artillery could even be called down, even if there was such a thing as accurate artillery in this conflict. "Just get that armor unloaded and deployed," Wrath ordered. "Send out armored patrols in force, company strength at a minimum with heavy tank and hover support. We'll see how the goddamned greenies deal with that."

August 25, 2146

Eden Landing Zone

Sunrise in the equatorial region of Mars was unlike any sunrise seen on Earth. The Martian air was thin and cloudless, giving nothing but the low flying dust particles to reflect light. There was no gradual lightening of the eastern sky. One second it was black night, with only the diamond points of the stars visible. The next second, the tip of the sun peaked over the horizon and began to rise, a sun smaller in diameter than that seen on Earth. You could stare at this sun for thirty to forty seconds without averting your eyes. In a matter of two minutes the darkness had disappeared, replaced by a rapidly increasing brightness. The stars winked out one by one.

Lieutenant Callahan — dressed in his biosuit and standing next to his command APC — watched this with a feeling of eeriness. Though he had seen a Martian sunrise eight times now, it still seemed unnatural to him, a reminder of how far he was from home and how alien an environment he was in. It had also proven itself to be a reliable harbinger of danger to come. The rising sun would quickly heat up the region. The temperature readout on his heads-up-display currently read 123 degrees below zero. As he watched, it began to tick upward, the rate increasing with each passing second. Within an hour, it would be less than twenty below zero — the temperature where the greenie camouflage suits became effective. Within an hour of that, the greenies would start to deploy, their Hummingbird VTOLs dropping special forces teams and mortar crews all around the perimeter. Within thirty minutes of that, the sniper attacks and mortar barrages would begin. It was the only predictable thing they had discovered about the greenies so far.

Despite the foreboding sensation the sunrise generated, Callahan knew it was simply a Pavlovian reaction, brought on by the humiliating defeats of the previous week. He had every reason to feel confident on the dawn of this day and he believed sincerely in his heart that the dealing of death would now be on the other foot. His platoon — which had taken nearly forty percent casualties so far — had been reinforced with replacements from one of the landing ships that had come down yesterday. They were now up to the full strength of forty men and, most important, they now had armor to protect them. Though it had taken the better part of twenty-four hours to unload the APCs due to the greenie mortar attacks, enough had finally been brought down to fully equip all of Charlie Company of the 314th ACR. They were spread all over the staging area — twenty in all, each holding ten marines — and the entire company was readying them for battle. In addition, an entire company of tanks had been unloading and would be providing overwatch for the day's operations. Under the command of Captain Ayers (who would of course lead from the safety of the landing ship) their orders were to secure the western flank of the perimeter once and for all. In other words, they were to deploy in force, locate any greenie troops out there, and destroy or capture them. With the overwhelming force they were wielding and with the support of two flights of six hovers apiece, Callahan thought the only question was whether the greenies would bother to show up for the battle or not. The consensus seemed to be that they wouldn't. According to Intelligence — who were monitoring greenie news broadcasts — Martian doctrine was to avoid battle when defeat was certain. Defeat surely couldn't be any more certain now that the armored cavalry was fully equipped, could it? Callahan thought not.

"I hope those green fucks do show their terrorist faces," said Sergeant Bickers, who had replaced Sergeant Mallory in the decimated third squad. "I think we got a little payback for them."

"Me too," Callahan said with utmost sincerity. "Me too."

MPG Headquarters Building, New Pittsburgh

0612 hours

General Jackson and Colonel Bright, commander of the special forces, sat shoulder to shoulder at the general's desk in his office, both of them staring at the computer screen before them. Both men were clean-shaven and refreshed, having slept a full eight hours the night before. They sipped from cups of coffee brewed with Martian-grown beans — what had recently been reserved for welfare recipients and prisons. The planetary supply of Earth grown coffee had run out several weeks before. The Martian coffee was perhaps not even worthy of being called coffee — it tasted more like manufactured sludge — but it had caffeine in it and both men sipped it gratefully.

"Right there," Bright said, pointing at the screen with his finger. The image before them was an infrared shot of the Eden landing zone that had been taken from an MPG reconnaissance satellite less than twenty minutes before. "As we figured, they're deployed in force this morning."

"Fuckin' aye," Jackson agreed as he saw the bright spots of nearly two hundred armored vehicles and nearly a thousand men. "I guess our free ride is over."

"Unfortunately," Bright said. He flipped to another image, this one showing the New Pittsburgh landing site. It showed pretty much the same thing — tanks, APCs, and armed men getting ready to head out into the field on search and destroy missions. He then flipped to the Libby view and then the Proctor view. The marines at these two sites were not yet gearing up, but that was because it was two hours earlier there, well before sunrise. The vehicles for such an operation, however, were plainly visible, just waiting to be occupied and piloted by infantry squads. "They plan to put a major hurt on us today."

"It would seem so," Jackson said. "Does this give you reservations about today's operations?"

Bright let a small frown cross his face. "We've gotten off easy so far," he said. "Less than a dozen troops killed. Only a few captured. No aircraft shot down. That's might change today."

"Perhaps," Jackson said with a nod. "But I don't think so. We've been training for just such an engagement for years, haven't we? Oh, sure, we've pretended it would be the EastHem's who would be the invaders, but that hardly makes a difference, does it? The EastHems and WestHems both have similar doctrine in regards to extra-terrestrial invasion. And the Earthlings are being kind enough to be as predictable as I always thought they would be. Stage one of our defense was an outstanding success. Why is it so hard for you to believe that stage two will be different?"

Bright had to admit Jackson had a point. MPG doctrine was divided into five distinct steps for defending against invasion and each of the five steps had been practiced obsessively. Step one was to slow the deployment of armor and aircraft at the landing zones by means of mortar and small unit attacks from the perimeter. This would serve to buy time to gear up the main defenses and would begin to affect enemy morale and unit cohesion. Step two, which was merely an extension of step one, was to draw the enemy armor and aircraft out into the landing zone perimeters and engage them there utilizing coordinated hit and run tactics. This, it was hoped, would further degrade enemy morale and, most important, would start to significantly whittle away the numerical advantage the enemy had the air superiority. In exercise after exercise over the years, the special forces and air wings had proven that they had the ability to pull this off with minimal casualties. But those had been exercises performed with training charges, conducted with MPG units flying outdated hovers playing the opposition force. This would be the real thing, where the price for losing was not who had to buy the beer and bonghits at the Troop Club, but death or capture. "I'm afraid for the men," Bright said. "This will be the first real test of our tactics, tactics you and I developed. If we're wrong, they'll be slaughtered out there and their deaths will be on our conscience."

"If we're wrong," Jackson said, "then all is lost anyway. The WestHems will defeat us and our cities will be captured."

Bright nodded. That too was a good point. Perhaps the best one. "I'll brief the teams personally today," he said.

"I would expect nothing less," Jackson said. "I'll make sure the air wing is ready to do their part."

Bright certainly hoped the air wing would be ready. They were the key to the success of stage two doctrine. Without them, the WestHem hovers would smash his perimeter teams to pieces one by one.

Eden Landing Zone, aboard the primary landing ship

0710 hours

The combat information center, or CIC, was a much different place than it had been a week ago. Then, it had only been staffed by a skeleton crew — a few technicians to monitor instruments, a few gunnery officers pulling shit duty, and a lowly commanding officer to fill out protocol. Now, after a week of having their asses kicked up and down the perimeter by the greenies, every terminal was staffed, every feed from every instrument was constantly monitored, and the command staff consisted of the most senior and experienced combat officers available. A huge map display lit up the main screen on the front of the room. It showed the landing zone and the surrounding ten square kilometers of Mars, with friendly units showing in blue, their positions constantly updated by radio signal, although, of course, that information was only as accurate as the inertial navigation data being provided.

The commander of the CIC at the moment was Major Jonathan Sparks, second in command of 2nd Battalion of the 314th Armored Cavalry Regiment, the unit currently deploying its armor and men outside. He sat in a padded leather chair in the center of the room, his workstation raised above all the other positions. From there he had a view of the main map and, by spinning his chair around, all of the monitoring terminals. He looked at the time display on the main screen and then checked it against his wristwatch. 0710. If the greenies were going to get in the game today, they would begin appearing any minute.

"Status check," he said. "Are all of my units ready?"

"Checking," replied several voices at once. Each officer began utilizing his individual radio link. The air operations liaison was the first to reply.

"Air wing is ready," he reported. "Forty-eight attack hovers in eight flights of six are staffed and ready for take-off in five minutes."

"Copy that," Sparks said. "Orders are to keep them on the ground until the armor is deployed to the battle area. At that point, the air patrol will launch and one wing of hovers will support each area of engagement."

"Understood," reported the air liaison.

"All tank crews are formed up and ready for deployment," reported the armor liaison.

"Infantry squads are all loaded into the APCs," reported the infantry liaison.

Sparks nodded in satisfaction. "Very well," he said. "All we need now are some greenies."

As if on cue, one of the detection technicians suddenly spoke up. "Thermal plume," he reported. "Bearing 246. Range unknown."

"The signature?" Sparks asked.

"Ground level, high infrared range. The same thing we've been seeing all along."

Yes, that was it, Sparks knew. The signature of a greenie Hummingbird utilizing its thrusters to land on the surface. "Anything on active?" he asked next.

All stations reported negative.

"That's the first landing. Get me a estimated range and start plastering the area with artillery."

Estimating range without getting a hit from active sensors was an iffy science at best, particularly in the variable atmosphere of Mars. Still, the computers did their best, utilizing red shift data and triangulation between multiple sensors. Within six seconds of detecting the thermal plume, they had a fix that was accurate to within one kilometer. This information was given to the gunnery officer who immediately ordered an all-out barrage starting in the center of the most likely area. If only they had some accurate gunnery, they might have actually hit something.

"Rounds are outgoing," the gunnery officer reported.

"That's good to know," Sparks said sarcastically. He turned to the armor and infantry liaisons. "Hold in place for now. Let's see where the rest of the greenies land, then we'll go out and get them."

The first thermal plume spotted had come from the Hummingbird Lon and his squad was assigned to but the squad didn't get out. The ramp didn't even come down. Instead, the aircraft merely sat on the ground for twenty-four seconds — the amount of time it usually took to offload a team — and then launched back into the air, creating exactly what the technicians back on the marine landing ships were expecting to see, another thermal plume. The Hummingbird flew on, circling around a few hills, doubling back, doubling back again, and then coming in for yet another landing some four kilometers from their first touchdown position, creating yet another thermal plume for the technicians to detect and chart, another empty place for them to call down an artillery barrage. The ramp remained closed, the special forces team remained in their restraints. Twenty-eight seconds went by and the aircraft took off again. It went through another series of turns and dives, doubling back and forth for the better part of five minutes. Finally it reached the real deployment area six kilometers northwest of the marine perimeter forces. There was another bright flare, another jerking halt, and this time the ramp did come down and the nine men and one woman jumped out onto the rocky Martian surface.

All around the perimeter the other six Hummingbirds involved in dropping off the various teams for the coming battle did the same, some making three false landings prior to the real deployment, some making as many as six. The Hummingbirds then retreated at top speed, heading back to their base where the aircraft would be quickly refueled and then staged for immediate take-off.

"How many of those fucking Hummingbirds do they have?" Callahan asked after watching his map display light up with landing after landing of suspected enemy forces. On the west side of the perimeter alone sixteen thermal plumes had been detected and charted, each prompting a yellow circle to appear. On the east, north, and south, another twenty-eight had been charted as well.

"Intelligence put it at thirty," said Sergeant Bickers. "That was supposed to have been solid information."

Callahan shook his head in disgust. "Fucking Intelligence assholes. What else are they gonna be wrong about?"

"That's an ass-load of greenies they're disgorging out there," said Sergeant Bender, yet another replacement.

"All the more for us to kill," Callahan said. "I say, send every last fucking one of them."

From behind them the artillery guns atop the landing ships continued to fire, sending a rain of high explosive shells off in all directions. The thumping was audible from this close but only barely so. Callahan was encouraged by the sheer volume of fire they were unleashing. Sure, the gunnery sucked ass, but with that much outgoing they were sure to score a few hits by sheer chance, weren't they? Of course, he had no idea that most of the landing zones they were firing at were completely empty, mere deceptions staged by an enemy who liked nothing better than for the marines to waste precious ammunition in an environment where it could not be re-supplied.

"We're moving out," came the voice of Captain Ayers back on the landing ship. "Waypoints are being downloaded to your computers right now. We're going to circle around the outside of the ridgeline at grid 47C. That will keep our space relatively wide-open and keep us from having to narrow up in the chokepoints between the hills."

"Thank God someone has common sense," Callahan muttered. He had been afraid they would be ordered directly through those gaps where the lack of maneuvering room would completely negate their numerical superiority.

"Once past the ridgeline," Ayers continued, "we're going to swing north and clear those hills one by one until we find and engage the greenies that have been dropped. We'll start working outward from the landing positions of the first drop. One of the tank platoons will be on point, one will be guarding our left flank, and one our right flank. As the dismounts are out searching the hillsides you'll be surrounded by heavy armor, not to mention your own APCs and the hovers overhead."

"This is the way marines are supposed to fight," someone, Callahan was unsure who, said over the tactical net.

"Time for some greenie flambé," said someone else.

"Callahan," said Ayers, "you're second in command of the company. Your platoon will be on point, right behind the lead tank platoon."

"Yes, sir," Callahan said with a smile. Being on point meant he and his men would be the first to dismount and start kicking some green ass.

Ayers gave the other platoons their positions in the formation and then gave the order to move out. The tanks went first, taking up the front position. The APCs followed behind them. More tanks formed up on the flanks. As a unit they rumbled out of the perimeter, forming a huge cloud of red dust that kicked up into the air and was blown out to the east, marking their position from ten kilometers away. As they reached the edge of the ridgeline and turned north, into the hilly ground that was the greenie hunting area, twelve hovers formed up above them, spreading out, ready to pounce upon any identified greenie position in an instant.

It took them twenty-five minutes to circle around to the area where the first Hummingbird plume had been detected. The ground here was rocky and hilly, the sort of terrain the greenie teams seemed to favor more than anything. The hovers cruised low over the hills and were able to detect the fused soil from the Hummingbird's thrusters but no greenies. That was unsurprising. Experiments with the captured greenie biosuits had confirmed that the Hummingbirds would have to be directly over a greenie at an altitude of less than four hundred meters to even get a sniff.

"Dismounts," came Ayers' voice. "Let's get out there. Start checking those hills in front of you, one by one. Advance to contact. It's time to flush them out."

"Yes sir," Callahan repeated. The APCs came to a halt and the ramps went down. Two hundred men climbed out onto the Martian surface and began to fan out towards the hills. They stayed bunched together as closely as possible on the theory that a simple squad of greenies would not engage that many marines. Despite all the media hype about the suicide attacks that had caused so many casualties, the marines knew that the greenies were far from suicidal.

The marines were right. The special forces teams were not suicidal and had no intention whatsoever of actually going head to head with an entire company supported by tanks and hovers at once. In fact, Lon and his squad were the only actual combat squad currently deployed on the western side of the Eden LZ and they were almost five kilometers away. They had their normal weapons and their normal assortment of anti-tank and anti-aircraft lasers, but their orders were not to engage unless they were located and under attack themselves. Their job on this particular phase of the operation was to observe and report the position of the marines. All of the other teams that had been dropped on the western perimeter were mortar squads and sniper teams. Utilizing the position fixes fed to them by Lon and his team, who were perched atop a series of high hills and watching the marines through combat goggle magnification, the mortar squads pulled back to their optimum range and began to set up while the sniper teams — each of which consisted of a gunner and a spotter — began to move in. But before these elements could begin to do their work, someone had to do something about the hovers. Fortunately, someone was on the way to do just that.

Sixty kilometers to the west, screaming in at six hundred kilometers per hour, a flight of four Mosquitoes turned and banked through the hills, keeping less than thirty meters above the ground. In the lead Mosquito, piloted by Brian Haverty, Matt Mendez started intently at the screen in front of him, watching as the red dots that signified the marine hovers circled slowly around and around.

"Twelve targets," he told Brian through the intercom system. "Three flights of four but all close enough for mutual support. They're in overlapping patterns, altitude four, zero, zero AGL. I'm plotting a position to best engagement zone right now."

"Right," said Brian, who was focused on keeping the aircraft from smashing into the ground or one of the hillsides. The information Mendez was reciting was coming from a special forces team somewhere out in the wastelands, a team that had the deployment under direct observation and was beaming their observations up to a com sat where it was then being encrypted and broadcast to the flight via a transmitter in Eden. "What do we got on ground forces?"

"Company strength tank forces, company strength armored cav, including four SAL five-sevens spread throughout the armor."

"Great," said Brian. "And those SALs won't be shooting training charges either. We need to keep exposure time at an absolute minimum."

"Fuckin' aye," said Matt. "It's also reported that the armored cav is dismounted now. Two hundred troops on the ground."

"And if they're following doctrine," Brian said, "there will be one hand-held SAL per squad. In case you're a little slow on the math, newbie, that means there are at least twenty portable surface-to-air lasers that will be gunning for us."

"They can't hit us with them things, can they?" Matt asked. "They don't lock on target like the mobile SALs do."

"They may not lock but with twenty of them out there gunning for us the chance of a lucky shot slamming into us increases considerably. Don't underestimate the hand-helds. I've been taken down in training missions more than once by them."

"Thanks, boss," Matt said. "I thought I knew about every fucking thing there was that could kill me out here. It's sure nice of you to add to the fuckin' list."

"Just keep our exposure time to a minimum," Brian repeated. "This is an improv mission at its finest. You're in control of where this whole flight pops out and where it goes back into the hills. Don't fuck it up or you'll get some people killed."

"Right," Matt said. "A trial by fire. I got it."

"You'll do fine," Brian told him. "We've practiced this dozens of times. It's a textbook improv air-to-air strike. Classic phase two warfare. "

Matt nodded and looked down at his screen. The holographic map display showed the hills and valleys in three dimensions, with altitude numbers atop each peak. It really was like a training mission except for the fact that the hovers out there were not MPG owned and the SALs were not firing training charges. He put this out of his mind and his nervousness faded away. His finger began to trace a course across the map, taking them in from the east, skirting around the base of three hills, and then popping up over the last set of hills where the hovers were flying. A blue line trailed behind his finger, marking the projected course. When it entered the firing zone, it turned red. He skirted it along the ridge and then curved it back to the west. Once behind the next hill, the tracing turned blue again.

"I got it," he told Brian. "We'll swing in from the east and pop up to five, zero, zero AGL, egress to the west. Total exposure time, four point three seconds."

"Sounds good," Brian said, violently cutting them to the right around a hill and then leveling them again. "Put it on screen."

"Don't you wanna check it first?"

"Can't take my eyes off the terrain," Brian told him. "I'll have to trust you on this one."

Matt took a deep breath. "Okay," he said. "On screen. Shipping it to the other planes." He pushed a button on his screen and locked in the plot. He pushed another button and the plot was beamed to the other three aircraft via a short-range radio burst. The navigation carrot on their heads-up display swung to the right and they began to follow it, homing in on their targets. Matt called out the course corrections as they came up, counting each one down. Soon his ESM display began to make some noise.

"I'm picking up three distinct active IR and radar sweeps from the target area," he announced. "Frequencies indicate SAL-five-seven phased sets on standard search setting. Probability of detection, zero."

"Got it," said Brian.

"Come right to two, seven, three in five, four, three, two, one."

The aircraft banked right, spinning around another set of hills, and leveled out again. They climbed a few feet to clear a smaller hill and then dove back down again. Behind them, one by one, the other three Mosquitoes matched their moves exactly.

"Coming up on the IP," Matt said after the next bank. "Charging the laser, activating air-to-air search mode."

"Copy," said Brian.

"Active IR and radar getting stronger, still no chance of detection."

"That's what I like to hear. No active airborne?"

"Nothing," Matt confirmed. "I guess the hovers don't wanna overload their ESM sets."

"Their mistake," Brian said.

They flew on, skirting through a narrow gully. The laser set beeped, indicating it was charged and ready. They reached the Initial Point, or IP, made their last turn, and then screamed on towards the last hill between them and the marines.

"Let's do this thing," Brian said, putting on some power and pulling up on the stick. The Mosquito began to rise into the air.

Lon, Lisa, and Jefferson were deployed atop Hill 655, five kilometers northwest of the circling hovers and the company of dismounted infantry beneath them. The hovers were clearly visible to them, circling in simple, overlapping, mutually supporting patterns. Some of the infantry and armor were visible as well, but most were obscured by the hills between Hill 655 and the target area. That didn't really matter though. The dust cloud produced by the armor pointed out their position as clearly as a holographic arrow on a simulation screen. And if Lon, Lisa, and Jefferson lost sight of the targets for any reason, Horishito and two other squad members were deployed 450 meters further west on hill 648 and Brannigan and the remaining squad members were deployed 380 meters further east on hill 703.

Lon knew the flight of Mosquitoes was on their firing run. After all, it was he who had given them their target coordinates. He had his eyes peeled and his infrared enhancement mode set to high but even he didn't see them at first, they moved so quickly. The first clue he had they were in the neighborhood was three flashes from the circling hovers as they were struck by anti-tank lasers. One of the hovers, apparently targeted by two of the aircraft at once, simply exploded in mid-air. The other two went spinning wildly out of control.

"Yes!" Lon said, pumping his fist in triumph. "Three down with one run. Not too fucking bad."

Lisa caught the barest glimpse of the Mosquitoes as they dove back downward. Just before disappearing behind a hill there was a flash from the belly of one. One of the other hovers flashed with the telltale signature of a direct hit. It dropped out of the sky like a rock, the pilot and gunner firing free on their ejection seats. "Four," she corrected. "They took another one on the egress."

"Annoying little mosquitoes huh?" Lon said, referring to that long ago WestHem general who had given the aircraft its affectionate name. "I wonder what that asshole thinks about them now?"

"Nothing," Lisa said. "He's one of the military consultants for InfoServe now. They'll never even tell him the Mosquitoes had anything to do with their losses."

"True," agreed Lon.

"Hey, sarge," said Horishito from the next hill. "Fifty bucks says they take at least five on their next run."

Lon thought that over for a second. "You're on," he said. "Those guys are good, but they ain't that good."

"I'll take a little bit of that action," Lisa said. "Fifty on five."

"Covered," Lon told her.

The next run began twenty seconds later. This time they saw the four Mosquitoes pop up over a hill to the north of the hovers. They climbed to altitude and their lasers began to flash. Hovers began to explode and fall out of the sky. Five were hit but only four went down. The fifth began limping its way back toward the landing zone, trailing smoke and wobbling but still airworthy. The Mosquitoes disappeared within seconds.

"You owe me fifty bucks!" Horishito yelled.

"Yep," Lisa agreed. "Me too."

"No fuckin' way," Lon said. "They took four down. The other is still flying."

"We said they'd take five," Lisa said. "The fifth one is out of commission. That means it got took."

"But its still flying," Lon protested. "Take means destroyed."

"The fuck it does!" Horishito said. "You can't go changing the..."

"All right, guys," said Lon. "Let's discuss this later. Too much chatter on the net."

"Oh, now its too much chatter on the net," Horishito said.

The fifth hover reached the outer perimeter of hills, wobbled a little bit more, and then suddenly exploded with a bright flash of light. There was no ejection. By the time the flash faded, even the debris was gone.

"Fifty fuckin' bucks," Lisa said.

"Fuck yeah," agreed Horishito.

"All right," Lon said. "I know when I'm beat."

This left only three hovers still flying over the formation. Though they were inanimate objects it was clear by watching them that the men crewing them were now extremely nervous. They circled faster, putting distance between each vehicle. Jefferson reported that active radar and infrared had come on line from each of them.

"Those guys are shittin' in their pants about now," said Jefferson.

"Let's go double or nothing," Lisa suggested. "I say they take all three on the next run."

"I'm in on that," Horishito said. "All the way to the ground even."

"No thanks," Lon said. "I've learned my lesson about betting the no-pass line."

It was fortunate he didn't take the bet. The Mosquitoes appeared again, this time from the west, and the remaining three hovers fell in less than two seconds.

"Put it out, Jeffy," Lon ordered. "All aircraft down. Friendly aircraft are egressing. Sniper and mortar teams are free to engage."

"Transmitting," Jefferson said.

Atop Hill 474, 1600 meters to the west of the WestHem marine's westernmost troops, Corporal Brogan Goodbud lay nestled between two large boulders, looking through specially engineered combat goggles at the head of one of the WestHem marines. The magnification was so great he could make out the serial number atop the marine's visor, could tell what color eyes his target had. Goodbud held in his highly trained hands an M-64 sniper rifle, a weapon engineered and built by a Martian company specifically for the use he was putting it to. It fired a two-millimeter projectile at hypersonic speed, more than twelve times the speed of sound on the Martian surface, almost twice the velocity of the standard M-24 rifle most of the troops carried. At this velocity, and with modified combat computer support, Goodbud could hit an object the size of an apple from almost two kilometers ninety-nine times out of a hundred. Right now, his target was considerably larger than an apple and considerably closer than two kilometers. The travel time of the bullet to the target would be a mere two tenths of a second. He was as good as dead.

The target was either a sergeant or a lieutenant. He knew this for sure. For the past thirty minutes Rimmer, his observer, had been scanning the radio signals of the troops down on the ground classifying the radio signals that emitted constantly from their biosuit packs. Leaders were easy to identify even though they didn't put rank marking on their biosuits, even though the troops they commanded went to great pains to avoid saluting them or otherwise drawing attention to them with careless actions. Platoon and squad leaders were the only ones who broadcast radio signals on more than one frequency. Lieutenants talked to sergeants and to their commanders back on the landing ship. Sergeants talked to lieutenants and to their squads. The grunts of the operation only talked among themselves. Rimmer had identified more than twenty leaders down there and his combat computer had marked them by changing the color of their helmet to green in Goodbud's goggles. Of course this target locking only worked as long as the targets in question remained in view. When the air-to-air attack had come and the hover debris had started raining down all over the formations and the marines had started diving for cover and running around to attend to the wounded, more than half of his locked targets had disappeared. That was okay though. Once the fun really started, it would be easy for Rimmer to reacquire and re-mark them.

"Message from C Team," Rimmer's voice spoke in Goodbud's ear. "'All aircraft down. Friendly aircraft are egressing. Sniper and mortar teams are free to engage.'"

"Well suck my hairy ass," Goodbud said, making a minute adjustment of his rifle recentering his recticle on the target's face. "It's go time." He pushed the firing button. The weapon discharged with a slight kick, the flash channeled through a flash suppressor and cooled by a simultaneous release of liquid nitrogen as it emerged from the barrel. While it was impossible to completely suppress a gunshot flash, especially in the infrared spectrum, the M-64's suppressor technology did have the effect of making the signature less than one twentieth that of a standard M-24. The bullet hit exactly where it was aimed and the target dropped forward, blood boiling from a hole in the back of his head. Goodbud didn't pause to savor his success. He simply zoomed out until he saw another of the green helmets amid the rapidly expanding chaos. He picked one that was kneeling next to a marine wounded by aircraft debris, zoomed in, placed his recticle on the target's face, and then fired. Another one down. He would make one more shot and then they would pack up and move to the next hill to start all over again.

When Callahan was told later that the initial engagement had taken less than five minutes from start to finish, he thought he was being lied to. For him it seemed to take hours, days even, as he watched a cataclysm of horror and confusion he'd never even conceived of take place all around him.

It started with the hovers. They had been circling three or four hundred meters above, their presence comforting to the dismounted marines crawling up and down the hills (and finding absolutely nothing) and probing through the small gullies. The marine hover had always been considered the pillar of strength for extra-terrestrial operations, the factor that was supposed to insure victory and domination over any enemy fought far from the comfort of Earth. It was the factor that was supposed to guarantee air superiority over a battlefield, that could smash enemy forces long before the marines on the ground were close enough to even worry about them. The marines faith in these mighty flying tanks had begun to erode a bit over the past week as greenie troops proved themselves able to avoid detection by them and to take them down with their cursed anti-air lasers, but when the attack began on this morning, that faith was instantly and utterly destroyed for all time.

At first, Callahan didn't even know what was happening. He and his platoon had been approaching one of the hills, readying themselves to begin the clumsy climb to its peak. And then suddenly the hover directly over the top of them exploded without warning. Chunks of metal, circuit boards, control surfaces, and engine components came raining down atop them. One of his men was killed when an engine thruster crushed his head. Two others were wounded by smaller debris. The survivors of this hit the ground, their weapons trained outward out of instinct. Callahan wondered if the explosion had been a simple malfunction but then he looked behind and saw two other hovers spinning downward towards the ground, flipping end over end as half of their thrusters were put out and the others stayed lit. They hit the ground and exploded, one falling behind a hillside and out of sight, the other landing directly in the midst of third platoon, causing multiple casualties.

His radio channels began to squawk out overlapping exclamations, his men yelling on one channel, the other platoon leaders yelling on the other.

"What the fuck happened?"

"Where did it come from?"

"It was aircraft!" screamed someone else.

"No, there are greenies on the hillside, six o'clock!" shouted someone else.

Weapons began to fire at this last proclamation, popping from all around. Three marines standing atop one of the closer hills were peppered by it, falling in heaps.

"Cease fire!" someone else screamed. "Those are friendlies up there! They're fuckin' friendlies!"

"Shit!" said another voice.

The rifles stopped firing, gradually though, not all at once.

"It was aircraft!" one of the other lieutenants insisted. "Three or four of them! They passed right over the top of us!"

"Bullshit!" another lieutenant countered. "We would've fuckin' seen them."

"I did see them!" the first lieutenant countered. "They came out of the hills and then disappeared again in just a few seconds. They were moving fast."

"Nothing moves that fast out here, you idiot!" another voice proclaimed.

"Report!" said Captain Ayers' voice, overriding everything else. "Someone out there give me a goddamn report! Callahan, you there?"

"I'm here, cap," Callahan said, his eyes searching nervously through the skies and on the hillsides. "I don't know what the hell just happened but three of the hovers just went down."

"Four," the first lieutenant corrected. "They got another one just before they disappeared."

"Who got another one?" Ayers demanded.

"Aircraft," said the lieutenant. "They came out of the hillside, shot up the hovers, and then disappeared back in the hills."

"Did you see that, Callahan?" Ayers asked him.

"I didn't see shit, cap," he said. "We've got wounded down here though. Start bringing in the... oh shit! Get down!" In his excitement of seeing four greenie aircraft come shooting out of the gap between two hills, he forgot to change his transmission mode back to the tactical channel. As a result, it was only the other lieutenants who got down. The aircraft rushed over the top of him at a speed that seemed impossible in this environment, so fast that his eyes could barely register them. But his eyes did. They were ugly, flimsy looking boomerang-shaped aircraft flying in a line, their engines burning brightly in the infrared spectrum. They were close enough he could hear the muted roar of those engines through the thin air. Four more of the hovers suddenly fell from the sky and another went limping off towards the LZ, trailing smoke behind it. Of the four that went down, two of them landed amid the troops, smashing some, killing others with shrapnel when they exploded, wounding tens of others.

"What's going on Callahan?" Ayers demanded. "Report, goddammit!"

"It is aircraft!" Callahan yelled. "Mosquitoes. Four of them in formation. Holy fuck do those things fly fast. How the hell can they hit anything moving that fast?"

"Did they hit the hovers?" Ayers asked.

"Yes!" he screamed. "Four more down and another damaged. It's heading for..." he trailed off as the fifth one suddenly exploded, raining more debris down on a thankfully empty hillside. "Never mind," he finished. "Five down. They took five down."

"Five down total?" Ayers asked.

"Five down with this run," Callahan corrected. "They got four with the first. There are only three of them left."

There was silence on the command channel for a few seconds (although not on the tactical channel, that one was filled with more screams, more calls for medics). "Are you saying," Ayers finally asked, "that those four greenie aircraft have taken down nine hovers in less than a minute?"

"That's affirmative," Callahan said, unable to believe it himself. "Nine down, three left."

Ayers didn't quite know what to make of this. Neither did Callahan. While they were still mulling this over the Mosquitoes came back, suddenly appearing from yet another gap in the hills. The other three hovers fell to them, two of them landing amidst the troops, killing another eight and wounding another dozen or so. They were now completely without air cover.

"We need more hovers out here, cap!" Callahan said. "At least two dozen if you can spare them! And we need dust-off hovers too. We got lots of casualties on the ground."

"I'll get them out there," Ayers promised. "How many flight crew ejections?"

"Most of them got out, I think," Callahan said, not giving a shit about the flight crews.

"Recover those flight crews as quick as you can and get them inside the APCs. Those fucking idiots are helpless out there alone."

"We'll do what we can," Callahan said. "But right now we've got to worry about..."

He stopped suddenly as the confusing though horribly familiar babble indicative of a sniper in their midst began to come across the airwaves.

"Shit!"

"Get down!"

"Where the fuck did that come from?"

"Sniper!" someone else yelled. "Two people down... shit! Three people down!"

"Over there! Eight o'clock on the hillside!"

Guns began to fire again, peppering a hillside. There was a long burst of a SAW opening up as well.

"Cease fire!" a panicked voice yelled. "Stop shooting at us! We're friend..." the voice was cut suddenly and lethally off.

"Jesus," Callahan said, shaking his head.

Sergeant Bender, moving quick and low suddenly came down next to him. "LT," he said. "I think I saw a flash from..." He didn't finish. His head snapped to the right and his blood came boiling out into the atmosphere. He slumped over and lay still.

"Shit!" Callahan said, rolling quickly to the right and placing a boulder between himself and the direction the shot had come from. It was none too soon. Another shot plunked into the dirt where he'd just been.

"Over there!" a voice yelled. "On the hillside! Seven o'clock!"

Guns began to open up once more and once more a panicked voice began to scream out for a cease-fire, that they were shooting friendlies.

"Clusterfuck," Callahan muttered, still coming to grips with the thought that he'd just about been killed. "A fucking clusterfuck. What the hell else could go wrong?"

That was perhaps not the best question to ask because it was quickly answered.

"Incoming!" multiple voices on both channels began to yell in unison. "Get down!"

Callahan looked up and saw the streaks of mortar shells flying toward their position from three different directions. "Oh shit," he said and pulled himself as close to the boulder as he could.

Explosions began to boom from everywhere as the eighty-millimeter proximity fused shells detonated twenty meters over the top of the exposed troops. The ground shook as if an earthquake were jolting them. Dust and smoke flew. Shrapnel rained down at lethal velocity. The screams of pain and terror on the radio channels reached a fever pitch. Callahan felt his boulder move several inches by one of the closer explosions, heard the shrapnel peppering it. Dust obscured everything in his view, dust so thick that even his infrared enhancement couldn't see through it.

"Callahan!" Ayers' voice yelled in his ear. "We're tracking incoming mortar fire from multiple directions! You're under attack!"

"No fucking shit!" Callahan yelled back as another round exploded just behind him. This time he felt shrapnel pinging off his helmet, felt a spike of pain lancing into his back. A warning screen lit up before his eyes, informing him that his suit had been breached and pressurization was being lost.

Ayers said something else — something about counter-battery fire — but it was lost in the overlapping cries of the other men on the channel and Callahan's sudden concern for his own life.

"Your suit has sealed," a pleasant computer voice informed him. "Repressurizing lost air. You must return to a zone of safety as quickly as possible for suit repair and medical evaluation."

How bad am I hit? he wondered. The pain in his back was getting worse. He could feel the liquid sensation of blood on his skin. If it were simply an external injury, the pressure on the suit would keep it sealed and control the bleeding. If it were an internal injury, however... well... the suit couldn't do much for that.

The mortar barrage ended, not gradually, but suddenly. The screams on the radio channels, however, did not. The dust began to clear, blown away by the wind on the surface. It revealed a scene of horror and chaos unlike anything Callahan had ever seen before. Bodies were everywhere, men torn apart, men lying in heaps, shredded by the shrapnel of the mortar rounds, blood vapor boiling up into the air and following the dust on the wind currents. In the sky above, he saw the streaks of friendly artillery shells flying overhead, seeking out the positions the greenie mortars had been fired from. He couldn't even begin to deceive himself that they would actually hit any of them. By now the greenies had cleared those areas and would be moving to other firing positions.

"A trap," Callahan mumbled. "They trapped us as neatly as a spider traps a fly in its web."

The troops that were capable of it began to get to their feet and move around. Medics began to head for the wounded. Callahan saw Lieutenant Powell, commander of fourth platoon, stand up and start moving towards the rest of his men. He made it less than three steps before his head opened up and a spray of blood vapor came boiling out. He dropped soundlessly to the ground. His first sergeant, who was less than twenty meters from him went down two seconds later, felled by another head shot.

"Snipers!" came the yells over the net, overriding the calls for medics and the screams of the wounded. "They're still out there!"

And indeed they were. Within two minutes three squad sergeants and another platoon leader were shot down like dogs, felled by perfect headshots. And no one even saw the flashes of the weapons that had done it.

Callahan stayed in place behind his boulder. He didn't know how the snipers were able to tell the officers and the squad leaders from the grunts but by now it was quite clear that they were able to make the differentiation. It seemed that venturing out there might be a bit dangerous for him. If this wound didn't kill him first.

He tried to remember the name of his new medic and couldn't. Finally he just called him by the standard designator that had been in place since World War II. "Doc," he said. "You there?"

"I'm here, LT," the medic replied. "I took some shrapnel in the shoulder but I'm okay. The suit sealed it up."

"How we looking?" Callahan asked him.

"I'm still making the rounds. We got hit pretty hard though. Most of us were in the open when the mortars came down. At least six dead and nine wounded. Two of the KIAs were the squad leaders. Snipers got them."

"Great," Callahan said with a sigh. "Come over here and look at me when you get a chance. I took some shrapnel in the back."

"On the way, LT," the medic told him. "Do we have dust-offs on the way? We're gonna need a bunch of them."

"I'll check with our fearless leader," Callahan promised. He switched frequencies back to the command net. "Cap, this is Callahan. You there?"

"Your situation, Callahan?" Ayers asked. "I'm not getting anything coherent from the other platoon leaders."

"The mortars hit right in the middle of us," Callahan said. "They inflicted considerable casualties. The greenie gunners have got someone out there directing the fire; probably one of those special forces teams up on a hill somewhere. We're under constant sniper fire. They're going after the platoon leaders and the NCOs. I don't know how they're identifying them but they are. We're not picking up the flashes from their weapons. We need some air cover out here and some dust-offs."

There was a hesitation. Finally, "Air cover is a bit sparse at the moment. The greenies hit on the north and south side of the perimeter at the same time. They used the same technique. Mosquitoes came in and wiped out the hovers in a matter of minutes. Snipers opened up on the troops once the hovers were gone and then mortar fire came down. You can expect more mortar fire as soon as the greenie gunners relocate their positions."

"You're not sending any hovers out here?" Callahan asked, appalled, horrified.

"Command won't release them," Ayers said. "We've already taken too heavy of losses in air support. The hovers are needed to bomb the greenie's main line of defense."

"What about the dust-offs?" Callahan asked.

"They can't go either," Ayers said. "The greenies will just hit them with mortars while they're on the ground picking up the wounded. That's already happened at New Pittsburgh."

"New Pittsburgh?" Callahan asked. "Did this happen there too?"

"Yeah," Ayers said. "They hit us even worse there from what I hear. You'll have to leave the dead where they are and load up the wounded into the APCs. Take command of the company and get back here as quickly as possible."

"Jesus," Callahan said.

"Keep under cover as much as you can. Intelligence isn't sure how the snipers are able to pick out the officers yet but they're thinking it might be from your radio transmissions."

"What?" Callahan asked. "How the fuck could they tell that?"

Ayers didn't get a chance to answer him. Another voice came on the command channel. "Sir! This is Corporal Swans! I'm in charge of fourth platoon now... I guess."

While Ayers and Corporal Swans discussed the fact that his lieutenant and every one of the squad sergeants had been killed by falling aircraft, sniper fire, or mortar shrapnel, Callahan saw a shape coming rapidly toward him. So jumpy was he that he raised his weapon and came within three grams of pressure on the firing button of shooting the man before he realized it was his medic.

"Don't fuckin' shoot me, LT!" the medic screamed in terror.

"Sorry," Callahan said, slowly lowering the rifle. "I thought you were... well... you know."

"Yeah," the medic said. "I know." He shook his head. "I ain't never seen no shit like this before, LT. This is fuckin' horrible!"

"You don't say," Callahan said dryly. "Now take a look at me. How bad am I?"

"Where you hit, sir?"

"On the back," Callahan said, rolling onto his stomach.

The medic took out a body scanner and ran it over the hole in Callahan's back. It sent out a series of X-rays and ultrasonic sound waves to survey the damage done. "You'll be okay, sir," he said when he got the reading. "You got two pieces of shrapnel lodged in the muscle tissue of your back. Bleeding is stopped, no organs hit, and your suit is sealed. Do you need some morphine?"

"No," Callahan replied. "Go tend to the others. No dust-offs will be coming to offload them."

"What?"

"You heard me," Callahan said. "We're gonna have to load all the wounded into..."

"Incoming!" was screamed over the net again, first by one and then by eight to ten other voices. Callahan didn't even bother to look up this time. He pulled himself as close to the boulder as he could and hunkered down.

"Shit my pants," the medic cried, terrified. There was no cover for him here and lying flat was not much protection against proximity-fused shells. He stood and began running towards a field of boulders twenty meters to his right. He made it only three steps before the rounds began to explode overhead. One of them was close enough to send five kilograms of shrapnel ripping through his head, his chest, and his left arm. He flew backwards, trailing boiled blood behind him and dropped lifelessly atop Callahan's boulder. His helmet, broken into several pieces, with chunks of skulls, brain, and skin inside of it and boiling blood rising from its surface, dropped onto Callahan's back and then rolled directly in front of his face. He tried not to look at it.

The explosions continued for about thirty seconds, during which Captain Ayers once again informed him that radar had picked up incoming shells. As soon as people started to move around again two more squad sergeants and another lieutenant fell to sniper fire.

Callahan looked at the carnage around him. He had never felt so far from home in his life.

"The Martians can have this place," he said. "I'll even pay the fucking delivery fee."

At 1930 hours, Eden time, Brian Haggerty and Matt Mendez walked through the doors of The Troop Club outside the Eden MPG base. With them were six other pilots and nine other systems operators, all of whom had seen air-to-air combat that day. This was Matt's first trip to the bar, was in fact his first trip to any bar anywhere. Ghetto inhabitants typically did not have the funding to go to such places, they instead chose to do their drinking and smoking in the more traditional fashion: on the front steps of their housing building or in the nearest park or in the privacy of their own home. But now Matt's banking account was swelled with more than six hundred credits, the new currency that was being distributed to those in the employ of the interim planetary government.

The distribution of the credits had caused another financial crisis when they were first introduced three weeks earlier. The argument against them was that you could not simply make up money to give to people. The credits didn't represent anything, didn't stand for anything, therefore they could not possibly have any value. Economists, accountants, and lawyers (all former corporate Earthlings with nothing better to do now that their jobs had disappeared) had all appeared on MarsTrans channels denouncing Laura Whiting's attempt to pay her revolutionaries with make believe money. For a few days merchants had refused to accept the currency.

"This money is not fabricated," Laura said in one of her daily addresses to the planet, "and it most certainly does represent something. It is credit for work done in the interests of Mars and the Martian people. Currently we are paying vital factory employees, vital mining employees, and, most importantly, our brave military men and women in credits. The exchange rate is one credit for every ten dollars. The credits have this value because the interim legislature and I say it has this value. When we finally defeat the Earthlings and throw them off this planet, the credit will replace the dollar entirely. Granted, if the Earthlings manage to defeat us, the credit will become as worthless as confederate script became after the American Civil War, but for now, they have yet to defeat us, and it is looking more and more like they won't defeat us, so this money is as good as any dollar. It can be used to buy supplies for your shop, to pay employees, to spend when and where you wish. This is Martian money, people! If you have faith in Mars, have faith in our money as well."

Since then the Martian credit had achieved cautious acceptance. Merchants kept them in a separate account and worried incessantly that the war would be lost and it would all be worthless one day, but they accepted it as payment. So far Matt had not spent any of his, it had simply accumulated in the account the MPG had set up for him at their credit union. He had not wanted to come to the club tonight but Brian, the man who had once called him "vermin" and had almost lost his career to avoid flying with him, had insisted quite sternly.

"I'm buying you a fuckin' drink and two fuckin' bonghits, newbie," he told him. "You done real good today and I ain't taking no for an answer."

And so they went. As they entered the bar the mood inside was jubilant, festive even. Music played from the speakers and the cocktail waitresses circulated endlessly, distributing drinks to the standing room only crowd. Every table was full and people were three thick at the bar. The smell of tobacco and marijuana smoke was pungent, almost sickening.

"Twenty-seventh air attack squadron!" Brian shouted as he and his sis and their companions entered the room. This had become traditional among the combat units when they came into The Troop Club, especially when kills had been logged. "We dropped nineteen fucking hovers into the dust today. Nineteen!"

A cheer went up, particularly from the part of the room where the pool tables were located. This was where the special forces teams hung out and the special forces teams owed the flyboys some serious bonghits this evening.

"C'mon, kid," Brian said to Matt. "Let's head over that way. Could be I won't have to buy you that drink after all."

"Uh... sure, why not?" Matt asked, feeling very out of his element but having no intention of backing down.

They pushed their way through the crowd towards the pool tables. As they reached the first one an Asian descended woman came rushing out of the crowd and screamed Haggarty's name.

"Brian!" she yelled. "I knew your ass was too fuckin' stubborn to get shot down!" She threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly.

"Hey, Lisa," Haggerty greeted, returning her hug. "How the fuck are you?"

"Static," she said, pulling back a bit. "Gimmee some tongue, hon."

They exchanged a brief, open-mouthed kiss, which, in Martian society, was the same as a hug in Earthling society. As they did so Jeff took a moment to check her out. That she was a cop was without question. She had that cop look in her eyes, that cop way of speaking. But she was also quite hot looking. Her ass was as tight as a spring, her legs toned and muscled, her breasts alluring beneath her MPG t-shirt.

"Mendez," Brian said when they finally stopped exchanging spit, "this is Lisa Wong. We used to work together out on the streets. She's one of those special forces pukes we were clearing the air for today. Lisa, this is Matt Mendez, the fuckin' vermin they gave me as a sis. He turned out all right though. He mowed through those hovers today like he was playing a video game."

"How you doin'?" Matt said, holding out his right hand to her.

"Good," she said, shaking with him. "Fuckin' static actually. You were out there today?"

"Four runs," he said. "Except the last two they wouldn't put their hovers up."

"You guys did some good work today," she said. "We were the observation squad on the west side. We saw them Earthlings take a pounding. It made me proud to be a Martian."

"Well I guess we owe you a couple of bonghits then, don't we?" Matt asked. "We were the west side anti-air team. If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't have known where to go."

"The kid's right," Brian agreed. "You brought us to target. Let's load you up."

"I'm already loaded up," she said. "Me and Fargo over there got into a bonghit contest about an hour ago."

"You can never have too much Eden green," said Brian. "Let's smoke."

"Fuck yeah," said Matt. "I ain't smoked none in almost a month now."

She grinned. "You talked me into it."

They pushed their way through the crowd to a relatively quiet corner of the bar. On the way they grabbed a cocktail waiter and told him to set them up with nine hits of the best bud in the house and three beers.

"Fuckin' aye," the waiter replied. "Where you gonna be?"

"Right over there," Brian said, pointing.

The waiter brought their intoxicants very quickly. He had been ordered to give combat troops extra-special treatment. Brian paid the tab and they smoked up their bonghits one by one, passing the electric bong from person to person.

"Holy fuckin' shit," Matt said as he felt the drug slamming into his brain. "I ain't never smoked no weed like this before."

"Welcome to the world of the employed," Brian told him. "Beats the ghetto grass, doesn't it?"

"Fuckin' aye," Matt agreed. He took a long drink of his beer to quench the dry mouth he'd suddenly developed.

Once they were all properly lubricated, talk turned to the day's missions.

"We put a serious hurt on them today," Lisa said. "You flyboys decimated their hovers and our mortar teams cut them to pieces on the ground."

"Any casualties?" Brian asked her.

She nodded sadly. "A mortar team got hit by arty," she said. "Killed all of them except one and he got one of his legs blown off and is paralyzed in the other."

"Did they manage to zero in their artillery fire?" Brian asked.

"We don't think so," Lisa said. "It seems like it was just a lucky shot. The Earthlings were trying to hit the position the team had just fired from but just happened to drop the shells all over them as they were displacing. A one in an hundred shot."

Brian nodded. "Our guys had one of those too. A Mosquito got shot down on the east side of the perimeter, probably a chance hit with a hand-held SAL."

"Motherfucker prob'ly just shot up in the air when they made their run and happened to hit 'em," Matt said, shaking his head in respectful awe.

"Did they bail out?" Lisa asked.

Brian nodded. "They were in radio contact after they hit the ground but we lost it before a Hummingbird could get out to them. The marines must've found them. Hopefully they took them into custody."

"They might've shot them though," Matt said morosely. "They were probably mighty pissed off at us by that point."

"Yeah," Lisa said, sipping from her beer. "And I'm sure they still are."

Lieutenant Callahan sat stiffly in the chair before the conference table. This was not because he felt the need to be at attention before Captain Ayers but because two large chunks of Martian shrapnel had been removed from his back four hours ago and the skin had been fused shut with a cauterizing laser. The pain throbbed sickly through him from his ass cheeks to his shoulder blades and every time he tried to slump down it doubled in intensity.

"Smoke?" Ayers asked him, passing a pack of cigarettes across the table.

"Yeah," Callahan said. "It seems like this might be a good time to pick up the habit again."

He took one and lit up, coughing as the smoke entered his lungs. This sent another spasm of pain radiating outward from his wound but he ignored it and took another drag instead. He shook his head in disbelief. He was still somewhat in shock from the day's events, still wondering why and how he was still alive. This was supposed to be a company command staff meeting but at the moment he and Ayers were the only members of the company who fit that definition. All of the other lieutenants, along with seventy percent of the squad sergeants, were dead; felled by falling aircraft or blasted by mortar rounds or, most commonly, shot down by Martian snipers.

"Are you okay?" Ayers asked him, almost gently, almost father-like.

"They never let up on us out there," Callahan said, speaking more to himself than his commander. "We weren't even fighting them anymore, we were just trying to pull the wounded into the APCs but they kept shooting us and they kept dropping those fucking mortars on us." He shook his head again. "They killed us out there, cap. They fuckin' killed us."

"It's starting to look like we may have underestimated our Martian friends a bit, isn't it?" he asked.

"How bad was it?" Callahan asked. "Did this happen everywhere?"

Ayers nodded. "Yeah. All three of our perimeter deployments were hit pretty much at the same time and in the same manner. We've lost forty-one hovers at the Eden LZ alone. That is almost half of our air support for this region of the battle. At New Pittsburgh we lost thirty-eight. Sixty-three and seventy-two at Libby and Proctor."

"That many?"

"Yeah," Ayers said. "By the time we sent the cav out into the field at Libby and Proctor the word of what happened here and at New Pittsburgh had already been passed. They sent them out anyway and doubled up the hover coverage. The greenies took them down just as easily. It just took them more passes. The most powerful extra-terrestrial aircraft in our arsenal, the aircraft we were relying on to garner air superiority over our advance, to take out the greenie defensive positions, and those Martians blew them out of the sky like they were nothing."

"So fast," Callahan said. "We didn't even see them at first. And when we did, the anti-air teams never had a chance to lock onto them. They were exposed for less than ten seconds, hell, for less than five."

"We won't be able to count on air power to soften up the Martian defenses."

"Soften up their defenses?" Callahan asked. "Jesus, cap, we haven't even secured out perimeter yet. And there's no way we're going to be able to, not without the hovers!"

"We're not going to secure the perimeter," Ayers told him. "We're going to start forming up for the march tomorrow morning."

Callahan looked at him as if he were mad. "Tomorrow morning? But the perimeter!"

Ayers sighed. "The perimeter will have to hold its own on its own," he said. "You saw General Wrath's briefing?"

He scoffed. "Yeah," he said. "I caught it while they were fusing my fucking skin back together. Greenie kamikaze pilots dive bombing into our troops? Contaminated fuel causing the hovers to crash? Are people really buying that bullshit?"

"It's not bullshit, it's the truth," Ayers said firmly. "And if you want to remain employed, you'd better start accepting it as the truth. Do you understand?"

"Yeah," he said bitterly. "I understand."

"My point is that General Wrath has ordered all cav units to begin marching toward their targets as soon as possible. The thought on the matter is that we've been letting the Martians delay us and draw us out, especially today. They drew us right into a trap. The sooner we get to the cities and capture those MPG bases, the sooner we'll have those aircraft and those special forces soldiers out of commission. Will you be able to join your men?"

"My men?" he asked. "I've lost more than three quarters of my platoon, including all of my squad sergeants. I don't have that many men left."

"You'll be given replacements to fill in your losses," Ayers said. "But I need you to lead them if you can. The only alternative is to pull a squad sergeant from a green platoon."

Callahan shook his head violently. "You'd be sentencing the rest to death if you did that," he said. "I'll lead them."

"Good," Ayers said. "Your replacements will report to you first thing in the morning. Field promote a couple of your corporals to fill in the squad sergeant positions. We start loading up first thing in the morning. Two days after that, we'll be in Eden."

"You think so?" Callahan asked.

Ayers' eyes did not meet his. "Of course," he said. "I wouldn't have said it otherwise."

Chapter 14

MPG Base, Eden

August 25, 2146

Jeff Waters took a drag off his cigarette and looked at the five cards in his hand thoughtfully. He was pretty new to poker, had only been taught the basics of it a week ago, but in that week, as he and the rest of the 17th ACR spent hour after hour, day after day in the interior assembly area near the outside wall of the base, he'd played the game a lot, enough to know he stood a decent chance of taking the pot this hand. Hicks, who had dealt, had chosen five-card draw, jacks or better to open. He'd given Jeff a pair of fours, a pair of eights, and a deuce. Nobody else around the table was looking particularly enthused with what they held. This suspicion was confirmed when Zen Valentine, who was sitting next to Hicks, and Steve Sanchez, who was sitting next to Zen, both checked, unable to open. That brought the first bet over to Jeff.

He licked his lips for a moment as he thought the situation over. His first instinct, his gut reaction, was to throw down the maximum bet — one credit — immediately. He resisted this impulse. It would probably do nothing more than make the entire table fold at once, leaving his pot nothing more than the half of a credit that made up the ante. It would be better if he played them up a little first, drew them in.

"I'll open for two tenths," he said.

His PC, which was open before him and utilizing the standard poker program he'd downloaded when the game was first introduced to him, heard his words and automatically subtracted .2 credits from his bank account and transferred it to Hicks' computer, where it was stored in an escrow folder known as "the pot".

"Fuck my ass," said Xenia Stoner, who sitting next to him. She was dressed in her MPG T-shirt and shorts like everyone else but the lack of a bra beneath it was plainly obvious and quite a distraction to the males at the table. "I'll bump you a tenth."

"Three tenths to me, huh?" said Hicks. "What the fuck? It's only credits. I'm in. What about you, Zen?"

"I'm in this motherfucker too," said Valentine. "Three tenths."

Steve Sanchez, at sergeant, was both the oldest and the highest ranking at the table, the only one among them who had been a member of the MPG prior to the revolution. He made a look of disgust. "I'm out," he said, throwing his cards down. "Somehow I don't think this jack-high I'm holding is gonna be improved much."

This brought it back around to Jeff. "You still in, Waters?" Hicks asked. "Or do you need to call your mommy first to check?"

"Still in," Jeff said. "Another tenth to the pot."

Hicks' PC made the announcement that the pot was now right with one point seven Martian credits in it.

The five of them at the poker table were all members of the 17th Armored Cavalry Regiment, as was every one of the other 1736 men and 755 women currently stuffed into this particular staging area. It was very crowded, very noisy in here, with a haze of tobacco smoke obscuring the view across the room. The entire regiment had been deployed to their defensive positions the day the first Earthling landings took place but they'd been pulled back into the base as soon as it became clear the Earthlings were following strict doctrine and would have to march to the city to fight. The 17th ACR had been on what was called "one hour readiness" ever since. This meant that every last one of them could be back in those defensive positions, armed, armored, supplied, and ready to fight, in less than sixty minutes if the call-up came. Unfortunately, the only way to insure this one hour state of readiness was to keep all of the personnel in a holding area close to their biosuits and the airlocks to the outside. They couldn't drink alcohol or smoke marijuana. They were not allowed to make voice or text message or to send any other form of communication out of the base. They could shower and shave but that was only about once every three days at the rate the waiting list was going. To make it all worse, the cigarette supply — which came from Earth and was therefore getting pretty low planetwide — was quickly dwindling to the point that packs of smokes were going for twenty credits apiece or two hundred and fifty dollars.

The sheer boredom was a worse enemy than the marines. About the only thing there was to do was watch MarsGroup on the Internet screens or play poker. Jeff and Hicks had both decided that the latter of these choices was far superior. Their companions at the table — Sanchez, Valentine, and Xenia — were the crew of one of the tanks that provided overwatch to their platoon when they were out in the field.

"Okay... cards?" Hicks asked, picking up the deck. "How many you want, Mr. Jacks or better?"

Jeff took the deuce out of his hand and tossed it down in front of Hicks. "Just one," he said.

There was a murmur around the table at his actions, a few disquieted looks. Jeff did a good job of keeping his poker face neutral, especially when he looked at the new card he'd been given and saw it was another four. He had a full house! A full fucking house!

But Xenia only took one card as well. What did she have? Had she just pulled down a full house as well? If she had, odds were that it would be higher than the paltry fours over eights he was holding. He looked at her, trying to read her emotions but it was impossible. She had been playing the game longer than Jeff.

"Could be I have straight flush," she told him sweetly when she saw his perusal. "Or it could be I have a broken straight. That's what makes the game interesting, isn't it, Waters?"

Jeff returned her smile, an expression he'd rarely offered to anyone in the past, particularly people of the female persuasion. He, like all of the other men at the table, was strongly attracted to her although he held very few illusions about actually having a chance with her. In the first place, he was still married to Belinda, the woman who was still sitting back in their one bedroom apartment in the Heights, living off welfare money, contributing nothing to the revolution, her ambition in life to pump out her one child so she could score the extra bedroom and the extra welfare allotments that came with it. Jeff had no problem with the thought of cheating on her, in fact he planned to never touch her again, to dissolve their blessed union as soon as the fighting was over and he had a chance to take a little breather, but the most significant barrier between himself and Xenia was their upbringing. Xenia had been brought up in an employed family living in the Casting Meadows section of Eden — a solid, middle-class neighborhood. Her father had been a mid-level manager for MarsTrans, one of the highest positions a Martian could hope to rise to in the Earthling corporate system. Xenia herself was an educated woman, the holder of a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering. She had been working for AgriCorp as a planting supervisor when the revolution came. She was articulate and well spoken, everything Jeff fancied he wasn't. He knew there couldn't possibly be anything she would see in a multi-generational ghetto dweller five years her junior, but still, she was always friendly to him, always had a kind word to say to him, and genuinely seemed to like his company despite their differences. In the back of his mind there was a part that always seemed to be wondering if there was some spark there.

"This is startin' to look really bad," said Hicks. "Dealer takes two. How bout you, Zen? What do ya, want?"

"Three," Valentine said in disgust. He slapped his discards down hard enough to send one flying off the table. Hicks picked it up wordlessly and then dealt him three more.

"Okay," Hicks said after giving everyone a minute or so to peruse their cards, "the bet's to you, Waters. What do ya say?"

"Half a credit," he said.

"Hmmm," said Xenia, casting a wary eye upon him. "Someone seems to think he has something going on here."

"Could be," Jeff said. "You in?"

"I'll see your half and raise you another quarter credit," she said.

"Fuck this shit," Hicks said, tossing down his cards. "Dealer folds."

"I'm out too," said Zen. His cards joined Hicks'.

"Well?" Xenia asked Jeff. "You gonna put up?"

Just what did she have? Was she bluffing? Or did she really have his full house beat? Did she think he was bluffing? He decided to push the envelope a little. "I'll see your quarter and raise you another half," he said.

She hardly blinked. "Call," she said. "Let's see what you got, tough boy."

He took a deep breath and laid his cards on the table. "Full house," he said. "Fours over eights."

Her poker face collapsed, turning to a frown of disgust. "Oh fuck me raw with an apple picker," she said. She put her cards down. They were the eight through queen, all in a nice order but of multiple suits. "I thought you were bluffing. I finally fill in a goddamn straight and your scraggly ass gets a full house. I hate this game."

"Its kind of a microcosm of life, wouldn't you say?" Sanchez asked, giving her a meaningful look. He was on the prowl for her as well and seemed to be hoping that his status as a semi-educated man would help make a connection with her. Sometimes it seemed like it was working, sometimes, like now for instance, it didn't.

"What the fuck's a microcosm?" Hicks asked. Like Jeff, he was a product of the ghetto school system, which was to say he had dropped out shortly after ninth grade and was barely literate.

"A small example that symbolizes a larger concept," Xenia replied, flashing her warm look, her smile at Hicks now.

"Huh?" he asked.

"It's like this poker game, this hand we just played," she said. "You can look at it as a microcosm of the war."

"How's that?" asked Jeff.

She looked at him. "You're a beginner to this game," she said. "Someone that a more experienced player like me would assume an easy target, a walkover. You bet high and risked a lot while I assumed you were trying a half-assed bluff to try to rook me out of the pot. However you weren't really bluffing. You were sitting there with a full house to my straight. I let you draw me in because of my underestimation of your knowledge and abilities and I got my ass kicked. You represent us greenies. I represent the Earthlings. The hand was a microcosm of what's going on outside in the wastelands. Do you understand now?"

"Whoa," said Hicks, his eyes showing awe. "That is fuckin' static, Xenia. Damn, I wish I had me some AgriCorp green to think that one over with."

"No shit," said Jeff. "I think I fuckin' love you."

She giggled and actually blushed a little. "I'm sure your wife wouldn't be too thrilled to hear your proclamation, but I'm glad I could help explain the concept to you. Now then, shall we deal?"

"Oh... right," Hicks said. He looked down at his PC. "Waters takes the pot. Valentine deals."

"Four point two credits transferred to Waters' account," the PC replied. "Deal transferred to Valentine."

"Right," Valentine said, picking up the cards. "I guess this is a microcosm of tomorrow, right? A shuffle of the cards, a new hand, a new set of circumstances to symbolize what is going to be thrown at us next."

"Exactly!" Xenia said, delighted, giving him the warm look now. "Very well put."

Valentine shrugged, feigning shyness. "Not bad for vermin, huh?"

"I wish you guys would stop calling yourselves that," Xenia said. "It's such an offensive word."

"It doesn't offend us," Valentine said, "so why should it offend you if we call ourselves what we are?"

"Because a vermin is a parasite, something that leaches off of society," Xenia said. "To apply it to a human being is... well... wrong."

"Is that what it means?" Hicks said angrily. "Motherfuck! Now I am pissed!"

"I gotta say," Jeff said, "that I never really knew the exact definition of that word either, but now that it's pointed out to me, I guess you employed people had it right on the money, didn't you?"

"I never used that word," Xenia said, perhaps a little defensively.

"I did," Sanchez admitted, "but I know now that I was wrong to."

"You guys ain't gotta get all politically correct on us about it," Valentine said. "I was vermin and I admit it. My grandmother was a doctor, you know, a fuckin' doctor pulling in the big dollars but the Earthlings took her medical license away back in 2102 when my dad was just twelve years old. They did that 'cause she was pushin' for better medical care for the vermin. Ever since then, our family has been vermin too, doing just what the definition of the word means, living off of society, using society's resources, and not giving anything back in return. Why should I argue about what I am? Why should I be offended for being called what I am?"

"Yeah!" Hicks said, righteously. "It ain't like it was by choice we're vermin."

"It's just the way things are," Jeff said. "Zen's right. You don't have to worry about offending us."

Xenia and Sanchez looked at each other for a moment and then at their companions. "I understand," Sanchez said. "And that too was very well put."

"Fuckin' aye," said Xenia, "but you can't call yourself that anymore."

"What?" Hicks said.

"Didn't you hear what we just said?" asked Jeff.

"You are contributing to society now," Xenia told them. "You're making the most important contribution possible. The definition no longer applies to you."

Valentine nodded agreeably. "I suppose you have a point," he said.

"Fuckin' aye," agreed Jeff.

"We gonna play some more, or what?" said Hicks. "This shit is getting a little deep."

"Right," said Sanchez. He had been shuffling the cards during the entire conversation. Now he began throwing them down on the table, face down. "Seven card stud. Lowball. Deuces are anti-wild. Ante up."

"Deuces are fuckin' anti-wild?" Xenia said as everyone else anted up. Anti-wild meant that a two would be considered a higher card than a king in a game where getting the lowest cards was the goal.

"You don't like it, deal yourself out," Sanchez said.

She shook her head. "I'll beat your ass anti-wild or no anti-wild. Ante up," she told her PC. It anted.

"Look at it this way," said Jeff. "An anti-wild deuce in lowball is another microcosm of the war."

Everyone looked at him, interested.

"In what way?" Xenia asked.

Jeff looked back at them for a moment and then laughed. "Fuck if I know," he finally said. "It just seemed like some cool shit to say."

A high-pitched tone suddenly sounded throughout the room, loud enough to be heard by everyone over the background noise of the overcrowded staging area. This was the attention signal, its purpose to let everyone know that something of importance was about to come over the video system. Five meter high-resolution screens were mounted on the walls at just above head level, their spacing every twenty meters. Additional, smaller screens hung down from the ceiling every fifty meters in the interior of the room. At the tone everyone stopped whatever they were doing and looked at the screen nearest them. A few people had to shuffle around and change position but by the time the logo of the MPG appeared, the entire regiment was able to see the view.

The face of Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Martin, commanding officer of the 17th ACR, appeared on the screens. Colonel Martin had been known as Captain Martin prior to the revolution and it was his company that had rolled on the southern flank of the WestHem marines and pinned them into their barracks from that side. He had been promoted and placed in charge of integrating a motley collection of new recruits, non-combat assigned MPG members, and veteran combat unit members into a cohesive fighting unit with a hope in hell of taking on a superior force of marines. Like most MPG commanding officers his means of doing this was brutal, realistic, and repetitive training.

"Good evening, men and women of the 17th," he said now. "I'm coming to you live from a room not four hundred meters away, and, like all briefings, this one is being transmitted to you on the closed circuit system only. Unlike our WestHem friends, we prefer to keep our operational briefings confined to the troops who will be operating under them and not broadcast to the general public as popular entertainment. In other words, what I'm about to say here needs to stay here."

"As if we could get out to tell anyone about it anyway," Hicks said, half jokingly, half contemptuously.

"Shut the fuck up," Jeff told him. "This sounds like some important shit he's gonna be spouting."

"You shut the fuck up," Hicks returned. "You're just a fuckin' private like me. You can't be telling me..."

"I'm a fuckin' sergeant," Sanchez interrupted. "So I can be tellin' you and I am tellin' both of you, shut your asses."

They shut their asses even though technically Sanchez — since he wasn't their sergeant or in their unit — wasn't allowed to tell them what to do.

"As you know from last night's briefing," Martin continued, "our special forces units and our air wing put a major hurt on the marine units yesterday, particularly upon their air cover. Our most conservative estimates are that better than thirty percent of the WestHem combat hovers deployed from the Eden LZ were put out of action, our more realistic estimates put that number at our about fifty percent."

Cheers erupted from the ACR troops as well as a considerable amount of profanity and contemptuous crotch grabbing. Martin, who was being fed an audio link to the room, waited until it died down a bit before continuing.

"As for enemy casualties," he said, "we're estimating that the mortar attacks and the sniper attacks alone put better than two hundred marines out of action. That number includes a significant amount of their officers and squad leaders. They were stung and quite badly, just as our doctrine predicted."

Another symphony of cheers, jeers, and general sneers erupted, this time lasting a bit longer.

"But that was yesterday," Martin said. "Today is another story. There are still a shitload of WestHem marines out there and they spent the bulk of today readying themselves to perform the task they came here to do. All day long they've been unloading their armored vehicles from the landing ships, fueling them, supplying them, and getting themselves ready to start their march towards Eden. Now I know you all saw this on the big three channels today since the Earthlings were kind enough to broadcast their preparations for us and transmit them out..."

There were chuckles at his words. The big three had indeed spent the day showing the marines readying for their march with video clips and even live reports from several of the landing ships. Nor was that all. General Wrath had actually gone on live at one point and drawn out on a computer screen the actual formation his units would assemble in and the route they would take to get to both Eden and New Pittsburgh. He had even been kind enough to show the approximate location they planned to set up their fueling and resupply points halfway to their objective.

"... but," Martin continued, "it is still my duty and obligation to give you an official briefing on what is facing us out there and to show you our intelligence department's best guess on their overall intentions. So... with that in mind, let me show you some satellite overheads of the Eden LZ. These were taken just before sunset tonight." The screen changed to show a high-resolution image of the ten square kilometers around the landing zone. The large shapes of the landing ships were plainly visible. Gathered all around them were the tinier shapes of various armored vehicles — a lot of armored vehicles.

"This is what we're going to be facing, people," Martin's voice said. "There are three thousand tanks down there, more than seven thousand armored personnel carriers, six hundred mobile artillery pieces, four hundred anti-air vehicles, and almost three hundred supply train units capable of carrying hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen, extra ammunition of all types, food, water, and portable air packs for the troops. In short, we're looking at a full-scale ground invasion of anywhere from ninety to one hundred thousand troops."

An uncomfortable silence suddenly enveloped the room as everyone pondered those numbers. One hundred thousand troops? Three thousand tanks? Seven thousand APCs?

"I know what you're all thinking," Martin told them. "That's a fuck-load of WestHem marines and armor coming at us. I'm not denying this. But I'm also here to tell you that I don't think it's enough to take us."

There were some murmurs, many of them disbelieving in tone, some of them downright hostile.

"Look, people," Martin said, "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that all this patriotic bullshit is easy for me to say since I'm going to be sitting nice and safe in the command center while you guys are out there in the wastelands facing down these marines and their armor. And since we're an armored cav unit our job, of course, is to be out in front. The ACRs advance to contact on offense and stand on the first line on defense. You'll be forty kilometers out there, in the Jutfield Gap, waiting for the marine ACRs to come marching in. You're thinking that I don't give a shit whether you live or die, as long as you kill enough marines before they take your position." He looked hard into the camera, making it seem like he was addressing each soldier personally. "Well you're wrong about that. I do give a shit about each and every one of you and I wouldn't have agreed to send you out there if I thought you were going to be slaughtered. That is not what MPG doctrine is about and that is not what I am about. My first goal — even before repelling the marines and keeping them from taking our city — is the welfare of the soldiers under my command. MPG doctrine commands that this be my goal. We will take casualties out there — unfortunately there is no way to avoid that — but I swear before Laura Whiting herself that they will be as minimal as possible. If it starts looking bad out there, if it starts looking like the marines are getting the upper hand, you will be pulled back. And if it starts looking like they're going to rout us, I will order surrender. General Jackson agrees with this strategy himself, he insists upon it, and he is prepared to surrender Eden to the marines if it looks like the cost of repelling them will be too high. We're not out here to sacrifice ourselves, people. We're out here to make those Earthling motherfuckers sacrifice themselves. If we can't do that, we give up. That is our doctrine and it always will be. Does everyone understand that?"

Everyone seemed to understand it. There were some more murmurs, some more disquieted talk, but no open dissent.

"All right then," Martin said. "Having beaten that point into the ground, let me offer you some concrete strategic information." The screens changed, showing a breakdown of the main MPG forces assigned to the Eden theater of operations.

"As I said before," Martin told them. "The ACRs will be out in front, the first units to make major contact with the OPFOR. There are three armored cavalry regiments based in Eden, ourselves, the 9th, and the 14th. All three of us will be spread through the first line of defense in the Jutfield Gap, the very same area we've been training in all these weeks. We know every inch of this ground, every rock, every boulder, every grain of sand. We have defensive positions dug atop every single hill out in this gap and our tank and APC drivers know every route through and around those hills. The 9th ACR will be deployed in defensive zone two on the southern end of the gap. The 14th will be deployed in defensive zone three on the northern end. And we, the 17th ACR, will be covering zone one, right smack in the middle of the gap, covering the most likely avenue of advance the OPFOR will take.

"As you are aware, each one of our armored cavalry regiments consists of three infantry battalions, one tank battalion, and one support battalion consisting of mortar teams, medivac units, vehicle repair and rescue units, and re-supply units. The infantry units will dismount and man their hilltop positions. This will give us approximately six thousand soldiers spread throughout the gap from one end to the other with overlapping fields of fire. The APCs that transported you will provide heavy machine gun support and sixty millimeter cannon support. The tank battalions will be deployed to the flanks of their respective regiments to keep the WestHem tanks at bay and to cover your retreat when it comes time to fall back to the next position. Artillery and air support will be provided by the 2nd Infantry division, who will be holding the main line of defense, and the Eden air wing, which will be operating on rapid turn-around deployment.

"Now remember the most important thing about an armored cav regiment. Our job is not to throw back the WestHem marines but to kill as many of them as we can before they push to the main line of defense. We know we can't hold our positions indefinitely but we can hold them long enough to inflict some serious damage on their numbers and their morale. We start hitting them the moment they come into range and we go after their APCs first and foremost when their infantry is mounted, and their foot soldiers themselves when they're dismounted. I know we've pounded this concept into your brains time and time again and I know you all know this is MPG doctrine but let me stress it for you one last time. WestHem and EastHem both rely heavily on their tanks to support their infantry and they have come to believe that tanks are the key to winning a battle both on their own planet and on an extra-terrestrial planet like this one. That is why they brought so many tanks here to Mars and that is why their doctrine commands them to kill enemy tanks first. Tanks, however, do not take ground and they do not hold ground; soldiers do. Men with guns have to stand upon that ground in order to capture it. Tanks will not be what enter Eden if our defensive measures fail; soldiers will. We kill enough of their soldiers and it won't matter if their tanks surround every position we hold, they won't be able to take them from us. Kill those marines, people! Kill as many of them as you can as violently and ruthlessly as you can. This will whittle those numbers down and demoralize those who survive. They will be coming at us with one hundred thousand troops. We have a little more than twenty-five thousand to counter this. That's a four to one ratio. The special forces units and the air wing will continue to hit them as they march, demoralizing them further, whittling them down further, but it will the armored cav units who will make the first real contact with them. Let's show them what a war is really all about. If we do our jobs the way we've been trained we can bring that ratio down to three to one by the time they reach the 2nd Infantry at the main line of defense. With only a three to one ratio, we will hold Eden and send them back to their landing ships with their tails between their legs.

"That is all I have to say. Tomorrow morning, as soon as we get confirmation they have begun to march, you will be ordered to the Jutfield Gap and you won't come back inside until this battle is over. Try to sleep well, people. Pretty soon you're going to need it."

The image signed off. The room remained eerily silent for a few moments and then the babble of conversations began again, quickly sweeping the room, filling it with noise.

"I guess this is finally it," said Sanchez.

"Three thousand tanks," said Valentine. "Holy fucking shit! I mean, I knew they had a lot more than us but three thousand? The whole MPG planet-wide only has fifteen hundred, right?"

"Right," said Sanchez.

"What do we got here in Eden?" Valentine asked. "The three ACRs each have one battalion of tanks attached to them, right? A battalion is a hundred and eight tanks. That's three hundred and twenty four tanks against three thousand!"

"The 2nd Infantry has two battalions of tanks attached to it too," said Xenia. "That makes it five hundred and forty."

"But they keep their tanks on the main line," Valentine said. "That won't be any help to us in the fuckin' Jutfield Gap."

"It doesn't matter," Sanchez spoke up. "The numbers don't mean shit."

"What do you mean they don't mean shit?" Valentine asked. "They have a ten to one advantage over us in tanks! And Waters and Hicks and all the rest of the dismounts up on the hills will be going after the APCs and the soldiers."

"We're not using our tanks offensively," Sanchez said. "They're for defense only, specifically as mobile platforms for keeping WestHem tanks away from the dismounts when they're pulling back. We have hiding positions and cover all over the place out there. How many times have we pounded the OPFOR on training runs when we were defending? How many times did they pound us when we were playing offense?"

"We never practiced with a ten to one ratio before," Valentine said.

"So what are you saying, Zen?" asked Xenia. "Are you quitting?"

Everyone looked at him. Under orders from General Washington and Governor Whiting, any MPG member was able to quit the war for any or no reason at any time. Several dozen members of the 17th had done just that over the past week, just walked up to the MPs guarding the room and told them they wanted out. They were being held elsewhere on the base, incommunicado, until the operation was over, but they would not be charged with any crime or otherwise persecuted in an official manner.

"No," Valentine said. "Fuck no! I'm in this for the long hall, for better or worse. The moment I heard Whiting asking for volunteers to fight this war I was down there at the MPG office, putting my fingerprint on the pad. I'm just wondering if General Jackson was really all that smart when he decided not to concentrate on tanks."

"Tanks aren't gonna win this war," Sanchez told him. "Hicks and Waters and the rest of the grunts behind the sandbags are gonna win it."

Eden Landing Zone

August 26, 2146

0600 hours Eden time

The inside of an armored personnel carrier was a very cramped space. The ten infantry troops and their weapons were packed like sardines into the rear compartment along with extra ammunition boxes, extra food and water cartridges, and extra tanks of breathing air. Beneath them, under five centimeters of steel flooring, was the hydrogen burning turbine engine that powered the APC and the tanks of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that fueled and oxidized the engine. Forward of the infantry compartment was the command compartment, although with only two seats and less than 1.5 square meters of total space, compartment was probably too strong of a word. It was here that two seats had been installed, one for the APC gunner, who would control the ten millimeter heavy machine gun and the sixty millimeter cannon, and one for the squad leader of the infantry squad being transported. These two seats had a variety of controls and computer screens that allowed either position to survey the outside terrain. Above this position was a hatch that could be opened so the squad commander could poke his head out and look around. Sometimes a real-time, three-dimensional look around with a standard pair of eyeballs was infinitely more helpful than the digital images from the screens.

Lieutenant Callahan, as platoon commander, had usurped the sergeant of this particular squad's right to occupy the commander's seat. He had the hatch wide open and his head sticking half a meter above it. All around him were the other APCs of the newly reinforced 314th ACR, hundreds of them. Beyond the APCs he could see the tanks, their lethal eighty millimeter main guns pointing forward, their dual laser cannons raised three meters above the main guns, mounted on retractable swivels. He could see the heat shimmer from thousands of engines rising into the thin, freezing air over the staging area, could feel the thrum of vibration coming from his own APC's engine. As cynical and scared as he'd become over the last week he could not help but be awed by the sheer numbers of armored vehicles he was looking at. Never before had he seen so many gathered in one place.

"This is what an invasion is supposed to look like," he said.

"Goddamn right, Callahan," said the voice of Captain Ayers, who had finally left the safety of the landing ship and was now standing in the hatch of his own APC about thirty meters away. He would be leading his company from the rear of the column, of course, but he was at least going to be out in the field with them, as were the lieutenant colonels in charge of each battalion. The full bird colonels who commanded each ACR would remain in the landing ships, which was probably, most of the lieutenants and captains thought, for the best. Most of them were too fat to fit into an APC anyway. "We're gonna roll those greenies up like a rug."

"Uh huh," Callahan responded. He had noticed that those marines who had not done battle with the enemy in this conflict still called them greenies while those who had, like himself, had started calling them Martians, with a capital M. "That's what we've been saying this whole time and so far we're the only ones getting rolled."

"That's because we've been playing their game," Ayers said. "Now we're playing ours. Brute force slamming into their lines and overwhelming them."

"I suppose," Callahan said thoughtfully. It certainly seemed like nothing else could go wrong. Up to this point the Martians had used guerrilla warfare tactics — sniping at them from cover, drawing them away from their concentrations and safety zones in small numbers and then doing hit and run attacks. To give them credit they had done an admirable job of opposing the landings, of slowing down the assembly of the armored forces, and of decimating their air cover. The Martians had been underestimated, that was now quite clear and the lessons learned with blood on this campaign would undoubtedly be studied and taught in the WestHem military academies. But the speed bump tactics of the Martians — however effective — had now ceased to be a threat. The armor was down, was assembled, and was ready to move out, one hundred thousand marines marching against what Intelligence figured to be eighteen to twenty thousand weekend warriors. True, the Martian hovers had proved they could easily take down WestHem hovers, thus rendering the air wing of the invasion impotent, and true, Callahan's own platoon was now fractured and staffed with inexperienced NCOs and green private and corporals whose names he hadn't even had time to learn yet, let alone their strengths and weaknesses, but the sheer numbers alone couldn't be discounted. The marines had a ten to one advantage in tanks and a five to one advantage in manpower. There was no way they could be repelled. No way.

"I just got word from battalion," Ayers said. "It's time to move out. We and the 324th are going to be the lead elements. Standard marching formation — APCs in the center, tanks on vanguard and both flanks. No rear guard is deemed necessary. We advance at best possible speed to grid 35-C and secure the area for a re-supply point and a forward air base."

"Right," said Callahan, glad that they would be moving soon. He switched radio frequencies and transmitted this information to his squad leaders. They all acknowledged it.

Soon the tanks assigned to the vanguard started to move, pulling out from their parking areas by platoon and forming up in a broad semi-circle out in front. Once they were underway the APCs rolled out, forming up in ranks of eight. Callahan and his platoon were in the second rank. The view to the front quickly became obscured by a thick haze of Martian dust kicked up by hundreds of treads. Callahan slid back into the hatch and shut it, turning on his infra-red view screen to help him see.

They were on their way.

MPG Headquarters, New Pittsburgh

0730 hours

"They're on their way?" asked a voice from behind General Jackson in the war room.

He turned and beheld his boss — Governor Laura Whiting. Her presence here alarmed him greatly. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "Why aren't you in the capitol building?"

She reached over and grabbed the half pack of cigarettes from his desk. She pulled one out and put it in her mouth. "I heard you still had some smokes," she said. "Looks like the rumor was true. I ran out yesterday morning and no one else in the capitol has any."

"Laura!" he said, exasperated. "You shouldn't be out on the streets! Did you ride the MarsTrans to get here?"

"I'm just an ordinary citizen like everyone else," she said. "Why shouldn't I ride the MarsTrans?"

"Because every Earthling on the planet and about two percent of the Martians would like to see you dead. Without you this whole revolution falls apart! All it would take is one gangbanger with a gun and that's your ass!"

She shrugged, unconcerned with his concern. "I had my security detail with me," she said, nodding towards the three armed MPG special forces members behind her. "You hand-picked them, didn't you? If I'm not safe with them, I'm not safe with anyone."

He shook his head, knowing that trying to argue with her would be futile. Her stubbornness, after all, was one of the traits that had put her where she was today.

"So," she said, "you gonna light this thing for me, or what?"

"Sure," he said, pulling out his laser lighter. He touched it to the end of her cigarette and she lit up, blowing a plume of smoke out into the room.

"Mmmm," she said. "Now that's rankin' static. I hope this war ends soon so we can get those Earthlings to start shipping us coffee and cigarettes again."

"And booze," said one of her security detail. "Don't forget about the booze. I tried to score some the other night and the only thing left on the shelves is bottled beer, and that's going for five credits a bottle."

"The price of being free," Laura said sadly, enjoying another long drag on her smoke.

"So what are you really doing here?" Jackson asked. "You checkin' up on me?"

"Hardly," she said. "I wouldn't know what incompetence looked like in a military room even if I saw it. Actually, I'm on my way to the freight yards to meet with the cargo handlers. There's some trouble brewing out that way and I need to head it off before it comes to a boil."

"Union trouble again?" Jackson asked. This was becoming an old story since the revolt, one that had played itself out in several vital industries. The leaders of the various labor unions that operated on Mars were — despite the fact that most were Martians — violently opposed to Martian independence. Though unionization of labor had noble beginnings just like the capitalistic constitution of WestHem, over the years the system of organized labor and the leaders that controlled it had become just as corrupt and just as far removed from the people they were supposed to be representing as the politicians themselves. At the time of the revolution most unions had become little more than vassals for the various corporations they were providing labor for, existing only to collect mandatory union dues from the working class and distribute them to the politicians who helped them stay in power. These union leaders were opposed to the revolution for the same reason the corporations were: it changed the status quo in a way they could not control or predict. Every single union on Mars had urged its members to vote no on independence when it came time to make the decision. When that failed, several of them had tried to stop work in vital industries in protest. So far Laura had managed to convince the actual workers of these vital industries that they didn't need the unions in order to remain employed and productive.

"Jack Strough is the leader of cargo handlers union," Laura said. "He's protesting the payment of 'his people', as he calls them, in Martian credits instead of dollars. He says there is nothing in their labor contract about any alternate forms of compensation and he's trying to get them to go on strike immediately until we start paying in dollars again."

"Are they considering going on strike?" Jackson asked, alarmed. There would be big problems for the war effort if the cargo handlers suddenly stopped working. It was they who loaded food stocks from the agricultural cities for distribution to the northern latitude cities. It was they who loaded armaments, fuel, and ammunition from the northern latitude cities for distribution to the equatorial cities. It was they who loaded the tanks and the armor onto the trains for movement from one region of the planet to another. Without them, his soldiers could not be resupplied or transported en masse to reinforce another area if the WestHems decided to shift their forces.

"He's playing at the fears our people have about the new credits very well," she said. "They're starting to get quite riled up. You'll notice he waited until now, when the WestHems are actually moving on our cities, to bring this thing to a head."

"Yes, I did notice that," Jackson said sourly.

"That's classic Jack Strough," she said. "He's a sleazebag extraordinaire. He doesn't give a rat's ass about anyone but himself and his power structure. He doesn't care if his strike ends up killing thousands of MPG members and costing us this war. He doesn't care if the rest of the planet starts starving because food can't get from one place to another. He just wants to remain in power and keep collecting those union dues no matter what. Sometimes I wonder if he's not really an Earthling. He sent me an 'unofficial' message yesterday telling me that he would consider recommending acceptance of the credit as official currency if I were to give his organization a donation of two hundred thousand of them and sign a promissory note that all credits would be reimbursed in dollars from the general fund at twice the going rate if we ended up losing the war."

"Very patriotic of him," Jackson said. "How much do I need to worry about this?"

"You don't need to worry about it at all," she said. "I'm going down there to take care of this problem personally and it will be taken care of, one way or the other. I'm not going to let the freight industry shut down in the middle of a war."

He nodded, not bothering to ask anything further. If Laura said she would take care of it, then it was as good as taken care of. She would do nothing more than talk to the workers using the same brutal honesty that got the revolution voted in in the first place and convince them that Jack Strough was not really their friend. With someone like Jack, whom most of them probably already suspected wasn't their friend, it wouldn't be all that hard to do. "Just be careful out there," he warned. "Why don't you let me send a few extra security personnel with you? I don't really need them here anyway."

"I'll be fine with what I have," she said. "Showing up with a platoon of armed soldiers tends to make me look elitist. I wouldn't even take the three I have if I didn't know you'd ordered them to tie me to a chair before letting me go out alone."

He grinned. "You know me well, don't you?"

"Sometimes I think too well," she replied. "So anyway, you didn't answer my question. Are the marines on their way?"

"They're on their way," he confirmed. "We just got the latest recon-sat video from the KH-91 and the KH-111." He turned to the computer screen on his desk. "Computer, replay latest com-sat videos."

"Replaying," the computer replied. An image appeared showing thousands upon thousands of tiny white objects moving against a gray background, stretching from one end of the screen to the other.

"This is the Eden LZ," Jackson said. "The shot is in infrared because the dust cloud they're creating is obscuring the visual mode. As you can see, they've moved out and are heading in our direction at about thirty kilometers per hour." He began to point at different portions of the image. "Tanks are out in front and on the flanks. APCs are in the middle in ranks of eight, that's two platoons to a rank. Mobile artillery units are behind the APCs. Anti-air vehicles are interspersed throughout the entire formation. Back here, just leaving the LZ, are the supply trains. These are freight car sized units strung together in trains of fifteen cars apiece and towed by six specially modified tanks per train. They carry all the WestHem ammo, food, water, extra air tanks, and spare parts for the armor. These cylindrical cars are full of hydrogen fuel. The trains are formed up in ranks of six trains and they're guarded by the bulk of the WestHem anti-air vehicles, a battalion of tanks, and half a battalion of infantry."

"Can you take out their supply trains?" she asked.

"It would be possible but very difficult," he replied. "Some of their best military technology went into the armor coating on those supply cars, particularly the hydrogen tankers. It would take at least two laser hits in the exact same spot in order to breach one of those things."

"Then why don't they put that kind of armor on their tanks and their APCs?" she asked.

"It's too heavy," he said. "It's four times as thick and eight times as heavy as the alloy used on armored vehicles and spacecraft. If they made tanks out of it they'd be a lot tougher on the battlefield but they wouldn't be able to move much faster than twenty or twenty-five klicks an hour and they would have a range of about sixty klicks."

"Oh... I see," Laura said.

"As it is, it takes six super-modified tanks to tow each train. The modifications are that everything has been removed but the engine, which has been increased in size from the standard tank. They have no guns, no lasers, and only one crewmember. The extra room they use to hold extra fuel. Even so, they can only pull along at thirty klicks an hour and they have to have a supply hose connected to one of the hydrogen tankers in the train. They are the reason why the formation moves so slowly."

"What if you took out the tanks towing them?" Laura asked. "Are they covered in that special armor too?"

"No, they're actually easier to take out than a regular tank, but all that would do is slow them down a little. Regular tanks can replace the towing tanks if need be, although it takes twice as many. We do have contingency plans for delaying and even destroying the supply trains if it's deemed necessary but remember what our doctrine is. We are not out there to kill supplies. We're out there to kill marines. And we don't necessarily want to slow them down at this point. If Interdiction hadn't worked as well as it did I might have considered hitting the supplies in order to keep them out in the wastelands longer and give us more time to focus on the numerical advantage. As it is though, the quicker we get them to our first line of defense the quicker we can start chewing them up in large numbers."

She nodded. "I see what you mean," she said. "You're the military expert. I haven't questioned you so far, I see no reason to start now."

He smiled. "That's the way it should be," he said. "In any case, that's the way things are looking outside of Eden. They look pretty much the same outside New Pittsburgh. In both cities I have the special forces teams and the Mosquitoes already gearing up for the day's action. They should start hitting them in less than an hour. At Libby and Proctor the sun is just now coming up. The latest overheads from there show thousands of engines running at the LZ's and thousands of people loading onto their armor but no movement as of yet. That will probably change within the hour as well."

He was right, of course. By the time Laura Whiting made it to her meeting, the columns at the Libby and Proctor LZs had begun to move in as well. And, as at New Pittsburgh and Eden, special forces teams began to move in too.

Lon and his squad saw the dust cloud long before they saw the first of the WestHem armor coming down the valley below them. They were spread out atop four different hills on the south side of the valley, some forty-five kilometers from the landing ships, just outside of the effective range of the 150-millimeter guns on the ships. They were heavily laden with anti-tank lasers and charging batteries. Supporting them were two sniper teams on hills to the east and west of them and two mortar teams further south. On the other side of the valley — which was just over thirty kilometers wide at this point — was another team of the same configuration.

"What do you think, sarge?" asked Lisa as she spied the dust drifting hundreds of meters into the air and blowing towards them on the wind currents. "They taking the middle?"

"Looks like they're going right down the old poop chute all right," Lon agreed. Though the WestHem marines probably thought that sticking to the center of the valley afforded them protection since it was as far as they could get from the hills, it was actually exactly what the Martians wanted them to do. If they were in the middle it meant they were in range from both sides of the valley instead of just one. It also greatly increased the time it would take for WestHem infantry troops to get to the ambush sites.

"Want me to send a report?" asked Jefferson. "I can get a good lock on the sat from here."

"Not yet," Lon replied. "The Mosquitoes are already in the air, circling about a hundred klicks behind us. Let's wait until we have an actual visual on the OPFOR so we can give them exact targeting data."

"Right, sarge," Jefferson said. "Standing by on the update."

The dust cloud grew closer and closer and soon began to drift over the top of them, obscuring everything beyond twenty meters or so in the visual spectrum. The team switched their combat goggles to full infrared, allowing them to peer through the dust. Soon the ground began to shake as the vibration from thousands of tank and armored vehicle treads was transmitted along it. The shaking was hardly noticeably at first but it grew steadily more intense, to the point where you could feel it rattling your teeth and your bones. It was not a pleasant sensation.

"That feels evil," Lisa said. "I know it makes me sound like a girl to say that, but..."

"I'm just glad you said it first, Wong," Horishito put in, "because you're totally down with it. It is evil."

"Look," said Jefferson, who was on the easternmost hill. "They're starting to come into view now."

They all looked and saw the tiny forms of WestHem main battle tanks appearing one by one, stretching across more than a kilometer of the valley floor.

"Wow," said Horishito. "Look at all of them."

"I am," said Lon. "And this is only the vanguard."

Another ten minutes went by, during which more and more tanks came into view, rumbling along at just below thirty kilometers per hour, kicking up tons of dust. The vibration of the ground grew worse, to the point that small pebbles and rocks were starting to move and roll down the hill.

"Okay, Jeffy," Lon said. "Send off the first report. Vanguard in sight, moving westward at approximately thirty klicks, holding to a one and a half klick area in the valley center. Tanks in front, semi-circular formation, multi-battalion strength."

"Got it," Jefferson said. "Sending it off."

When the front tanks reached the point where Lon and his squad could have engaged them if they'd wished, the APCs began to come into view. They were grouped tighter together in ranks of eight. More tanks were spread out to either side of them.

"Send another position report," Lon ordered. "And then start scanning for command vehicles and marking them."

"You got it, sarge," Jefferson said. He spoke to his computer for a second and it sent off a com laser to the satellite. He then began focusing his ESM detector on the APCs, scanning for any vehicle that was utilizing more than one radio frequency. Like with the individual soldiers on the ground, anything using more than one frequency was more than likely an officer — a lieutenant at least, possibly even a captain or a lieutenant colonel.

"Anything?" Lon asked after three minutes had passed.

"Not much chatter going on at the moment on any frequency," Jefferson replied. "I guess they're not very talkative. Wait... there's one." He smiled, looking directly at the APC in question and using a finger on the kneeboard of his biosuit to put a mark on it on the combat computer. "Got ya, you fuck." As long as this APC remained in Jefferson's sight, it would appear as dark blue to the other team members and therefore a primary target.

"I got him too," Lon said, watching as one out of the hundreds of APCs in view suddenly changed color. "Wong, how about you?"

"Me too," she confirmed.

"Okay," Lon said. "Looks like the program is working. Keep marking them, Jeffy, and they'll be the first through the pearly gates."

"You know it, sarge," Jefferson said. "I'm getting an update from command. Two flights of Mosquitoes are inbound. One from the south, one from the north. ETA less than five."

"Right on," Lon said. "The moment they finish their runs, the fun begins. Let's get the ATs charged."

Lisa was one of the four squad members in possession of an AT-50 laser. She pushed the charge button and trained it out over the valley towards the collection of armored vehicles. She zoomed her combat goggles in a bit, pulling the images closer, and placed her targeting recticle on one of the closer APCs, noting that the range-finder read 8356 meters — just over eight kilometers. The official maximum range of the AT-50 on the surface of Mars was fifteen kilometers (assuming, of course, that one had a direct line of sight to one's target). Beyond that too much of the energy of the laser shot would be absorbed by the atmosphere on the way to the target for a burn-through of the armor to be guaranteed.

"Hey, sarge," she said as something occurred to her. "What's the word on this dust affecting the range? Won't it absorb more of the energy than the atmosphere alone?"

"It will absorb some," Lon replied. "The loss of energy should be low enough that we can still penetrate at this range though."

"Should be?" asked Horishito.

"I know," Lon said. "It's more theory, but so far all of our theories have been good ones, haven't they? Just stick to the nearer targets until we know for sure."

They waited, watching the targets rumble by, oblivious to their presence. Jefferson continued to scan and located two more probable command vehicles. They too were turned blue by the combat computer.

"The Mosquitoes should be here any second now," Lon said. "Once they start making their runs and the commanders start barking orders at everyone Jeffy will be able to pin down more of them."

Less than thirty seconds later the ground started vibrating in a different manner. Sound reached them, an ominous whine of semi-rocket engines swelling up from behind. While their brains were still processing this information two Mosquitoes suddenly appeared from the hills behind them, hugging the terrain as was their habit. They passed right over the top of Lon and Lisa, clearing them by no more than twenty meters, close enough to send dust swirling off their hilltop.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Lisa said, both terrified and exhilarated.

Even before the words were out of her mouth the two aircraft had banked out over the valley and their lasers began to flash. They banked back into the hills a few kilometers further west and disappeared. Down in the valley four APCs were now destroyed, blasted apart after having high intensity laser energy burn through their hulls, exploding their ammunition stores, their hydrogen tanks, and their oxidizer tanks. A combination of smoke and blood vapor from the shredded bodies within drifted up from each to join the dust cloud.

"Goddamn they're fast," Lon said, shaking his head in admiration. As many times as he'd seen the Mosquitoes in action, he was still awed by the sheer speed of their attacks. "Jeffy, how's the scanning? Did that get their attention?"

"Oh fuckin' aye," Jefferson affirmed. "They're chattering up a storm down there. I've got at least six more command APCs identified. Should be comin' up on view in a few seconds."

Sure enough, seven more APCs turned blue. They were scattered throughout the portion of the formation that was visible.

"AT holders," Lon said, "start picking your targets and tracking them. Remember your zones of fire. Let's not waste shots by having two of you hit the same target."

On the far side of the formation three more APCs suddenly exploded one after the other. None of Lon's squad had even seen the Mosquitoes that had been responsible for the attack.

"Yes!" Horishito yelled triumphantly. "How do you like that action, assholes? Looks like our little Mosquitoes got somethin' for your ass, don't they?"

"One of them missed," Jefferson said sourly. "What's up with that shit?"

"Just on one shot," Lisa said. "Give the guys a little credit. They only have four seconds or so to pull off two shots."

"True," Jefferson said, "but they also have computer assist to find the firing zone, don't they?"

"Yeah, but..." Lisa started.

"Okay, guys," Lon interrupted. "We're starting to edge into the land of too much non-essential chatter here. Jeffy, are you still scanning? It looks like they're maneuvering about down there. Aren't there command APCs issuing orders that you should be identifying?"

"Yeah, sorry, sarge," Jefferson said. "There will be a few more on view in a few seconds."

The APCs were indeed maneuvering about, spreading out from their tight formations and scattering over a larger area. The tanks were also spreading out as well as putting on speed and starting to zigzag in evasive courses. The anti-air vehicles had all stopped and were pointing their laser cannons towards the hillsides, radar and infra-red dishes turning madly in search of the aircraft that were menacing them.

None of this did any good. The first pair of Mosquitoes, the pair that had passed over Lon and the others on their first run, suddenly emerged from the hills again, this time about four kilometers to the east. Their lasers flashed and four more APCs exploded into smoke, debris, and blood vapor. The Mosquitoes disappeared again. More than twenty of the anti-air vehicles fired their laser cannons after them but all of them were too late. They did nothing but pepper the hillsides or send their laser energy out through the atmosphere.

No sooner had this pair disappeared before the other pair reemerged from the other side of the valley and took out another four. They too escaped before any of the anti-air vehicles could get a lock on them.

"That's it," Jefferson said. "The Mosquitoes are pulling back. They will be circling twenty klicks south of us in case we need them to cover our retreat."

"Good fuckin' deal," Lon said. "Okay, people. It's time for us to get to make our presence known. AT holders, commence firing. Primary targets are the command APCs. Stick to your zones."

Lisa smiled beneath her helmet, adjusting the AT-50 on her shoulder. It was charged and ready, her targeting recticle resting on one of the blue APCs. Her finger went to the firing button and slowly, smoothly, she pushed it.

Callahan was a little nervous but not really alarmed just yet. He had not actually seen any of the APCs get hit, had not actually seen any of the Martian aircraft that were hitting them, he only knew they were under attack because Captain Ayers had told him they were under attack.

"It's those Mosquitoes!" Ayers told him and the other platoon leaders on the command frequency. "They're coming in low from the hills and hitting us. All platoons need to go into evasive maneuvering!"

Callahan passed the order along to his squad leaders but wondered just what good it would do. If they were being hit with lasers, which moved at the speed of light after all, what good would zigzagging around do? "What about the SALs?" he asked Ayers. "Why aren't they taking the aircraft down?" That was what they'd been told would happen if any of those greenie aircraft dared trying to engage the armor on the march. SALs were ringing the entire formation and they too fired lasers that moved at the speed of light.

"They appear and disappear so fast the SALs can't get a lock on them!" Ayers said. "It's just like when they hit the hovers at the LZ."

"But we have twenty times as many SALs out here now," Callahan said. "None of them are able to get a lock?"

"It seems that the greenies have been practicing this maneuver," Ayers said. "Somebody is out there guiding them to their targets and they're keeping their exposure time at four to five seconds. We simply can't lock on and fire that quickly."

"Clusterfuck," Callahan muttered, not bothering to close his transmission link first. Why in the hell didn't they know the greenies operated like this? Obviously they'd practiced this maneuver for years. Had the marine units stationed on the planet held them in such contempt that they'd never bothered learning what their tactics would be?

Ayers had no answer for him. Callahan shook his head in disgust and then looked at his screens, trying to get a sense of what was going on outside. He could make nothing out of the confusing array of infrared enhanced images so he opened the hatch on the APC and stood up, poking his head out to take an actual look around. Like before, the dust was so thick he couldn't see a thing. He set his goggles for infrared enhancement and looked around. Still, nothing seemed unusual except for the fact that all of the armor was maneuvering wildly about. He could see no burning APCs or tanks, could see no Martian aircraft in the sky. They must have hit further back in the column.

"What about getting some dismounts out there with hand-held SALs?" Callahan asked Ayers. "If we put enough lasers into the air we're bound to hit one of those things."

"I've passed that idea onto battalion," Ayers said. "They're checking with regimental about it now."

Callahan shook his head in disgust and continued his look around. Wondering about who was guiding the aircraft to their targets he began scanning the hillsides to the south just in time to see the flash of Lisa Wong's weapon sending a burst of laser energy out. It was followed by three other flashes in close succession. He didn't know where the first three flashes went but he had a pretty good idea about the fourth. Two hundred meters to his left an APC suddenly exploded, the turret flying into the air, shrapnel flying in all directions, blood vapor and smoke boiling out into the atmosphere.

"Holy fuck!" he yelled in horror. Twelve marines had just died in the time it took him to blink an eye.

"They're hitting us again!" Ayers said. "No aircraft spotted!"

"It wasn't aircraft!" Callahan reported. "AT-50 fire from the south! Spread out among at least four hilltops!"

"Confirm AT-50 fire?" Ayers demanded.

"I saw it with my own eyes!" Callahan reported. "Let me get the coordinates." He called up his map display and quickly read off the grid and hill numbers. By the time he'd done this several other units had reported the same information.

"We got it!" Ayers said. "Regimental is ordering the tanks on the left flank to engage."

"They're not close enough!" Callahan said. The tanks could only engage dismounted troops with their main guns or their machine guns and the range on those weapons was only four kilometers for the former and less than a kilometer for the latter.

"They're moving them in!" Ayers said. "Continue evasive maneuvering. They're sending a company from the 324th to take that position!"

Callahan opened his mouth to ask why in the fuck they were doing that when it was reported that more laser flashes had been spotted, that more APCs had been hit, this time from hills on the north side of the valley.

"It's a fuckin' ambush!" Callahan said. "Screw going after them, we need to get the fuck out of here!"

"We need to take them out!" Ayers countered. "We're going after them. Bravo Company is moving to the north position along with the tanks from the right flank."

Things were suddenly becoming very clear to Callahan. "Cap," he said, "that's just what the Martians want us to do! They're drawing us into a trap!"

"Regimental is ordering it, Callahan!" Ayers said. "They did not ask for your goddamn opinion on how to counter the enemy!"

"Well maybe they should!" Callahan yelled back. "I've been out here. I know how these Martians fight. They're trying to get us to hold here while they pick us off from out of range and then as soon as we get in range to counter them they're going to disappear! We need to push through this area as fast as we can!"

"You're out of line, Callahan!" Ayers returned, quite pissed now. "You do what the fuck you're ordered to do and shut your ass about everything else!"

"Yes sir," Callahan said through gritted teeth. At just that moment the lasers flashed again. He saw another APC — this one about three hundred meters away — explode with a spectacular, lethal flash.

"Keep it up, guys, keep it up," Lon encouraged. "We still have a couple of shot cycles left before those tanks get into range."

Lisa nodded but said nothing as she waited for her AT to charge from the last battery she'd put in. So far she'd fired three times and had scored three definite kills on command APCs, watching with glee each time as they'd exploded into wrecked piles of steel and smoke. Each hit equaled at least twelve marines who would not make it to Eden, who would not challenge the armored cav units and the infantry behind them. She felt almost guilty that she was getting a thrill out of this mass slaughter she was participating in that was very close to sexual in nature.

Her weapon beeped, indicating it was charged and ready to fire. She already had another target in sight, another blue tank in her zone, another officer and the squad he was riding with. She pushed the firing button and the APC exploded at the same instant. Her smile grew wider, the wetness between her thighs grew wetter. She ejected the spent battery and took another from her case, slamming it expertly into place and hitting the charge button.

"Lead tanks are at fifty-five hundred meters," Lon reported. "They're hauling ass. Seventy-five kph. One more shot and then let's do what we do best."

"Run away," said Horishito. "I'm down with it, sarge."

Lisa took a moment to zoom out and glance at the approaching armor. No less than sixty main battle tanks were bearing down on them like wildfire, their guns pointing forward at the hills. Behind them was a stream of APCs — at least thirty of them — moving nearly as fast. Yes, it was about time to blow this scene. She zoomed out a little further, found another blue APC in her zone of fire and sighted in on it, zooming back in until the APC was the only thing in her view. The charging beep sounded and she fired, watching it explode. "Last shot out," she reported, turning her combat goggles back to normal magnification. "Ready to haul my ass."

The other three AT holders reported the same.

"All right," said Lon. "Let's go. You all know the drill."

Within thirty seconds all ten of them had their equipment stowed and were scrambling down their respective hillsides, careful to keep the bulk of the hills between themselves and the approaching enemy. Their timing was none too soon. As they started heading south, towards the waiting Hummingbird that would extract them from the area, the hilltops they had just occupied erupted in a cataclysm of explosions and flying dust. None of them could resist taking a look back.

"Fuck me," said Lisa in fearful awe as she watched high explosive shells rip apart the place where she had been lying less than two minutes before, as she watched other shells go streaking overhead.

"Now you see why timing is the important thing in this war," Lon told them. "Let's keep going."

They made it to their pick-up point five minutes later. The Hummingbird was sitting at idle on the ground. They climbed inside and a minute later they were in the air, heading back towards the safety of Eden.

Eighteen hundred meters to the west, atop yet another hill, Corporal Brogan Goodbud lay nestled behind a boulder watching as the WestHem tanks blew the shit out of the hills where Lon Fargo and his team had just been. In his hands was his M-64 sniper rifle, which he hoped would soon be put to use. Three meters to his right, behind yet another boulder, was his spotter, Private John Rimmer.

"I just got the word," Rimmer told him. "Main team is safely away. No casualties."

"Static," Rimmer said, nodding in approval. He was glad they'd made their escape in time. Nothing could have lived through the plastering those tanks had just inflicted.

"Rick and Glory are still in position on Hill 678," Rimmer said, referring to the other sniper team located three kilometers east of them. "The mortar teams are standing by at Hill 650 and Hill 589."

"Right," Goodbud said, looking around. The tanks had stopped firing and had formed up in a protective semi-circle around the hills. The APCs were now moving forward, spreading out into position behind the tanks. He checked the range on the closest tanks to their position and saw that it was only nine hundred meters. That was a little too close for comfort. "Tell Rick and Glory that we do no more than three shots. Nine hundred meters is within potential detection range for our gun flashes. Reiterate that in a stern manner if you will. I know the pickings will be rich but we're not out here to get ourselves killed."

"You got it," Rimmer said, looking nervously at the tanks, wondering if even three shots was maybe two too many. Nevertheless, he recorded his message and ordered it sent. Since the other teams were well over half a kilometer away it did not go out over radio waves since this would potentially give away their position. Instead, the message was encrypted and sent via communication laser to a com satellite where it was then re-broadcast by the transmitter in Eden. As such, it took almost six seconds to get a reply. "They understand and agree," he reported.

"Good," Goodbud said. "It looks like they're going to start dismounting here in a minute. As soon as they do, start finding me some green helmets."

"You know it," Rimmer said.

The APCs all came to a halt. Their rear ramps opened and biosuited marines began to emerge, hundreds of them, all carrying M-24s or SAWs. They formed up into units and began to move forward, towards the hills, moving slowly and awkwardly.

"I can't believe they're dumb enough to try this after what we did to them last time," Rimmer said. "Don't they ever learn anything?"

"They do but their commanders don't," Goodbud replied. "At least not for awhile. Their doctrine says to dismount and engage any enemy forces so that's what they're doing. Like General Jackson said, their predictability and their underestimation of us is what will be their undoing."

"I suppose," Rimmer said. "It almost seems unsportsmanlike, doesn't it?"

"Almost," Goodbud agreed. "But who said war had to be sportsmanlike."

The marines passed through the gaps between the tanks and continued southward, towards the hills. They moved more slowly now, more carefully, as if they expected the special forces teams to engage them at any second.

"Tell the mortar teams to sight in on grid 47-2, 47-3, and 47-4," Goodbud said. "Ten meter fused high explosive. Fire on my mark."

"Sending it," Rimmer said. Eight seconds later, "acknowledged."

The dismounted marines moved closer and closer to the hills, spreading out a little. Slowly but surely Rimmer began to identify those among them who were speaking on multiple radio frequencies and turned their helmets to a green color. By the time they reached the flat area Goodbud had chosen as the killing ground, sixteen had been "tagged", as the expression went.

"Okay," Goodbud said, "this is it. Have the mortar teams fire for effect, maximum rate."

"Fire for effect," Rimmer repeated. "Maximum rate." He sent the order off.

Goodbud zoomed his goggles in on one of the green helmets and adjusted his rifle, putting the recticle on his face. His finger went to the firing button and he waited. He didn't want to shoot until the mortars began to fall. The idea was to use the confusion and chaos they caused to cover their fire.

"Here they come," said Rimmer, who was looking off to the south and had spotted the white streaks of the mortar shells arcing over the hills. "Get ready for the big bang."

The marines apparently spotted the incoming rounds as well. They began to dive to the ground, falling in that slow manner the Martian gravity caused. Goodbud didn't look away. He kept his recticle on his target, following it to the ground. When the mortar rounds began to explode, showering the formation of marines with shrapnel, he fired, sending his bullet directly through the middle of that green helmet. He immediately zoomed out and found another green helmet, this one lying twenty meters further out. Before he could sight on it, however, the head it was attached to was blown to pieces by the second volley of mortars. He shifted his recticle again, finding yet another green helmet, and this time he was able to zoom in and fire, erasing another officer or NCO from existence.

"One more," he said, zooming out and finding another green helmet. "Be ready to move."

"Fuckin' aye," Rimmer said.

Goodbud zoomed in and fired, his third shot just as true as his first two had been. He safed his weapon and then began to roll backwards, off the crest of the hill. "Let's get the fuck out of here," he said.

"I'm with you," Rimmer told him, following him down the hill.

While the mortars continued to fire, Goodbud and Rimmer made their way south, towards their pre-determined rendezvous point. Three kilometers to the east, the other sniper team did the same. Since there was no WestHem artillery set up and since there were no WestHem hovers in the air the two mortar teams could keep firing with impunity. They did so, raining eighty millimeter shells down on the helpless marines until their entire inventory was expended. They then packed up their equipment and moved at an almost leisurely stroll towards their rendezvous points. Two Hummingbirds were waiting there. One sniper team and one mortar team climbed into each of the aircraft. They took off and headed towards Eden to re-arm for another deployment later that day.

No sooner had they left then two more flights of Hummingbirds came screaming in from either side of the valley. They made two runs apiece and killed another thirteen WestHem APCs and all inside of them.

The entire formation had come to a halt and many of the troops had dismounted from their APCs to stand on the surface of Mars. Ambushes had taken place both on the north and the south and medivac operations were currently underway to remove the many marines that had been wounded by the Martian mortars. Everyone was expecting attacks on the evac hovers — it would be just like those greenies to hit them from the air or from the hillsides — but so far everything was quiet after the last air attack.

Callahan stood sixty meters away from his APC, his rifle in his hands, his eyes looking over the remains of the APC that had contained Lieutenant Goldberg and the third squad of his company's second platoon. This was the first time he had ever seen close up what an anti-tank laser could do to an armored vehicle and it was horrifyingly fascinating. The vehicle was hardly recognizable. The turret was lying nearly ten meters away, the gun barrel of the cannon twisted and distorted. The body of the vehicle had split open in multiple places from the force of the explosion of the ammunition and fuel inside. The treads had been blown clean off and were nothing but twisted, distorted shapes that were already half covered with Martian dust. And the men inside... well... they were still there but they were kind of like a jigsaw puzzle now. Shredded arms, legs, pieces of skull and bone, fragments of biosuits, pieces of rifles, a few teeth, nothing bigger than a hand or a foot but all of it in an untidy mess inside the compartment or scattered on the dust outside of it. Such was the same with every other APC that had been hit, either from the air or from the shoulder-fired AT-50s the Martian ambush teams had fired. If they hit the body of the APC, this was the result without exception. The only wounded they had to deal with were the ones hit with mortars.

Ironically, though he was as exposed as he could possibly be, this was the safest Callahan had been all morning. The Mosquitoes only attacked armored vehicles and, since they were in the center of the valley, they were out of range of any Martian snipers or mortar teams hiding in the hills. If only they could stay here. But they couldn't. As soon as the wounded were on their way back to the landing ships they would move out again. And undoubtedly the Martians would be waiting for them somewhere up ahead.

Another biosuited marine stepped around the smashed APC and walked over to Callahan. When he got within three meters he recognized the face of Captain Ayers through the helmet. Ayers shouldered his rifle and held up five fingers, indicating that Callahan should switch to tactical channel five, which was an extremely short range frequency designed for private, face to face conversation. Callahan did so.

"Not much like Salta, is it?" Ayers asked him.

"No," Callahan agreed, "not much. What are the damages?"

"Are you sure you want to know that?"

Callahan raised his eyebrows. "Is it that bad?"

"Yeah," Ayers said. "It is. Ninety-six APCs destroyed with all hands. Sixteen damaged enough that they can't go on. Five hit but capable of going on."

"Ninety-six with all hands?" Callahan asked, sure he had heard incorrectly.

"Ninety-six," Ayers confirmed. "Almost twelve hundred marines killed in the APCs alone in less than thirty minutes. Another sixty dead from the mortar attacks and the sniper attacks."

"Snipers?"

"Snipers," Callahan said. "They started popping people off when the mortars began to fall. Like before, they seemed to be targeting officers and NCOs. Everyone found with a bullet through his head was a sergeant or above."

"Jesus," Callahan said. "How many tanks did they get?"

"None," said Ayers.

Once again, Callahan thought he had misunderstood his commander. "Did you say none?"

"Not a single one," Ayers confirmed. "They left the tanks completely alone and only hit the APCs."

"That's... that's... insanity," Callahan said. "What the hell kind of warfare is that?"

Ayers shrugged. "It's completely against WestHem doctrine, that's for sure, but it's quite obvious that's what they're doing. And that's not all."

"What do you mean?"

"We've lost a lot of the command staff. Of the APCs that got hit, a rather large proportion were the ones with lieutenants and captains inside. They also got Colonel Vickers from the 324th. I'm thinking this is more than just a lucky coincidence for the Martians."

"They're monitoring our radio transmissions from the APCs the same way they do from our suits," Callahan said, feeling chills down his back at the thought. After all, he was in charge of one of those APCs broadcasting on multiple frequencies.

"Yes," Ayers said. "Intel thinks they're identifying the command vehicles and targeting them deliberately. Maybe that's their rationale behind going for the APCs only. If they can take out all of the command staff then there will be no one to lead when we hit their main defenses."

"But the tanks will plow through their defenses and surround them," Callahan said. "We already outnumber them ten to one in heavy armor and they're doing nothing to try to change that ratio?"

"Who knows what the Martian mind is thinking? Truth be told, I'm not worried about what's going to happen once we reach their main line of defense, I'm worried about what's going to happen on the way there. You and I, my friend, are primary targets for those sneaking little fucks. Every time I give an order to my platoons, every time you pass that order on to your squads, we are identifying ourselves to them as surely as if we put our rank on the outside of our APC, as surely as if a private walked up and saluted us."

"What's the solution?" Callahan asked. "Is there one?"

"They're working on it," Ayers said cynically.

"Wonderful," Callahan said. "I'll sure sleep better tonight knowing that."

Aboard the WSS Nebraska

1200 hours, New Pittsburgh/Eden time

General Wrath looked at the map display in mute rage as he pondered the information he had just been given in his briefing. All four of the marches towards the principal Martian cities had been bogged down by hit and run attacks launched from the air and from the hillsides surrounding each avenue of advance. Anti-air defense systems had proved to be completely worthless against the greenie pilots and their damned Mosquitoes. Tank and infantry runs against the attacking ground forces had proved to be nothing more than ambush set-ups for mortar and sniper teams. In the last four hours more than thirty-three hundred marines had been killed, more than three hundred wounded badly enough to be taken out of action, and more than two hundred and fifty APCs had been destroyed.

"It's all so useless," Wrath declared to Major Wilde. "They know they can't defeat us. They know that once we reach their main line of defense we'll plow through them and cut our way into their cities in a few hours, but still they deliberately attack our soldiers and try to kill as many of them as possible. They really are nothing but terrorists! The fact that they aren't attacking the tanks proves it! Their whole goal is just to kill as many of our brave fighting men as possible!"

"It is a rather unconventional approach to warfare," Wilde agreed. "And they are going to great lengths to hit our officers and leaders. Do you suppose they think they will be able to break down command and control enough with this method to prevent our envelopment of their positions?"

"They're thinking nothing of the sort," Wrath said. "They're just killing for the sake of killing. And when we do surround their positions and their cause becomes hopeless they'll simply surrender and try to say that all is fair in war." He shook his head violently. "Well they can just forget that. When this is over I'll see to it that every one of those special forces soldiers, every one of those Mosquito pilots and gunners are tried for multiple counts of murder and executed. We'll do it by military tribunal in front of live cameras!"

"Yes sir," Wilde said soothingly. "But in the meantime, we need to counter these attacks in some way, to minimize the damage they do. I have a few suggestions if you'd like to hear them."

"I want the attacks stopped, not minimized!"

Wilde swallowed and took a few deep breaths, mentally counting to ten. "I don't see any way to stop the greenie attacks completely," he said at last. "As you said, they seem committed to causing as much death and mayhem as they possibly can while active combat is underway. I do, however, think we can minimize the toll on our APCs, our officers, and our men to some degree."

"All right," Wrath said through gritted teeth. "Let's hear it."

"Well, in the first place we've got to stop having the officers broadcast on multiple channels. If the greenies can't identify them they can't directly target them."

"How can they not broadcast on multiple channels? Colonels have to talk to lieutenant colonels and they have to talk to the captains. The captains have to talk to the lieutenants and the lieutenants have to talk to their squad sergeants. Are you suggesting that everyone blabber everything on one channel?"

"Well... no, obviously that won't work very well for the entire division to talk on one channel, but we can put each individual battalion on one channel with strict orders that absolutely no unnecessary communications will be broadcast. Everything above battalion level will be on another channel. All general orders will be broadcast on a monitor only channel from the landing ships."

"How will the battalion and company levels acknowledge their orders?" Wrath asked. "How will the platoon and squad levels do the same? This can't work."

"We'll just have to repeat general orders several times and assume that everyone copied them."

"We can't run a division that way! Communications are the key to success in any mission!"

"And the greenies are exploiting our dependence on communications," Wilde said. "We either cut our communications down drastically and combine channels or we continue to lose officers. There's no other way, sir."

Wrath thought this over for a second and then nodded. "Okay," he said. "I guess we do that. Nobody is going to like it though."

"They're not out there to like their orders," Wilde reminded. "They're there to obey them. Now as for the route of travel, I think we made a mistake by having the division stick to the middle of the valleys. In every case the greenies were able to hit from both sides and the tanks were out of range to return fire when the ambushes started. They need to hug one side of the valley or the other, keeping as close to the hills as possible."

"Close to the hills where they'll be attacked from? The hills where the Mosquitoes are diving out on them?"

"If you accept that our units are going to be attacked no matter what we do," said Wilde, "then it makes sense. We deploy all the tanks on the hill side of the march."

"No vanguard of tanks?" Wrath asked. "Are you insane, man?"

"The greenies aren't bringing their tanks out to counter us," Wilde said. "They're holding them at their lines for defensive purposes only. If we line our tanks up all along the flank that faces the hills, no matter where the greenies attack from we'll be able to instantly engage them. The reason our losses were so high today was because they were able to get off multiple shots from both sides without fear of return fire. They shot us up again and again from two directions while our tank units were racing to hit them back. If we do as I suggest the greenies may get off one shot, maybe two if they're very lucky, but as soon as we identify their firing positions we can start plastering them with eighty millimeter shells or even heavy machine gun fire."

Again, Wrath had to admit that made sense. "Okay," he said. "That's a very good point. We'll do it."

"And when we are engaged by greenie forces," Wilde said, "we need to send the tanks after them to repel the attack but not try to engage them with dismounted infantry."

Wrath had a big problem with this one. "Not send infantry after them? Just let an enemy force hit us without responding? That goes against the very essence of the corps!"

"I understand that, sir," Wilde said, "but as we've seen, the greenies are very good at ambushing exposed ground troops. They have snipers out there who are able to identify officers and NCOs and they have no problems with taking them out. These same snipers are likely directing the mortar teams who are firing from beyond the hillsides, well out of range of any counter-strike we can launch at them. If the men stay in their APCs the snipers can't shoot them and the mortars can't blow them up. I suggest we order the APCs to continue forward at best possible speed when the ambush teams hit them and let the tanks deal with the situation alone. This will insure that each ambush will result in no more than four to eight APCs being hit."

"That's fifty to ninety men per attack," Wrath said. "We're supposed to let that go unanswered?"

"Going after them with ground troops is exactly what the greenies want us to do," Wilde said. "That's why they send those snipers and mortar teams out there. If we do elect to keep trying to engage them with dismounted infantry we'll still lose the original fifty to ninety in the attacks, but we'll also lose another fifty to ninety to the mortars and the gunfire. In addition, this will continue to bog down the advance and give the greenies more time to launch even more attacks. We need to keep moving, sir, and get to those cities as quickly as possible with as many of our troops alive and capable of fighting as possible. The greenies want us to keep playing their game. They seem to have evolved their entire war strategy around hitting us when we do exactly what doctrine commands. They're trying to wear us down and break our morale and if we keep doing what they want, it just might work."

"Impossible," Wrath scoffed. "You can't break the morale of a marine!"

Wilde looked at his commanding general pointedly. "With all due respect, sir, that sounds good in the daily briefing, but it's simply not true in reality. I've talked to some of the wounded who have been brought up from the surface. Their morale is pretty close to the edge now and if this rate of attrition continues, it will sail right on over that edge. God only knows what the result might be if that happens."

Wrath looked like he was about to go into a rage at his aide for this sacrilegious impertinence. But in the end he simply nodded. "I suppose you're right," he said. "The order will go out. APCs are to keep moving no matter what happens. Tanks will deal with the attackers alone."

"That's very wise, sir," Wilde said.

"And what about the air attacks? Is there any way to stop them or at least slow them down?"

"No," Wilde said simply. "The effectiveness of the greenie airpower is perhaps the single most underestimated aspect of this entire operation. Quite frankly those Mosquitoes are able to operate with impunity as long as they stick to what is apparently their doctrine. They get a fix on our units from special forces units hiding in the hills and then they hug the ground as they approach their target. They pop into the open for no more than four or five seconds, fire off two shots, and then disappear back into the hills. Our anti-air units take an average of eight to ten seconds to get a lock and train their weapons on an aircraft. They were designed to deal with slow-moving hovers, not winged aircraft moving at more than seven hundred kilometers per hour."

"So you're saying we just have to accept that these aircraft are going to be hitting us every thirty minutes or so the entire time we're marching?"

"I'm afraid so, sir," Wilde said. "However, there is one way we can cut down the ultimate number of APCs they wind up hitting."

"How's that?"

"We need to decrease the time it takes to get to our objective."

"Decrease it? How?"

"We need to push towards the cities without let-up. We need to operate at night as well as during the day."

"Operate at night?" Wrath asked. "When will the men get sleep?"

"Most of the actual combat troops will be able to sleep on the way," Wilde said. "The tank crews and the APC drivers and the support teams... well, they'll just have to go without sleep until we reach our objectives. They're marines. They can take it."

"What are you suggesting, exactly?"

"We move up to secure the fueling point at best possible speed," Wilde said. "Instead of letting everyone sleep all night and then spending the next two days getting everyone refueled and rearmed, we start that operation immediately and carry it on through the night. If they work non-stop they should have the bulk of the work done by the time the sun comes up tomorrow morning. By noon we'll be able to resume our march and by 2000 tomorrow night we'll be at the primary staging areas. We'll be subjected to artillery attacks but we can withstand that if we spread our units out. At dawn the next morning we can start to move in. All four cities can be in our hands by noon the day after tomorrow."

Wrath liked the sound of this. He liked it a lot. The sooner this abortion of a conflict came to an end, the better. "Okay," he said. "Get it all written up as general orders and put it into place."

"Yes, sir," Wilde said, knowing that all of this would have Wrath's name on it. "It's a very good plan."

Chapter 15

Martian wastelands — 148 kilometers west of Eden

August 27, 2146, 0330 hours Eden/New Pittsburgh time

Callahan looked at the bleak landscape around him, seeing everything in the eerie shades of green and gray produced by infrared enhancement. He saw hillsides and gullies between them. He saw swirling dust. He saw rocks and boulders and pebbles. But aside from the forty men of his platoon who were spread widely around him, he saw little else.

"Nothing," he reported to Captain Ayers, who was four kilometers away at the refuel and resupply point. "There's not a goddamn thing out here."

"Are you sure?" Ayers returned, his voice transmitted on the same tactical channel the platoon members, the sergeants, and the individual men used in order to avoid making Callahan a target of Martian snipers.

"Am I sure?" Callahan shot back. "What the hell kind of a question is that? You either see something or you don't see something and we ain't seeing shit!" He knew he was well into the land of impertinence towards a superior officer but he didn't really care. What could they do to him? Send him to Mars?

"You're standing exactly where the last mortar attack came from," Ayers told him, ignoring the insolence for the moment. "It's only been ten minutes since the last shot was fired. There have been no landing signatures from Hummingbirds and it's more than two hundred below out there, well outside the visibility parameters of the Martian biosuits. There's no way they could have gotten out of view yet!"

"No hot spots, no footprints, no expended mortar shells, no Martians," Callahan said. "Just a whole lot of emptiness."

"Where the hell did they go?" Ayers demanded, his voice transmitting the strain and fatigue everyone was under.

Callahan shared his frustration, as did his men. They had really thought they were going to get one over on the Martians this time but the Martians had once again proved themselves a little wilier than they'd been given credit for.

"Clusterfuck," Callahan muttered. "This whole war is nothing but a clusterfuck."

Things had seemed to be looking up a little after that first devastating ambush the previous morning. New orders came down from General Wrath himself, orders that almost seemed to make sense. The formation had moved out, their aim to reach and secure the fueling point as quickly as possible and set up a forward airfield. They'd hugged the northern edge of the valley, tanks thickly guarding the left flank, close enough to engage any further ambush attempts immediately. This hadn't stopped the Martians, of course — Callahan had come to accept that nothing was going to completely stop them — but it had brought the attrition down to an almost acceptable level. The Mosquitoes still came in with depressing regularity, picking off APCs three and four at a time, and there was still nothing in the marine arsenal to counter this, but there was no more mass slaughter of APCs from Martian special forces teams hidden in the hills. They still attacked but generally they would not fire more than one volley of shots off before the tanks would drive them away. And since the long-standing order of engaging any team with ground forces once they dared to attack an armored column had been rescinded, they had lost no more men to sniper fire or mortar attack. The lead elements had pulled into the grid assigned as the refuel point just after 1600 yesterday. The establishment of the perimeter and the setting up of the supply units had gone even faster than expected. And then the trouble had started.

The moment that refueling and resupply operations began, mortars began to fly in, bursting directly over the top of APCs and tanks being pumped full of fuel and liquid oxygen, directly over the top of other armored vehicles being loaded with fresh ammunition and air canisters. Exposed troops were shredded. Supply hoses were destroyed. A few spectacular explosions occurred when the Martian shells detonated in exactly the right spot and caught an exposed fuel tank in just the right way. Artillery units tried to counter the mortar fire with little success. Intelligence still hadn't hacked into the Martian Internet and cracked the GPS satellite data. Troops sent out to engage the mortar teams were ambushed by squad-sized special forces units, just like on the landing zone perimeter. When command elected to stop sending the troops out after the mortar squads the special forces units began sniping at the APCs again with anti-tank lasers, exploding them in place. When command tried to counter this by ordering the troops inside of those APCs to dismount the Martians continued to explode the vacated vehicles but also started raining down some of the mortars on the exposed troops and cutting them down with sniper fire. The worst disaster, however, occurred when an attempt was made to move up some of the hovers from the landing ships to the newly established forward airfield at the re-fuel point. Twenty-four hovers left the LZ. None of them made it to their destination. They were pounced upon by a flight of eight Mosquitoes sixty kilometers out and methodically shot out of the sky. Hindsight would suggest that the Martians still had a special forces team or two watching the LZ from the surrounding hills and had vectored in the ambush.

Finally, after almost three hours of having men picked off by sniper bullets, blown up by mortars, of having APCs randomly explode in groups of four all over the formation, the sun had gone down, bringing blessed night to the landscape. It was thought that the Martians were unable to operate at night since their biosuits were no longer invisible and since the stealth aspects of their aircraft would be cut in half. Men were ordered back into their APCs to get some sleep. Refueling and resupply operations were ordered resumed at full speed. It was hoped that the bulk of the combat and artillery units would be ready to roll on Eden by sunrise. In addition another flight of sixteen hovers was ordered to move up from the LZ, their task to start bombing the Martian fixed heavy artillery sites outside of the MPG base.

The first indication that the Martians could, in fact, operate at night if they chose to came when all sixteen of the hovers were ambushed and shot down by Mosquitoes in almost exactly the same spot as the first twenty-four had been. This left the Eden operational area with only twenty combat hovers still capable of flight and those were all assigned to escort the many medivac shuttles that were transporting the many wounded back up to the hospital ship.

"It's official now," Callahan told Ayers when the news of the second flight of downed hovers had reached him. "The Martians have complete and total air superiority over this battlefield. We have nothing left to counter it."

"Air superiority doesn't win wars," Ayers responded. "Taking the enemy's positions does and we're still quite superior in armor and sheer manpower."

"For the moment," Callahan said. "They keep knocking us off like this that just might be in question too."

"Never happen," Ayers assured him. "Now that it's dark the Martians have all gone back inside their base. We'll get our units resupplied, get the ground troops a little rest, and we'll be at the Jutfield Gap by noon. When we meet those Martians head on we'll start kicking some serious ass."

They would not be at the Jutfield Gap by noon. Nor would the ground troops be getting much sleep. No sooner had the words come out of Ayers' mouth than the first of the thought-to-be-impossible nighttime mortar barrages had come rolling in, blasting two refuel teams into oblivion, destroying three hydrogen and oxygen hose systems, and exploding one APC. A few minutes later another barrage came in, this time from a different direction. A few minutes after that, yet another from yet another direction. It was determined that there were at least four squads out there, each with three weapons. Counter battery fire from the marine artillery units was as useless as it always was. No one could even begin to delude themselves that the Martians were firing blind, just hoping that their shells would land in the right place because their shells were landing in just the right place each and every time. Without fail they would come down atop a fueling or re-loading operation, or a group of exposed troops. Someone was within line of sight and was directing the fire. But who? And how? If they were in line of sight then they should be able to be seen in the infrared spectrum. But there was nothing, not even a hint of heat showing out there.

The Mosquitoes came soon after, popping out of the hillsides and blasting APCs, the fact that it was night not making an iota of difference in their targeting, aiming, or navigation skills. As soon as the Mosquitoes disappeared, more mortar fire would come in. As soon as the mortar fire died out, another group of Mosquitoes would come in. The fueling operation slowed to a crawl once again and marines continued to die with depressing regularity. Tanks plastered the surrounding hillsides with eighty millimeter cannon fire, hoping to blunder upon the person or persons directing the fire. This accomplished nothing but a waste of precious ammunition. There were simply too many hillsides, too much potential ground to cover.

Callahan spent most of the night huddled beneath the wreckage of an APC that had been struck hours before, watching the shells come arcing in, the explosions as they detonated, the laser flashes from the ghostly Mosquitoes, the impotent return fire of the marine tanks and anti-air units, and wishing he'd decided to join the army instead of the fucking marines.

And then, at 0300, just as he had finally started to drift into a fitful state that could technically be called sleep, someone had the idea of sending a few platoons out into the hills to seek out and destroy the mortar teams. In all, two companies worth of platoons were picked for this task and marched over to the hillsides on foot (more than one of them coming under fire from the mortars they were going to silence) and positioned themselves to make a quick rush inward. Another barrage came flying out and Callahan and his platoon had just happened to be closest. They'd moved in as fast as possible (which wasn't terribly fast at all, most of them were still quite clumsy in the Martian gravity) and found nothing. Not a goddamn thing. Apparently none of the other platoons that had rushed in to silence the other mortar teams had found anything either.

"There is one thing," said Ayers now, "there hasn't been any more mortar fire since we sent the platoons in after them."

This should have comforted Callahan, made him feel he had accomplished something. It didn't. It implied that they were under surveillance, that Martian eyes were gazing at them right now, this very second. That gave him the creeps. "So what are you saying?" Callahan asked. "Do they want us to stay out here?"

"That's affirmative," Ayers replied. "If you're keeping the mortar fire down by being out there then we want that to continue. That'll only leave us the Mosquitoes to worry about."

"We're totally cut off from assistance out here, cap," Callahan said.

"Obviously whoever is out there, however they're managing to keep out of sight, they don't want to try to take on a platoon. Just hang tough. Take up defensive positions. Hell, you're probably safer out there than you are back here."

"I suppose," Callahan said.

At that moment Corporal Grigsby, who had taken over for a dead sergeant in command of third squad, suddenly keeled over, his helmet smashed open, blood vapor boiling out of it — the tell-tale signature of a Martian sniper at work. Everyone hit the ground, their weapons pointing outward, their chatter suddenly filling the airwaves with fearful expletives.

"What the hell is going on?" Ayers demanded.

"Sniper," Callahan replied. "He took out Grigsby on third squad."

"Did you get him?" Ayers asked. "He has to be visible in infrared if he was close enough to shoot someone!"

"Did anyone see a shot?" Callahan asked the platoon at large.

No one had. A few minutes later the word was passed that two of the other platoons looking for two of the other mortar teams had also come under sniper fire and, furthermore, that the snipers in question had both taken out squad leaders.

"Get out of there," Ayers ordered in disgust. "As fast as you can. And don't talk on the frequency unless you absolutely have to."

They got out of there. They didn't talk. No one else shot at them but within ten minutes of leaving the hillsides the mortars began to fly again.

At 0723 a Hummingbird banked in and came to a landing four kilometers from the position Callahan and his platoon had been chased from four hours before. The ramp came down and Lon and his squad descended into the dust cloud formed by the landing. They were moving much slower than normal as each was heavily laden with almost fifty kilograms of weight they didn't normally bring into the field with them. Still they made it clear of the aircraft and into a defensive position in less than forty seconds. The ramp of the aircraft closed and it ascended back into the sky.

"Okay, let's move it," Lon said. "You never know when those Earthlings are going to start hitting the broad side of a greenhouse with their arty."

They got to their feet and lumbered quickly across the flat area, heading for a hill half a kilometer to the south. Sure enough, before they were even halfway there the white streaks of incoming artillery rounds came flying over the hills, trying to intersect with the flare of heat they'd detected with their passive systems. As was usually the case, they weren't even close. The rounds impacted so far away they didn't even see the flashes.

They made it safely to the hill and, after a brief check of the terrain, began to move closer to the marine positions. The sniper/observation teams already in position out here had let them know that no dismounted marines were currently in the neighborhood but you could never be too careful. There was always the miniscule chance that a marine patrol had somehow managed to slip by in the middle of the night without being seen. They walked in a spread out formation, lumbering under the extra weight but cautious, their eyes searching pre-assigned zones for anything that shouldn't be there.

"Charlie-five is just around the next hill," Jefferson reported about two kilometers in. "Close enough for direct-com. Do you want me to try a hail?"

"Yeah, give it a shot," Lon said. He knew that mortar team C-5, who was assigned to this sector, was receiving telemetry showing the location of Lon and his team, but making radio contact was still a good idea. After all, the team had been up all night, shooting and hiding from the marines and they were probably a bit jumpy.

"I got 'em," Jefferson reported a minute later. "They're standing by on the south side of the hill, ready for the meet."

"Static," Lon said. "Let's get over there and get rid of all this shit."

It took them another five minutes to walk around the base of the hill. Though the faith the team held in the invisibility of their biosuits have never been in question since the day the marine hover had passed right over the top of them without seeing them, it still did their hearts good when they stared at the spot where the mortar team was purported to be and saw nothing but rocks and hillside. It was only when the sergeant in charge of the team stood and waved at them, deliberately showing himself, that the illusion of nothingness was spoiled, and then only for that one man.

"That's eerie," Lisa said. "We're only two hundred meters away, he's standing up and he still seems to blend into the background. If I didn't know he was there I wouldn't have noticed him at all."

"Laura Whiting has blessed us with bad-ass military engineers," Lon agreed. "Come on, let's get over there."

As they came closer and closer the other five members of the mortar team became gradually visible one by one, at first just as vague outlines in the visual spectrum and then gradually firming up into human-like shapes. They stepped out from their hiding hole when Lon's team got within twenty meters.

"Lon Fargo, you old dick smoker," said the sergeant in charge of them. "Ain't the fuckin' Earthlings rid the planet of your greasy ass yet?"

"Not yet," Lon replied, stepping closer. "But they've sure as shit been trying. One of them tank shells passed about a meter over my head yesterday. How you doing, Mike?"

Handshakes were difficult to accomplish in a biosuit. The two of them greeted in the manner that had evolved to replace this ancient ritual when out in the field — they banged their right fists together three times.

"I'm tired as a motherfucker," Mike said. "Hungry too. I hear you brought us some breakfast."

"Yep," Lon agreed. "Ten fresh food gel packs, five of them beef paste, five chicken paste. You all can fight over who gets what."

"We've long since gotten over that," Mike said. "They all taste like shit anyway."

"I hear our paste tastes like filet mignon compared to the WestHem paste," one of Mike's men interjected. "They don't even try to flavor theirs. It's just raw nutrients."

"That has to be pretty damn disgusting," Lisa said. "I'm surprised they eat at all."

Mike's men all took a minute to look at Lisa with varying degrees of curiosity. All had heard about the female special forces member, of course, and a few had even met her before, but this was the first time they'd ever seen her out in the field, packing a weapon and lugging a huge equipment bag.

Lisa noticed their perusal. "Yeah, I got tits and a pussy all right," she said sweetly. "Don't I guys?"

"Yep," Jefferson said. "I've seen 'em."

"She is definitely not a boy," Horishito agreed.

Lon simply smiled, amused at the discomfort Lisa was causing the mortar team. "Anyway," he said. "We brought the marines some breakfast too. Sixty eighty millimeter mortar shells, fresh off the Alexander Industries assembly line. Will that hold you until you're relieved?"

"Hope so," Horishito said. "It's all we could fuckin' carry."

"Six apiece?" one of Mike's men said. "Is that all? Hell, we carry ten apiece when we deploy."

"Do you now?" Lisa asked. "And do you carry a twelve kilo anti-tank laser and thirty kilos worth of charging batteries and twelve kilos worth of extra ammunition as well? We sure as shit did."

The man grinned through his helmet. "You seem to fit in with Fargo and his team pretty good, Wong," he said. "No, we don't carry all that, although we do have to carry the actual mortars around. Those weigh a kilo or two."

"Point taken," Lisa said.

"Yes," said Lon, "and if we're done measuring dicks here, how about you guys relieve us of this shit before I get a fuckin' hernia? Where do you want it?"

"Right this way," Mike said. "Let me show you to our supply closet."

He led them along the side of the hill and between a couple of large boulders. There, in the dark recesses behind the larger of the boulders, he lifted a piece of firm plastic imbedded with fake Martian rocks and covered with dust that had blown in. Beneath it was a hole about a meter deep, two meters long, and a meter and a half wide. Twenty or so eighty millimeter shells and a few boxes of ammunition were neatly stacked inside.

"Nice," said Lon as he hefted his pack from his shoulders and set it down on the ground. "You guys dug this yesterday?"

"Took about an hour," Mike confirmed. "Our own hidey holes are about six meters that way." He pointed further along the hill, towards another scattering of boulders. "Those took longer to dig but we were ready for action by the time the sun went down."

"The cover insulation worked as advertised?" Lisa asked, referring to the insulating material that had been developed to keep the heat released from a biosuit from seeping out into the nighttime atmosphere and therefore giving away an underground position.

"Like a charm," he replied. "Ambient temp went up about two degrees every ten minutes when we were sealed inside, that's how well it was keeping the heat from escaping. Around 0330 the Earthlings sent a platoon strength unit in here after us. Some of them were less than ninety meters away and didn't see us."

"That had to have been a bit tense," Lon said.

"When they first showed up it was," Mike said. "I mean, there's six of us and forty of them and we don't even have a SAW out here, just our M-24s. But after a minute or so of looking at them through the periscopes we could see they weren't gonna find us even if they walked right over the top of us. The real tension started when they didn't leave right away, they just kinda stood out there, looking around. If they would've stayed more than an hour enough heat would've built up in our holes to start leaching through the insulation."

"How'd you get rid of them?" Lon asked.

"You know Meyers?" Mike asked.

"Ziff Meyers?"

"That's him," Mike confirmed. "He's our overwatch sniper and our recon guy. He and his observer got their own hidey hole about two clicks south, on top of one of the hills out there. They were the ones feeding us our targeting information last night. They were also the ones who warned us the Earthling dismounts were making a run into the hills. Anyway, they were scanning the transmissions, found the guy who was talking the most, and Ziff put a round right through his fuckin' skull."

"From two klicks?" Horishito said, visibly impressed.

"From two fuckin' klicks," Mike confirmed. "And there was a forty kph wind blowin' too. That is some serious-ass marksmanship there. It was beautiful. I saw the flash from his weapon but only because I knew where to look for it. None of the Earthlings saw shit."

"That's awesome," Lon said. "Do we have any confirmation the guy blabbing his mouth the most is a squad leader?" One coup the marines had managed to score in the conflict was figuring out how the snipers and the other special forces teams were managing to pinpoint their leaders. The job had become somewhat more difficult since they'd started confining their conversations to only one channel while dismounted or while in their APCs. MPG Intelligence had suggested that the more a person talked the more likely it was that he was a leader of some sort.

"We ran the scanner over him," Mike said, referring to the micro-chip reader all MPG units at the squad level and above carried. It was capable of reading the information from the identity chip imbedded in the arm and chest of every WestHem and Martian soldier and transmitting that information via satellite link back to MPG headquarters. The reason for this was to facilitate identification of both enemy and friendly KIAs for purposes of notification under Geneva accords in the case of the former and notification of next of kin in the case of the latter.

"And?" Lon asked.

"Corporal John Grigsby was his name," Mike said with a shrug. "Could be he was just the biggest loudmouth in the platoon or it could be he'd been promoted to squad or even platoon leader because we already got the other leaders in that platoon. We'll probably never know."

"Probably not," Lon agreed, "but Colonel Bright briefed us personally this morning. He says to keep going after the noisy ones."

Mike shrugged again. "I guess it pays to keep your mouth shut in the WestHem marines these days." He turned to his men. "Come on, guys. Let's get these shells stowed so we can get some breakfast and then crash out for a bit."

"You're on stand-down?" Lisa asked.

Mike nodded. "Team echo should be on the ground by the time you get into position. We're gonna catch five hours and then be on station for the afternoon festivities."

"Well don't let us keep you from sleep," Lon said, he turned to his team. "Let's unload, people. And then we can go say a hearty good morning to our WestHem friends."

"Callahan! Callahan, you there?" a voice barked in his helmet. He heard it but didn't respond at first, he couldn't. His fatigued mind was simply too far gone to comprehend that he was supposed to respond.

He grunted once and rolled over, his biosuit pushing into a jagged piece of frame protruding from the smashed APC he was lying against. He began to drift off again.

"Callahan!" the voice barked again. "Jesus Christ, don't tell me they got him now."

The drifting came to an end. His mind snapped back into something approximating functionality and he opened his eyes. He was looking at Martian soil stained with hydraulic fluid and metal fragments. The display in his combat goggles told him it was 1433 hours, less than twenty minutes since blissful unconsciousness had taken him.

"I'm here, cap," he told Ayers. "Sorry, I was trying to catch a nap. What's up?"

"Oh thank God," Ayers said. "I thought I was going to have to replace you with Sergeant Billfold. The orders just came through. All artillery and combat units are refueled and re-armed. We're moving out at 1500. Start loading your platoon into your APCs."

He blinked a few times and then yawned deeply. "Right, cap," he said. "I'll start loading."

While Ayers began barking to Sergeant Billfold on the same channel, telling him to get his platoon moving as well, Callahan rolled over and stood up, his eyes immediately scanning the surrounding hillsides, looking for flying mortar shells or diving Mosquitoes. Everything was quiet. He picked up his M-24, which had been half buried in Martian dust in the twenty minutes he'd been down, and shook it off. He slung it over his shoulder and looked at the landscape around him.

Wrecked APCs were everywhere but were particularly thick around the fueling and resupply trains. Near the center of the formation a morgue of sorts had been set up and dozens, perhaps hundreds of marines were laid side by side awaiting a lull in the fighting so they could be transported back to the LZ and eventually returned to the Panamas for their flag-draped trip homeward. On the east side of the formation, beyond the fueling operation area, a battalion aid station had been set up. Every medivac hover available was constantly coming and going from this position, transporting the many wounded back to the LZ for evac back to orbit. So far the Martians had not attacked any of these hovers, although they had already proven they could take them down as easily as a man could take down a gnat. And surrounding the entire formation like a ring were the tanks. At last count there were still 3034 of them, not including the supply train transport tanks. That was twelve less than they had left the LZ with and those twelve had been lost due to mechanical malfunction, not enemy fire. The Martians had not killed a single main battle tank in this entire conflict. Again, this was something that should have comforted Callahan, should have made him feel this war was in the bag once they went head to head. But again, he didn't feel better, he felt a nervous sense of doom at the curious disinterest the Martian showed for WestHem heavy armor.

They're not afraid of our tanks, his mind insisted on whispering to him. We outnumber them ten to one in heavy armor and they just don't give a shit. Why?

He didn't know, couldn't begin to imagine. The very idea of not putting tanks at the top of the priority of targets list was so foreign to conventional military thinking that attempts to find reason behind it died for lack of something to grasp onto. Nor was that the only thing the Martians were ignoring. All six hundred of the self-propelled 150 millimeter artillery guns were still intact as well, without a single Martian laser being fired at a single one of them. These were the guns that would be ripping up their prepared infantry positions in the Jutfield Gap in a few hours, that would be killing the ground troops within those trenches. Why weren't the Martians trying to take them out? Why were they sending their air assets and their special forces teams after simple foot soldiers and the APCs that carried them? What did they hope gain by it?

"Oh, and Callahan," Ayers said, "I'm sending twelve more men over to your platoon. You'll need to find room for them in your APCs."

"What?" Callahan responded. "Twelve more men? What the hell?"

"The Martians knocked out a bunch of empty APCs down here. There's not enough to transport everyone at one squad per vehicle anymore. Just cram them in and make them part of your platoon."

Callahan sighed. Though his platoon was understrength again — four men had been killed and two wounded — they were also down an APC. It had been blown to pieces around 1300 today as the driver had been moving it to the fueling station. "Okay," he replied, knowing that argument was futile. He would just have to have a few guys sit on each other's laps. Such was war. "Send 'em over."

They did not move out at 1500 as scheduled. It took until almost 1600 just to get everyone loaded up — the process hampered by continuing air attacks from Mosquitoes, continuing laser attacks from the hills, and, just for good measure, the occasional sniper attack which usually befell someone of command rank.

At last, at 1648, the tanks began to roll, forming up into their far from impervious barrier along the formation's left flank. The APCs formed up next, still in ranks of eight but with more space between them. The artillery units formed up in ranks of ten behind this, their positions protected by a ring of tanks and anti-air vehicles. The dust cloud formed and began to blow northeastward, on the prevailing winds. Behind the formation the pale Martian sun sank towards the horizon.

At 2015 hours that night the lead units of the formation marching on Eden crossed an invisible line in the sand. They were now exactly one hundred kilometers from their target city's western edge. This meant they were now in range of the fixed heavy artillery guns that protected the approaches to Eden's most vulnerable side.

These guns had been the subject of much derision on the part of Earthling military officers and analysts during the MPG's formative years and beyond. Each gun was a huge behemoth that crewed fifteen and fired shells that were 250 millimeters in diameter, two meters in length, and weighed three hundred kilograms. These shells could be fired up to one hundred kilometers through the thin Martian atmosphere and against the weak Martian gravity. As impressive as this all sounded, the guns were thought to be next to useless in a modern military conflict. Heavy artillery was a thing of the past, made obsolete by the advent of airpower and cruise missiles back in the post-World War II era. What good was a heavy gun if it could simply be destroyed by airpower long before any targets it could hope to engage came into range? But now it was the airpower that had been destroyed — all of the hovers set to streak in low and plaster the sites with eighty millimeter armor-piercing shells and high intensity laser blasts had been dropped onto the Martian soil. The guns still stood. Every last one of them — twenty in all covering Eden.

Commanders began watching the night sky nervously, braced for an onslaught of high-explosive heavy shells to come arcing over the horizon into their midst. They wondered what effect this would have. In pre-war planning no one had ever considered, even as a remote possibility, that these guns would not be neutralized. As such, no one had ever taken the time to research just what the guns were capable of. How accurate were they? What was their rate of fire? Most of all, what kind of damage could they inflict on an APC? With 150mm guns — the standard artillery weapon of EastHem, WestHem, and the Martians — it would take a direct hit with an armor piercing shell atop one of the armored vehicles to destroy it. Was this also the case with the 250mm? Or would a near-miss be sufficient? No one knew, but they were all convinced they would soon be finding out.

But a strange thing happened as they crossed the invisible one hundred kilometer mark one by one and rolled onward. The Mosquito attacks continued as the walls of the valley gradually began to narrow inward, funneling them toward the twenty-five kilometer wide Jutfield Gap, but no heavy shells appeared. Not a single one.

As had been the case with Callahan earlier, this seemingly favorable development was met with more unease than anything else. Why did the Martians pay all of that money to design, engineer, install, equip, and arm these guns, why did they have more than five hundred men who might otherwise have been put on the front line trained and operating these guns if they weren't going to use them?

"Counter-battery fire," a few marines were heard to suggest. "Maybe they think they can take our arty out with them."

This suggestion was almost universally scoffed at. WestHem artillery units used the tried and true "shoot and scoot" technique when engaging targets. This meant that each battery of guns would fire three rounds apiece and then quickly move to another location before counter-battery units could bring down answering fire upon them. With six hundred guns firing just for the Eden assault alone, at least one battalion could be firing at any given time while the others were in motion. This was enough to insure a constant barrage would be falling on the Martian positions while keeping the marine guns safe from any form of counter-battery fire, whether they were heavy fixed guns or the Martians own 150mm mobile guns.

No, the consensus was, the marine artillery units had nothing to fear from the Martian 250s. There had to be another reason for the lack of engagement. Maybe, some of the higher-ups in the chain of command suggested, the damn guns didn't even work. After all, they were designed, built, and operated by a bunch of greenies, weren't they?

When they closed to within twenty-five kilometers of the Jutfield Gap the tanks pulled away from the left flank of the formation and the bulk of them moved back to the front, forming the vanguard for the coming assault on the Martian positions. Once in position, they stopped, engines idling. The APCs then spread out into assault positions behind them. They too stopped. In the rear, some five kilometers back, the six hundred guns of the artillery began to spread out as well, setting up to begin their bombardment of the Martian infantry positions.

In APC number 34-A17-06, near the center of the formation, Callahan was in the commander's seat, his helmeted head in his hands, his eyes tracking over the telemetry on his screen that showed the location of his platoon and the rest of his company. He was as tired as he ever remembered being, having gotten less than fifteen minutes of sleep since they'd pulled away from the re-fuel point. His mind was having trouble processing information, making decisions. Even reciting the alphabet in correct order seemed a challenge.

"Platoon leaders," said Captain Ayers' voice in his headset. "Switch over to command-five. Acknowledge."

That brought Callahan awake a little more. Switch over to a command channel? That would mean he would be broadcasting on more than one frequency. That was how the Martians got you!

"Henderson acknowledging," said Sergeant Henderson, who was commanding first platoon.

"Stagway acknowledging," said the voice of a former corporal who was now a recently field-promoted sergeant who was now commanding an entire platoon because all of the other sergeants were dead.

"Billfold acknowledging," said Sergeant Billfold, who had been third sergeant in fourth platoon before the lieutenant and the first two sergeants had bought it.

Jesus, Callahan thought to himself in horrified wonder, we're supposed to fight with this bunch? I don't even know their fucking names!

"Callahan, you there?" Ayers enquired, clearly irritated with the lack of response.

"Uh... sorry, cap," he said. "I was having some problems with my transmit key. Is it safe to switch up to a command channel?"

"It's only the Martian ground units that go after us based on multiple radio frequencies," Ayers told him. "And it's night now so they're not currently operating. Well... they're not firing at us anyway. Besides, we're gonna need to switch back to multi-frequency operations when we go into head-to-head combat. There's no way we can run a full scale battle with all of us talking on the same channel."

"Oh... okay then," Callahan said, too wasted to question this wisdom. "Switching to command-five."

Once everyone had made the switch Ayers wasted little time on idle chitchat. "We've acquired some fresh overheads of our first objective area," he said. A second later the computer beeped, indicating a successful download. "These shots were taken about thirty minutes ago by an AA-71 launched from the Nebraska up in orbit. It managed to get through the Martian combat space patrol and into position. The crew captured the shot and were able to transmit the telemetry back to Nebraska before Martian spacecraft destroyed them."

Callahan woke up a little at the prospect of seeing some up-to-date intelligence on what they would soon be facing. This was a commodity that had been in woefully short supply so far. The ships up in orbit were not in the right position to take close-up shots of the operational areas. They had no satellites in orbit to peer down with. They had no hovers to send on recon flights. Reconnaissance probes were usually engaged and blown to pieces by Martian Space Guard F-22s the moment they entered the envelope of Martian controlled space. Even the mighty AA-71 Falcons — the atmospheric attack craft launched from the Californias which were capable of diving down into the Martian atmosphere and hitting targets on the surface with high energy lasers — recorded nearly fifty percent losses every time they attempted a recon mission, whether they were escorted by fighters or not. This was so high of a number that Admiral Jules had stopped sending them. In short, intelligence had been nearly blinded to what the Martians were doing at their defensive lines ever since establishing orbit.

"Open download," Callahan told his computer.

A second later his screen filled with a high resolution shot of the Jutfield Gap and the area surrounding it. It was a night shot with the features of interest visible in the infrared spectrum. The marking on the shot indicated it had been taken from an altitude of seventy thousand meters above ground level.

"As you can see from the shot," Ayers said, "there are approximately three regiments of armored cavalry deployed through the gap. Tanks and APCs are spaced pretty evenly between the low hillsides."

"Three regiments?" Callahan asked. "I thought they only had two manned ACR units assigned to Eden."

"Intelligence has confirmed through their network of loyalists on the planet that at some point the Martians did manage to successfully unload the armored vehicles and equipment from the pre-positioned Panamas that belonged to the fast reaction division. It appears they deployed some of those armored vehicles to the Eden theater of operations and formed a new armored cav regiment with them."

"Where'd they get the staffing?" Billfold asked.

"Their recruitment efforts during our travel time apparently were successful enough to provide this staffing. However their training time was less than ten weeks. Estimates are that at least one of these ACRs are staffed almost completely with new recruits."

"They're throwing people out to the slaughter," Henderson said.

"Indeed they are," Ayers said. "We're told that a lot of these new recruits might be young kids, elderly, even women."

"Women?" said Stagway with contempt. "Are you shitting, cap?"

"Intelligence tells us that the Martians are so desperate for recruits that they're even conscripting women," Ayers confirmed. "Don't let that soften you up though. There were plenty of women shooting guns at us in Salta, right Callahan?"

"Damn right," Callahan agreed. "You just put 'em down like anyone else."

"Not that you would be able to tell which were the women or the kids or the old people anyway," Ayers said. "If they pick up arms against you, you kill them. That's the rule. In any case, division command feels that the most likely outcome once we engage will be a complete collapse of their lines and a disorganized retreat. This will probably occur once the artillery starts to fall on them, which should be in less than twenty minutes now."

"Thank God," Billfold said.

"Amen to that," said Henderson.

"In any case," Ayers went on, "we need to make preparations for our assault in the unlikely event that the Martians do manage to hold through the artillery and the tank assault. So let's go over our area of operation. Look at grid 17-A. As you can see, it is mostly flat plain dotted with areas of raised elevation ranging anywhere from thirty to one hundred meters above mean ground level. The Martian tanks and APCs are in prepared positions in the gaps between these hills and their dismounted infantry are in prepared positions atop the hills. We can see the armored vehicles and get an accurate count of them but apparently the Martians have some sort of overhead cover on their dismount positions. We can tell they're manned by the heat escaping from them but we can't get a count on personnel or weaponry from the overheads. What is plain to see, however, is that this is the ideal place for our foe to make a first stand against us — or so it would seem to them. These hills in the gap provide them with overlapping fields of fire of both small arms and man-portable anti-armor weapons."

"If we engage them head to head we're gonna take some pretty good casualties before we push them off those hills," Callahan said, looking at the shimmer of heat that stretched from one end of the gap to the other.

"True," agreed Ayers. "That is why we're not going to be engaging them head to head. The artillery is going to pound them for at least an hour before any of the other units even move into range. If they don't surrender or flee from that — or if they're not all killed from the bombardment — the tanks will move in next and destroy their tanks and APCs and then mop up any survivors in the dismount positions with their main guns. At that point we will move in and occupy the ground."

"Seems simple enough," said Henderson.

"Yeah," said Callahan, the uneasy feeling coming on him again. "But so has everything else so far and it's yet to turn out that way. What about their artillery?"

"The approaches to the gap are within range of both their heavy guns and their mobile 150s," Ayers said. "However, once our artillery units pound the shit out of their trenches, they're going to move up for counter-battery fire of the Martian artillery. We should be able to take those hills without too much of a problem. After the gap, the terrain widens out considerably, allowing us more room to maneuver."

"All right," said Stagway, confidence in his voice. "Looks like this thing is finally starting to turn around."

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than a flight of Mosquitoes came in from the hillsides to the south and blasted four APCs into oblivion. The first to fall was the one that held Stagway and the squad with him.

The dance of the WestHem marine's artillery battalions was an intricate and well-rehearsed affair. They spread out all across the valley, forming up by battery, each of which contained six guns. The commanders in charge of each battery had a map on their screen which indicated firing positions they were to head to after each firing sequence. Each battery had more than twenty such positions pre-programmed in as waypoints on the navigation screen. Their doctrine commanded they fire three rounds apiece and then immediately begin moving to the next waypoint. At the same time they were to begin moving, another battery somewhere else would begin firing on the same target.

In all, more than three thousand men were directly involved in the artillery operation for the Eden theater alone. At 2145 hours all six hundred guns were in their initial positions, their barrels elevated and ready to begin firing, their order of firing and their initial target info on their screens. They were only waiting the command to go before they started unleashing 150mm high explosive shells towards their primary targets: the entrenched ground troops of the greenie ACRs in the Jutfield Gap. Utilizing the latest recon shots from the AA-71 and matching them to their existing maps and existing positions, they were finally, for the first time, able to have confidence that their rounds would actually land within twenty or thirty meters of where they wanted them. The rounds they were to fire were a mixture of fused shells that would explode twenty meters above the ground and penetrating shells that would lodge into the ground before exploding. To a man the artillery units thought that they were the ones who would begin dealing some payback to the greenies that had tormented the corps for so long.

Unbeknownst to anyone currently in biosuits below, including the Martians in their trenches and armored vehicles, five tiny aircraft were circling eight thousand meters above the battlefield. The aircraft were called "peepers" by the Martians who operated them and they were each less than three hundred millimeters in length, with a wingspan of one meter. Unmanned, of course, and powered by electric batteries that turned a four-bladed propeller, the aircraft were constructed of radar-absorbent, heat-dampening material that made them completely invisible to any electronic detection device in possession of the enemy at the height at which they operated. Each was equipped with a high resolution infrared camera, a high resolution visual camera, and a directional radio antenna which could transmit a tight, encrypted beam to either a communications satellite or a receiver dish high atop the Agricorp Building.

Monitoring the real-time take from each of these aircraft were the FDCs, or fire direction centers, for the MPG 5th Heavy Artillery Battalion. There were twenty of the 250-millimeter guns divided into five batteries of four guns apiece. Thus, each FDC was responsible for directing the rounds for four of the guns. All five of the FDC teams were located in the same building, deep within the Eden MPG base. The actual FDC officers were captains — all of them long-time members of the MPG — overseen by a lieutenant colonel who had overall command of the battalion.

Captain Rod Resin was in charge of the 3rd Battery of the 5th Heavy Artillery Battalion. He sat at his terminal staring at the images on his screen, touching each grid that contained a marine 150mm battery and marking its location. He too began assigning an order of fire, as did his three counterparts.

Atop Hill 657 in the Jutfield Gap, Jeff Waters came slowly awake as he heard the volume of chatter on the tactical channel pick up. He yawned, stretched a little, and looked around, seeing nothing but blackness and vague shapes around him and stars shining overhead. It was full dark outside, which meant he'd been asleep at least three hours. The fullness of his bladder told him it had been more like four or five. He tapped the control panel on his leg and brought his combat goggles into infrared mode. Instantly the occupants of the trench became visible, as did the time display in the upper right corner of his view. It was 2149 hours. Almost five hours since he'd nodded off.

The trench they occupied was more than just a simple ditch dug in the rocky ground, it was somewhat of an engineering marvel in its own right. Sixty meters long and staffed with both first and second platoon, it curved and twisted along the summit of the hill and was liberally stuffed with extra ammunition, food gel packs, and waste packs, both used and new. The front of the trench, which faced the wastelands where the enemy would be coming from, was protected by a triple layer of heavy sandbags full of industrial shavings and cemented together with polymer glue. In front of this, buried beneath the soil, was a barrier of dense concrete designed to channel the blasts from penetrating artillery shells upward instead of inward. The trench itself had been dug so the bottom of it angled downward and inward, underneath the protective sandbags and concrete. This would prevent shrapnel from airbursts from reaching the troops during an artillery barrage. This was just one of more than three thousand similar trenches constructed at the approaches to all the Martian cities in the first ten years of the MPG's operations.

"How was your beauty sleep?" asked Hicks, who was manning the SAW position two meters to Waters' left.

"Static," Jeff said, standing up and stretching out. This allowed him to look out through the opening in the sandbags he was assigned to and view the terrain where they would soon be doing battle. It was empty out there as it had always been, even on high magnification, but there was something new, something ominous showing in the air beyond the horizon. There were flows and eddies of dark blue streaming upward into the sky and slowly dissipating, thousands of them, some brighter than other, some longer lasting than others. "What the fuck is that?" he asked.

"The little blue streamers?" asked Hicks.

"Yeah."

"It's the fuckin' Earthlings, man," he said. "We started seeing that about an hour ago."

"The Earthlings?"

"It's the heat rising into the air from thousands of armored vehicles just over the horizon," said Sergeant Walker, their squad leader. "We can't see them yet, but they're less than thirty klicks away, forming up to move in on us."

The knowledge of what was causing the phenomenon made it seem even more ominous. He had been in this trench for thirty-eight hours now, peeing into a relief tube, shitting into a waste-pack, drinking processed water and eating food gel and looking out at a whole lot of nothing but now the reality that he was actually going to be in battle soon — real battle, not just another training battle — struck home to him. With this revelation game the logical extension of it. I could die out here. I'm only nineteen years old and I could be dead in the next twelve hours.

He shuddered a little and quickly sat down so he wouldn't have to look at it anymore.

"You okay?" Hicks asked him.

"Yeah," Jeff said. "Just need to take a shit, that's all."

"Oh, for the love of Laura Whiting," said a female voice in his headset. That was Private Cynthia Drogan, one of the other new recruits to the 17th ACR. She was on the other side of Hicks, her M-24 gripped against her chest. "What is up with you guys and the need to announce your bodily functions for all of us to hear? Can't you just do your business quietly and not talk about it like a civilized human being?"

"Want me to leave my comm link open so you can hear the grunts?" asked Jeff, who knew that Drogan's chiding was mostly good-natured.

"No," she said firmly, "and you can also spare us the description of the consistency, length, and liquidity of your stool as well, thank you very much."

Jeff smiled and flipped off the transmit button on his comm link. He let go with a stream of urine, which was sucked down a condom catheter attached to his penis, through a hose, and into the suit's liquid waste storage system where the water in it would be recycled and dumped into his drinking reservoir and the rest of the compounds would be shipped to the solid waste pack mounted just below his right leg. He then assumed the defecation position, which was a sitting position with the pelvis suspended slightly off the ground. A flip of a button on his suit and a custom-molded suction cup device pressed itself over his anal opening, forming somewhat of a seal. A vacuum began to run from within the suit creating a sensation that Jeff found disturbingly unpleasant but that others admitted — usually under the influence of alcohol — to enjoying greatly. He grunted, pushing with the proper muscles and voided himself for the better part of three minutes, the waste material moving down the hose and into the storage pack. When he was finished with his business a warning indicator in his combat goggles lit up, letting him know that the solid waste reservoir was now eighty-six percent full and that he should change it. This he did, opening the compartment on his leg and removing the old. He tossed it into a pile of other used packs and retrieved an empty one from another pile. He plugged it in and then closed the compartment once again.

"Did you wash your hands?" Hicks asked him when he was done.

"Hell yeah," Jeff replied. "Didn't you see me?"

"Disgusting," said Drogan. "Men are all disgusting pigs."

"Is that why you only eat tuna casserole, Drogan?" Hicks asked her.

"I don't only eat tuna casserole," she replied. "It's just my preference. I like a good beefsteak every now and then too."

"Yeah?" Jeff asked, surprised. He had thought she was a strict lesbian.

"Yeah," she confirmed, "although I must admit I prefer it with a little tuna on the side, if you know what I mean."

Laughter filled the channel for a few seconds and then slowly petered away. Before someone else could make another joke and keep it going, Sergeant Walker asked for everyone's attention.

"Uh oh," said Jeff. "That must mean something's about to go down."

"Actually," said Walker, "something is about to come down. Namely, artillery on top of our fuckin' heads. The LT just got the word from battalion that the marine artillery units are in position and appear to be readying for the preliminary barrage against us."

"Oh great," moaned Hicks. "The moment we've all been waiting for."

"Indeed," Walker said. "And there's some more bad news to go along with it. The WestHem navy managed to get a recon ship through our fighters and it was able to take some shots of the deployment area and transmit them back. Intel estimates that they might have got a clear enough shot to zero in their guns with. There's at least a fifty percent chance their arty might actually be accurate."

Everyone pondered this information for a moment with varying degrees of fear and trepidation.

"They have six hundred guns out there?" asked Jeff. "I know these trenches are designed to take a beating, but can they withstand a prolonged barrage of accurate artillery?"

"That's never been tested," Walker said. "Obviously, if enough fire is concentrated on a particular spot though, the integrity of the trenches will have to fail at some point."

"Wow," said Drogan. "You got any more encouraging words for us, sarge?"

"I'm told that the marine artillery will be quickly neutralized," Walker said. "That comes directly from Colonel Martin himself."

"How the fuck are they gonna neutralize six hundred guns?" asked Hicks.

"They didn't share their plans with me," Walker said. "But my guess would be our heavy artillery battalion will have something to do with it."

"The 250s?" asked Jeff. "Can they shoot them things a hundred klicks and have them come down close enough to hit the marine guns?"

"In theory they can," Walker replied. "If someone is directing the fire for them."

"Like the special forces teams?"

Walker sounded a little doubtful about this. "There would have to be a lot of special forces teams in order to do that. From ground level they wouldn't be able to see all of the guns, much less accurately graph their location."

"Then how the fuck are they gonna do it?" Hicks demanded.

"We'll just have to wait and see," Waters said. "Everyone man your positions for now. The moment you see shells coming in, we get our asses down in the bombardment position. Get it?"

Everyone got it.

Captain Resin looked at his screen, seeing that the enemy 150mm guns in his sector of responsibility were still just sitting there, not moving, not firing. They were probably waiting for it to be exactly 2200 hours. One of the things EastHem and WestHem were both quite fond of was having battles start exactly on the hour. This was for no other reason than it looked good when written up in the Internet news files. That was just fine with Resin though. Having the targets sit still made his job infinitely easier. Now it was time to see if all of the expense and man-hours that went into these heavy guns had been worth it. It not, the poor slobs in the trenches out there were really going to catch hell.

"All units are ready," came the voice of Colonel Standish, who was monitoring the take from all five peepers from his terminal at the back of the room. "On my mark, commence firing and fire at will."

Resin opened the link that allowed him to communicate with the men and women of his battery. "Prepare to commence firing," he told them, knowing, of course, that they were already prepared.

The actual guns were located half a kilometer outside the base wall, spread out over an area nearly a kilometer in length. Large concrete and steel reinforced structures housed each gun mechanism and protected the crew inside from casual bombardment or counter-battery fire from 150mm guns if they happened to be in range. The barrels of each gun were thirteen meters in length and, when not in use, could be lowered down into their own concrete reinforced shells to protect them from erosion by the constantly blowing Martian sand. Currently all of the barrels were elevated, pointing to the west, and aligned perfectly to launch their first shots at their first targets. Each of the gun positions were connected to the base itself by an underground tunnel system eight meters in diameter. Through these tunnels the crews were able to move to their positions, retreat from them in case of attack or destructive accident, and, most importantly, a constant stream of shells could be moved to the guns via a conveyer belt that led to the storage area inside the base.

Lieutenant Rich Hotbox was in command of Gun-1, in Captain Resin's battery. He, like all the rest of the gun crews, was dressed in a biosuit with a specially reinforced helmet that would provide hearing protection against the tremendous decibel levels the exploding propellant in the shells would produce. He checked the positioning of his crew one last time — they had loaded the first of the shells into the breech and had all stepped back the required two meters from the mechanism — and then checked the positioning of his barrel on last time. The numbers for his azimuth and elevation matched exactly the targeting information sent to him by command. The gun was ready to fire. All he needed now was the order to do it.

That order came a few seconds later. There was no dramatic speech to along with it, just the simple words from Captain Resin: "Commence firing. Stay on initial targets until told to switch."

"Okay, guys," Hotbox told his crew on the tactical channel. "This is it. Gun is firing now." With that he reached down and flipped up a guard on a simple red button. Without hesitation he put his finger on it and pushed it. A signal moved from the button, through a series of wires and switches, and caused a relay to close in the gun itself. A simple electric charge then ignited a primer in the self-contained shell. The primer ignited the main propellant charge and it exploded with a tremendous bang, propelling the shell out of the barrel on a gout of flame bright enough to momentarily turn the surrounding night brighter than daylight.

"Shot's off," Hotbox said. "Reload sequence."

Two members of the gun crew stepped forward and opened the breech of the weapon. Thin streamers of white smoke drifted out as they reached in and removed the ten kilogram shell casing and rolled it onto the other side of the conveyer where it would eventually make its way back to the base for recycling. The unload team stepped immediately back and the load team stepped forward. There were three of them. One moved a lever allowing the next shell to slide forward and roll into a hydraulic loading tray. Another then activated the hydraulic controls and lifted the shell up, allowing it to roll into the breech. The third then slammed the breech shut and locked it, causing a green light to appear on Hotbox's panel. The team then stepped back beyond the safety margin.

"All clear," said the corporal in charge of the reload team. His words came out less than fifteen seconds after the first shell had been launched.

Hotbox made a brief visual check to make sure everyone really was clear and then said, "gun is firing." He pushed the button again.

"Holy shit, look at that!" an excited voice — it sounded like Drogan — suddenly barked over the tactical channel. It was quickly followed up by other such sentiments.

Jeff wasn't sure what everyone was talking about at first — he had been watching the eastern horizon and those eerie heat tendrils drifting into the air — and then he looked upward and saw the white streaks flying through the sky in groups of four. They moved rapidly from behind, arcing over the top of them and heading off into the distance where they disappeared from sight over the horizon.

"Those are 250s," said Sergeant Walker. "No doubt about it. Nothing else could move like that."

"They're going after the WestHem arty," Hicks said. "That has to be what they're doing."

"Yep," Walker agreed. "The question is, will they be able to hit them?"

Colonel Steve Dallas was in ultimate command of the WestHem artillery battalions in the Eden theater of operations. His command post was a standard APC packed with computer and communications equipment instead of infantry troops. He was located near the rear of the artillery positions, guarded by two anti-air vehicles and two platoons of tanks. He had been watching the clock in the corner of his main display, waiting for it to be precisely 2200 hours so he could begin unleashing explosive death upon the greenies, when the cries of "incoming!" began to sound over his radio link. He looked at the screen in which an outside view, enhanced by infrared, was being displayed. He immediately saw the incoming shells and saw they were heading directly for his guns. This did not immediately worry him. After all, the shells might land in their midst but they had traveled almost a hundred kilometers to get here and they would have to land very close to one of his guns in order to damage it. His gun platforms, after all, were almost as well armored as an APC.

The first volley came down, the shells exploding one by one with tremendous flashes of light, smoke, and flying dust. Dallas began to feel alarmed when he saw that groups of the shells were landing very close together, not all over the field as he'd expected. No sooner had the dust started to settle when more cries of "incoming!" began to sound and more shells came streaking in over the horizon. He looked at his main display, which showed the location and status of each gun and was horrified to see that three of his batteries had been hit, with a total of nine guns no longer transmitting telemetry to him. The second volley of shells came down and six more guns stopped transmitting as well.

"Shit," he said, noting that a third volley of shells was even now appearing over the horizon. He keyed his transmit button. "All batteries, move to your next positions and commence firing immediately. They've got us dialed in! Displace and begin fire and movement procedures!"

"Units are in motion," Captain Resin said as he saw the targets suddenly begin moving. "Cease fire. I repeat — cease fire."

The guns of his battery stopped firing, the crews taking the opportunity to blast a cleaning charge through them to clear out the propellant debris. Resin continued to look at the live video feed from the peeper circling above his area of operation. He could see the hot spots of more than six destroyed gun platforms and identified at least four more that appeared to be damaged beyond the ability to fire shells. Yes, the 250mm shells were working well. Fused to explode a mere eight meters above the ground, if they detonated within fifteen to twenty meters of a gun, it was enough to kill it or at least heavily damage it. But the easy kills had now come to an end. Now the trick would be to train the guns on a WestHem battery the moment it came to a halt and began to set up to fire. To wait any longer would mean the battery would fire its three rounds and be moving again before the heavy shells could reach it.

His eyes stayed glued to the tiny red machines as they circled and turned. He watched as a battery formed up into a line and stopped. Ignoring everything else on the screen he quickly drew a circle around the six weapons and told the computer to lock it. Using known navigational points on the mapping software — points that had been dialed in long before with GPS data — the computer triangulated the circle from four such points and came up with a position fix that would be accurate to within a meter. A set of coordinates appeared on Resin's screen and he immediately transmitted these coordinates to his gun battery.

"Targeting info shipped," he told the gun crews. "Guns adjusting."

The firing computer in each gun took the targeting information, combined it with other information it was being fed from the Eden Climatological Department regarding current winds, atmospheric pressure, and humidity and came up with an azimuth and elevation reading for each gun to put their shells on that target area. This took less than six tenths of a second to accomplish. The actual movement of the gun barrels took a little longer — almost eight seconds. Once in position the targeting data on Resin's screen turned green, as it did on each gun commander's screen.

"Fire," Resin ordered.

The four guns of his battery began to fire once more. Resin watched the screen as they did so, paying particular attention to the six guns he'd targeted. While waiting for his shells to begin landing he noticed that many of the other WestHem guns in his view had begun their own barrages. Flash after flash filled his screen and he saw the smaller streaks of the 150mm shells heading east. He hoped the ground troops he was here to protect would be able to stand up to it for a little while.

The guns he had targeted managed to get off one volley of their own before his shells began to come down. They came in less than a second apart, two of them landing within the circle he'd drawn on the screen, the other two landing just outside of it. The flashes overwhelmed the infrared spectrum for a few seconds but when it cleared he saw that two of the guns had been blown to pieces and one other appeared to have had its barrel blown off. The remaining three guns continued to fire and got two more shots off before the second volley of shells came flying in. This time all four shells landed in the circle. When the spectrum cleared two more enemy guns were completely destroyed and one more was damaged.

"Yes," Resin said, smiling to himself. "I think this just might work."

Meanwhile, in their trench in the Jutfield Gap, Jeff Waters and the rest of his platoon had no idea of the successes the heavy guns were having against their foe. All they knew is that death seemed quite imminent. The WestHem gunners had indeed managed to get some accurate targeting information or they were just getting really goddamn lucky because the shells were exploding all around them. The entire trench would shake with each near-hit, causing dust and pebbles to come cascading down, sending concussions blasting through their bodies even through the protection of the biosuits. The shells made no sound as they came in since the Martian air was too thin to produce or carry such a noise so there was no warning that a close shellburst was approaching, nothing until the explosion itself.

"Oh yeah," said Hicks after a particularly violent concussion rocked them, his voice flirting with terror, "this is what I signed up for. How about you, Waters?"

"Shut your ass," Jeff told him, cowering as close to the front of the trench as possible. Several times he'd heard shell fragments bouncing off the walls behind him.

Uncharacteristically, Hicks did as requested. The explosions boomed on for another minute or two and then suddenly ceased, at least over the top of them. They could still hear the faint concussions of other shells landing on other trenches though.

"Why'd they stop?" someone asked.

"They didn't," Walker said. "They've just shifted target for the time being. They'll get back to us. Don't worry."

"Great," Jeff said. "How long will this go on?"

"If we don't neutralize their guns it will keep going on until they actually have ground troops climbing this hill."

Nobody had anything to say to that.

Jeff linked his combat goggles to a small periscope camera that was installed at the top of the trench. The view around him disappeared and was replaced with a view of the outside. As he turned his head from direction to direction, the camera turned as well letting him see the entire battle area in infrared glory. "Wow," he whispered in awe. "Now that is some shit."

He could see the streaks of hundreds of incoming artillery shells flying in from the west and impacting on or about the various hills through the Jutfield Gap. He could also see the larger, though less numerous streaks of outgoing shells, passing above and through the WestHem streaks, as the MPG heavy guns continued to provide counter-battery fire.

There was a beep in his headset and an icon suddenly appeared in his display, indicating someone had just sent him a text message. He opened it and saw it was from Private Xenia Stoner. She and the rest of her tank crew were down in the gap between this hilltop position and the one to the northwest. He was gratified to see it was addressed only to him.

HOW ARE YOU DOING UP THERE? ANY CASUALTIES? X

He got rid of the outside view and called up his keyboard control, which generated an image of a computer panel in the air between his legs. He quickly typed out: HANGING IN HERE SO FAR. TRENCH IS HOLDING UP. YOU? He addressed it and sent it off. A few moments later the reply came back.

STILL DOWN HERE GUARDING YOUR NAKED ASSES. IT'S WHAT WE DO.

Outside of Eden the battle of the artillery went on for another forty minutes. The heavy shells continued to come down and destroy the WestHem mobile guns, in each case within a minute of the battery in question stopping to set up their next firing position. It took Colonel Dallas almost fifteen minutes and the loss of more than forty of his guns before he realized he was not dealing with simple counter-battery fire here. The greenie gunners were not using the path of his guns shells to aim their own shells, someone, somewhere was feeding them horrifyingly accurate positioning information. But how? Simple observation teams couldn't possibly be close enough to discern every gun and its exact positioning, nor could satellites in orbit. That left something in the air, something circling above? But what? It couldn't be a Mosquito or a Hummingbird. Though those aircraft were stealthy at ground level during the day there was no way in hell one could circle unobserved above the top of them at night. No way in hell!

Nevertheless he ordered his anti-air assets to scour the sky above and to shoot at anything that showed even the smallest trace of heat. And, of course, the gunners saw nothing, found nothing to shoot at, and his artillery guns, the guns that were supposed to blast open the greenie line and send them reeling back to Eden in disarray, continued to fall victim to 250mm shells at the rate of four or five every two minutes.

At the same time, however, the remaining WestHem guns continued to fire their volleys at their targets and their shells continued to land. Most of these shells landed just a bit off target, showering the back side or the front side of the hills with shrapnel. Of those that were on target, most of these had their energy absorbed by the engineering of the Martian protective positions. But some did get through and the MPG began to experience their first real casualties of the war.

On Hill 703, two kilometers south of Jeff Waters' position, one of the penetrating shells came down with odds-defying perfection and passed right through a gap in the sandbags and into the manned trench. It blew the top off the trench, hurtling sandbags and concrete shrapnel more than twenty meters in the air. Sixteen infantry troops were killed instantly, another twenty-three horribly wounded.

On Hill 598, on the northern end of the gap, two shells landed close enough to the front of the trench to open the concrete that guarded it. Six infantry troops were killed here and eight wounded.

On the other hills through the gap another three soldiers were killed and four were wounded by lucky shrapnel that managed to enter a trench at the right angle and strike someone within.

And, in the gap between Hill 577 and Hill 715, another lucky shot just happened to land directly atop an APC that was guarding the gap, exploding it and killing the two crew members inside.

The wounded in the trenches were evacuated in the same manner that the troops themselves planned on retreating when the time came. Each trench system had been built with an escape trench leading out the back of the hill. They were carried out and down the hill where medivac hovers and the medic teams that accompanied them could haul them back to the LZ. This exposed both the medics and the hovers to errant shellfire but they were lucky and only three injuries, one death, and one damaged hover resulted. The wounded were returned to Eden where dip-hoes transported them to nearby hospitals. In most cases, the casualties were under the care of a surgical team less than forty-five minutes after being hit. As for the dead, there was nothing that could be done about them at the moment. Their weapons and ammunition were stripped off of them, their identities were scanned and transmitted to MPG headquarters, and their bodies were moved out of the way. They would have to wait to be recovered until later.

Though it was hours past his normal bedtime, General Wrath was wide awake and listening with growing horror and disbelief at the reports that were coming in from all four of the greenie cities under attack.

"How in the hell are they doing it?" he demanded of Major Wilde. "How can they put down such accurate heavy artillery fire from more than eighty kilometers?"

"We don't know, sir," Wilde replied, fighting to remain calm himself. "What's obvious though is that someone is directing their fire in real time. The only batteries that get hit are the ones that have just stopped to set up their next firing position. None of it is counter-battery fire. Intelligence is clueless about how they're doing it other than to tell us there's no way a ground-based observer or observers could direct such a large and accurate volume of fire."

"That leaves the air," Wrath said. "But you're telling me there's nothing up there."

"No sir," Wilde said. "With all due respect, I said there's nothing up there we can see. My best guess is the Martians are utilizing some sort of stealthy, remotely controlled vehicle to beam telemetry back to their FDC officers. It's probably something too small and flying too high to show up on our screens."

"So there's nothing we can do about it?" Wrath asked.

Wilde sighed. "There is one thing, sir. We can pull our artillery back out of range of those guns."

"Pull them back?" Wrath said. "Are you insane?"

"The Eden artillery units have already taken better than fifty percent losses of guns," Wilde told him. "New Pittsburgh is at about forty percent right now, Libby at thirty-eight, and Proctor is just getting the hell beat out of it. They've lost sixty percent. The volume of fire we're able to place on the Martian trenches is already falling off quite noticeably while the fire from their 250s has not slacked in the least. If we don't get those guns out of there we're not going to have any left to engage the Martian's main line of defense when the time comes."

"But what about their first line of defense?" Wrath said. "That's what we're fighting against now! How can we support an advance on their positions without artillery?"

"Any damage we were going to do with those weapons has already been done," Wilde said. "It would be nice if we could provide covering fire for our ground troops as they advance but it just isn't possible right now. The tanks and the APCs will have to support them themselves."

Wrath thought this over and decided it made sense. "All right," he said. "Let's pull the artillery back in all four theaters and get them refueled and re-armed. Send the tanks and the APCs forward and let's clear out those first positions."

"Yes, sir," Wilde said. "Excellent idea, sir."

Zen Valentine was the gunner of the main battle tank to which he, Xenia, and Sergeant Steve Sanchez were assigned. He sat next to Sanchez in the main crew compartment, watching through a video link as the shells flew back and forth for better than forty minutes. Several of the WestHem shells had burst right over the top of them, showering their tank with shrapnel, even causing it to rock back and forth on its springs once or twice but they remained safe and sound, protected by the top armor.

Xenia was the driver of the tank. She sat in her own little cubicle near the front, underneath the turret, staring out through a video system of her own. "Is it just me," she asked, "or does it seem like there's less and less arty flying in from the Earthling side?"

"No," said Sanchez, "it's not just you. It is less. I think maybe those heavy shells we're firing at them might be having an effect."

"Hopefully it's effecting them quick enough," said Zen. "They've been pounding the fuck out of those poor bastards on the hills. Any word on casualties?"

"Nothing yet," Sanchez said. "The last word I heard from the LT was when the shells first started to fly. Hopefully they'll give us some updates soon."

"I was just talking to Waters on the text," Xenia said. "As of ten minutes ago they're still up there, scared as hell and getting shook up, but the trench is holding."

Zen felt a sharp stab of jealousy at the mention of Waters and the revelation that Xenia had been text messaging him in the middle of a battle. He buried it as deeply as he could and tried not to feel too much ill will towards what was otherwise a pretty static guy. And he was glad that Waters and Hicks were all right, wasn't he? Of course he was. "It's just bad luck that they're even taking fire at all," he said. "If that damn AA-71 wouldn't have gotten through and took a shot of this area their arty would be dropping all over the damn place and they wouldn't even know it. They wouldn't have landed a single shell on target until they got close enough to sight in manually."

"Which would have been close enough for us to engage them," Xenia said. "You're right, Zen. I wish the damn space guard would've got that ship in time."

"And I wish someone was giving me a rim job," said Sanchez, "but all I got on my ass is a vacuum powered shit catcher, you know what I mean?"

"Another microcosm of the war?" asked Zen.

"No, it's more of a loose analogy. It means if wishes were orifices I'd be in pussy for life, but you'll notice I ain't in no pussy right now. There's no sense wishing for what might've been. Just be glad that those trenches seem to be holding. I've been watching up that hill and they've taken some direct shots. The fact that Waters is still alive to send his flirty little texts to Xenia means someone oughtta find the engineers who designed those trenches and suck their cocks for 'em."

"I think we'll let Waters take care of that one," Zen said. "If it's all the same to you."

"It's all the same to me," Xenia said, "but keep in mind that the same engineers designed this hull-down position we're currently sitting in. If it works as well as the trenches on the hill, I might be doing some dick sucking of my own."

"Yeah," said Zen. "A-fucking-men to that."

The hull-down position — which meant that only the very top of the turret and the laser cannon were exposed from the front — was the most favorable defensive posture for a tank or APC to be in. Like the trenches on the hills, the MPG had spent the first ten years of their existence digging and constructing tank and APC positions all along every likely defensive barrier. The one their tank occupied was one of thousands on the surface of the planet. It was a depression in the soil protected from the front by a layer of rock, sand, and concrete with a sheet of solid titanium armor in the middle. Laser shots from the front would be unable to penetrate through with enough energy left over to penetrate the tank itself. Multiple shots in the same place would be required to take out a tank — or so the theory went.

"Hey," said Xenia, "the arty has stopped."

Sanchez and Valentine looked up and saw that indeed it had. There were still groups of outgoing shells from the Martian guns but all of the incoming rounds had suddenly stopped, almost as if a switch had been thrown.

"What do you think that means, sarge?" Zen asked.

"It means the barrage has stopped," Sanchez replied. "And that usually means the next phase of the advance is about to begin."

"And the next phase is sending in the tanks, isn't it?" asked Xenia.

"Fuckin' aye," Sanchez agreed. "I think our time is coming real soon now."

Chapter 16

MPG Base, Eden

August 27, 2146

2245 Hours

General Matthew Zoloft — a third generation Martian — was the overall commander of the Eden forces. He was a WestHem Military Academy classmate of General Jackson's who had been a member of the MPG since its inception. In the WestHem marines he had risen to the rank of lieutenant in charge of a tank platoon and was a veteran of the bloody loss that was the Jupiter War. A personal friend of General Jackson's, he had started out his MPG career as commander of the 9th ACR and had worked his way to Eden commander in only five years. He had been in on the ultimate, secret goal of the MPG — the capture of Mars from WestHem — from the beginning and had helped General Jackson develop the strategy and techniques for obtaining that goal. He was pleased to see that, so far, everything had pretty much gone as they'd always hoped it would. But everything up until now had only been the preliminary stages of the conflict. Soon — in mere minutes — the first head to head combat would take place in his sector of responsibility. Would their unconventional doctrine of focusing energy on killing the ground troops instead of the tanks prove a mistake? Or would it work as they'd always envisioned?

"Lead elements of the enemy formation are now fifteen kilometers out from the Jutfield positions," he told the image of General Jackson on his computer screen. "They're moving in hot. Estimate first contact in less than five minutes."

"Understood," Jackson replied. "I trust your forces are privy to the same telemetry you're receiving?"

"Fuckin' aye," he said with a nod. "I commandeered one of the peepers after the arty withdrew. It is now giving us real-time shots of the enemy advance and the computer is translating them into battlefield telemetry and broadcasting it out to the field units. It updates on every combat soldier's combat computer every six seconds."

"Good enough," Jackson said. "I'll be watching it as well. Remember, hold that gap as long as you can but don't hesitate to pull the ACRs back when its time. No unnecessary sacrifice out there."

"You have my word, Kevin," he told him. "I was on Callisto, remember? Our doctrine on that is sacred to me."

Jackson simply nodded — he, after all, had not been on Callisto — and signed off.

Zoloft looked up at the main display in the front of the war room. It was showing the overall picture of the battlefield. The marines had spread their tanks out in a broad line stretching from one end of the gap to the other. Their APCs were right behind it. Their intent was obvious. They planned a rapid, overwhelming attack on all aspects of the line at once.

"Things are gonna get real busy out there in a few minutes," he told the command staff around him. "Doug, it looks like your guys are gonna make the first contact and the heaviest contact."

"Yeah," said Colonel Martin, commander of the 17th ACR. "I've given the order for the anti-tank units to engage as soon as the tanks breach the horizon. They'll pound on them until the tanks and the APCs can get in on it. Once the marine APCs come into view, the AT teams will switch targeting priority to them."

"Good," Zoloft said. That, after all, was doctrine. "Hopefully we'll throw them back before the APCs even enter the picture. But remember, if our armor can't keep the tanks contained the AT teams will have to help out. The idea is to force them to dismount their troops and move on our infantry positions so we can chew them up a little. We can't do that if their tanks overwhelm ours and force an early withdrawal from the gap."

"My captains all have standing orders to switch targeting responsibility if needed," Martin told him.

Zoloft turned to Colonel Steve Bridget, who was in charge of the 220 mobile artillery guns assigned to Eden. "Remember, Steve," he said. "Hold all fire until the marines start to dismount and then hit them with everything you got. Thanks to the peepers and the heavy guns, you can fire with complete impunity. No need to shoot and scoot. Just shoot."

"My crews are standing by, rounds in the breeches," Bridget said. "We'll liquefy those fucks as soon as they start to show their faces."

"All right then," Zoloft said, satisfied. "It's up to those folks in the gap now."

Zen Valentine peered at his gunnery screen nervously, watching the empty landscape before him. The tendrils of heat rising up from beyond the horizon had grown thicker, with twists of white in them now. The cloud of dust welling up from the tracks of the approaching tanks caused a faint aqua glow off to the west. There was a slight rumble that could be felt as the vibration caused by the enemy armor traveled along the ground. It was almost time. According to the telemetry being monitored by Sanchez next to him, the first tanks were less than eight kilometers out now. Their own twin laser cannon were six meters above the ground. On the surface of Mars, at that height, the horizon was 3.2 kilometers away.

"The AT teams should be picking them up any time now," Sanchez said.

Since the anti-tank teams were dismounted soldiers up on the hills the horizon was a bit further for them — anywhere from five to seven kilometers, depending on how high they were.

"They shouldn't have any trouble finding targets, huh?" asked Xenia, her voice not exactly composed.

"No, I don't imagine they will," said Sanchez. According to his telemetry there were almost eight hundred tanks moving in on this particular section of the gap. They had sixty-two tanks and around ninety APCs to counter them with. The APCs, however, only sported single barrel anti-tank lasers instead of the dual rapid-charging cannons on the tanks. They were going to need some help from those anti-tank gunners in order to achieve their main goal — keeping the tanks from pushing through the gap and getting behind the dismounted infantry. Although this wouldn't be harmful to the grunts in the hills, it would prevent them from achieving their goal, which was to get the marines to dismount so they could kill more of them before they reached the main line of defense.

"Why the hell don't we have mines out there?" asked Xenia. "We spent years building these defenses and these tanks and those heavy guns. Why didn't we throw down some mines across the gap approaches too?"

"You know the answer to that," Sanchez told her. "Mine warfare is illegal, like chemical weapons and tactical nuclear shells. No one has used them since World War III."

"I don't think a mine falls into the same category as a nuke or as gassing someone," Xenia said.

"You may not, but the civilized world does," he said. "Those things lay out there long after the conflict is over and make vast tracts of land unusable pretty much forever. Even if we had somehow managed to manufacture and deploy mines in secret, we would've been subject to nuclear retaliation once it became known we'd employed them. Not only that, EastHem would be forced to withdraw support of our government."

"Yeah," Xenia said, shaking her head at the madness of it. "I suppose. I just wish..."

"Remember," Sanchez interrupted. "If wishes were orifices..."

"I'd have a mouth on my pussy for life," she dutifully finished.

A minute ticked by, the seconds passing with agonizing slowness, the tension so thick in the tank you could almost smell it. And then finally, the moment they had been both waiting for and dreading came.

"Command reports targets are in sight," Sanchez announced. "AT teams are engaging."

"They sure the fuck are," Xenia said. "Look at the hills!"

Zen looked off to either side, at the hillsides that dotted their line. From every one in his view, the flashes of laser weapons could be seen, reaching out from the hidden trenches. Downrange, where the impacts were occurring, they could still see nothing as the tanks being fired upon were still over the horizon from ground level.

"Kill 'em, guys," Sanchez whispered, his eyes glued to his telemetry. "You protect us and we'll protect you."

"Incoming!" Xenia suddenly said. "A whole assload of it!"

Zen looked forward and saw the streaks of eighty millimeter tank shells heading in at high velocity. There was indeed a whole assload of it, hundreds of streaks all across the horizon. They flew in and slammed into the hillsides where the anti-tank gunners were firing from. Flashes erupted. Dust flew. The faint sound of concussions could be heard from the nearer hills.

"Laura save them," Xenia said, watching in horrified awe.

"Those trenches can take it," Sanchez said. "Look, they've hardly slowed up their shots."

Volley after volley of tank rounds came flying in and the explosions continued. So did the flashes from the lasers within the trenches. Another three minutes ticked by, during which Sanchez noted on the telemetry that the enemy tanks had spread out and were now zigzagging back and forth even though neither one of these actions was an effective deterrent against speed of light weaponry.

"Command reports targets are coming into range of ground level units," Sanchez suddenly yelled. "Get ready, Zen. Do it just like in practice."

"Fuckin' aye," Zen said, feeling adrenaline surging through his body. His hand gripped the firing buttons for his cannons and his targeting recticle moved slowly back and forth with his head movements, waiting for something to put it on.

"Target, tank, eleven o'clock!" Sanchez said. "Light him up, Zen!"

Zen turned his head slightly to the left and saw the tiny white shape of a main battle tank moving across the landscape. Its laser cannon were up, its main gun was spouting fire and sending shells toward them. He moved his head until the targeting recticle covered the vehicle and then smoothly pushed the left firing button.

There was a bright flash from the spot where the target had been. When it cleared, only the bottom half of the tank still sat there. The turret was lying on the ground next to it and the entire structure of the vehicle was glowing bright red with heat.

"Holy fuck!" Zen said, grinning. "That's a fuckin' kill! Did you see that?"

"Saw it," Sanchez said. "Now do it again. Six more tanks — no, eight — just broached the horizon. Fire as fast as you can."

By the time he fired on another target, destroying it with a direct hit, dozens more of the main battle tanks appeared over the horizon. Several of them exploded as other tanks, APCs, or anti-tank crews potted them with their own weapons. At the same time, the flashes of anti-tank laser fire from the enemy tanks began to appear as they returned fire at the defenders.

Zen's first cannon finished its recharge cycle and he quickly sighted on another advancing tank and fired. He turned his head and had to wait another six seconds for the second cannon to finish charging. During that time two of the eighty millimeter shells came arcing in and exploded directly in front of their position. The tank rocked on its springs and the violent pattering of shrapnel peppering their cannon turret sounded throughout the interior. The cannon suffered no damage from this engagement since it had been designed to stand up to artillery and shell fire.

"What the fuck are they firing eighties at us for?" asked Xenia. "Even a direct hit wouldn't cause damage to a tank."

"Who knows?" said Sanchez. "They're probably overwhelmed and not thinking straight. That's just fine for us."

Zen saw the charging light for cannon two change to green. He already had his recticle on another target. He fired, destroying it. By this time cannon one was recharged so he found another and destroyed it as well. Other tanks continued to explode all over the field but nowhere near as fast as other tanks were appearing behind them, all of them flashing main guns and laser cannons. By the time cannon two was charged and ready for the next shot there were literally hundreds of tanks moving in on them.

Suddenly, from directly in front of them, a flash of light overwhelmed the infrared spectrum for a moment. There was no noise associated with it but when the spectrum cleared the entire barrier behind which they hid was glowing bright white with heat. There were two more flashes in quick succession and then one more. The barrier held but had crumbled in several places.

"Those were laser strikes," reported Xenia, who was sitting less than a meter from the back end of the barrier. "The barrier absorbed it. No damage to the tank."

"Yet," said Sanchez. "If they get a burn-through and manage to put another shot in the hole, that's our ass."

"Thanks, sarge," Xenia told him. "You really know how to cheer us up when things get rough, you know that?"

Meanwhile, Zen was listening to their conversation in his headset but absorbing little of it. He was popping off WestHem tanks as fast as his lasers could recharge themselves. The battlefield was now littered with destroyed tanks and they continued to flash and explode from all quarters as the volume of fire against them was maintained but the stream of them was endless. For every one blown up, five more would appear right behind it. Though the lead elements were the most frequent target, they continued to draw closer and closer, until some of them were less than a kilometer away.

From somewhere off to the left of them a bright light flashed, followed by a concussion. Zen immediately knew what it was but tried to bury the knowledge. He didn't want to face it.

Sanchez forced him to. "Tank three is gone," he said solemnly. "Apparently they got a burn-through." Tank three was part of their platoon. It had been in its own prepared hull-down position just thirty meters away. The crew were three people they'd known since the beginning days of the 17th ACR, people they'd trained with, had gotten drunk with, had been friends with. Now they were gone, erased in an instant.

"Motherfuckers," Zen said, his eyes narrowing behind his helmet. Another flash of laser cannon came blasting into their barricade, this time sending concrete and sand flying into the air.

"They grazed us with that one!" Xenia reported. "Burn-through just above the left tread. It went out the other side though."

"No breach, no damage?" Sanchez asked, alarmed.

"We're good," Xenia told him. "The tread is intact, no vital systems hit."

The spectrum cleared from the latest flashes. Two tanks were now less than eight hundred meters in front of them. Zen sighted on first one and then the other, killing them both. "Take that, assholes," he said with viciousness in his voice.

"Hey, sarge," Xenia asked, "they're getting awfully close here. Just how long are we expected to stand and fight them?"

"We pull back if they get within half a klick in force," he said. "But we have to hold them long enough for the dismounts to clear their trenches and pull back to the blue line."

"There's too many of them," she said. "We can't hold this many tanks back!"

"No," he said. "We can't. They can blast through our line if they're persistent. Our plan is to make it too costly for them to be persistent."

"We're trying," Zen said, wincing as two more laser shots blasted their barrier — fortunately not in the same place as the previous burn through. When the spectrum cleared one of his cannons was charged. He fired again, taking out another tank — this one nine hundred meters away.

Deep in the bowels of Landing Ship 11C, at the Eden Landing Zone, General Dakota Dickinson stared in disbelief at the telemetry that was on his computer display. In the first fifteen minutes of the battle over three hundred tanks had been destroyed, another fifty or so damaged beyond repair. Despite the neutralization of the artillery by the Martian 250s, this was not the result he'd been anticipating. And they weren't even at the main line of defense yet.

"What the hell is going on out there?" he demanded of his subordinates. "We were supposed to sweep right through them! How in the hell are the greenies slaughtering our tanks like that?"

Colonel Houston Fowler was the commander of the 27th Armored Division. It was his tanks, his men, that were taking the brunt of the Martian resistance at the moment — a shocking development for a division that had, until now, suffered zero casualties in what had otherwise been a very bloody conflict. "My battalion commanders are reporting intense anti-tank fire coming from the hillside positions in the gap," he told Dickinson. "Apparently the artillery did not significantly reduce the numbers of the entrenched Martian troops up there. They seem to have a whole lot of portable anti-tank weapons."

"Was the artillery off target?" Dickenson asked. "Did we spend forty minutes shelling a bunch of empty ground?"

"Negative, sir," Fowler said. "I've seen visuals of the Martian positions sent to me from the lead elements. We tore the hell out of those positions but the Martians are still in them. We're plastering them with direct eighty millimeter fire now and it's not having much of an effect either. Those trenches must be reinforced in some way."

"Great," Dickenson said, watching the screen as another twelve tanks suddenly turned black — meaning they'd stopped sending telemetry — meaning, of course, they were dead. "This is World War III and the AT-9 all over again. Talk about history repeating itself."

The AT-9 he was referring to was the American-made and manufactured portable anti-tank missile that was widely regarded as the weapon that had turned World War III from a quick Asian Powers victory to the bloody, decade long stalemate it had ended up as. Firing from entrenched positions, WestHem infantry soldiers had been able to concentrate murderous fire on vastly superior numbers of advancing armor and, eventually, halt the Asian advance at the Columbia River in Portland and the high desert of southern Idaho.

"Sir," said Fowler, "we're also taking fire from the Martian tanks and the Martian APCs. Return fire is ineffective. The Martian armor are in hull down positions behind some kind of barricades that are absorbing the laser energy from our shots. We've made some kills but it takes multiple shots for a penetration to occur."

"Can we push through?" Dickenson asked.

"At high cost, yes," Fowler said. "If we continue to advance our tanks they'll envelop those positions within twenty minutes or so, but..."

"But?" Dickenson asked.

"Losses will be very high. Also... well... we won't have accomplished anything but clearing their armor out of the gap. The Martian anti-tank crews and the dismounted infantry that are supporting them will still be up on those hills."

"Our plan was for your tanks to eliminate most of them and then to send the dismounts in to clear out their positions," Dickenson said. "It sounds like they're a little thicker up there than we anticipated."

"And a little more well-protected," Fowler agreed. "They're going to be a bitch to dislodge from there, sir."

"What if we just blast through their lines with the tanks as you suggested?" Dickenson asked. "Punch a hole through and then rush the APCs, the fuel trains, the arty, everything right by until we get to the main line of defense. The terrain is wider there and favors us more."

Fowler was shaking his head even before his boss finished. "Again, with all due respect, sir, we have to clear those positions before we can advance further. If we don't, it won't matter that our tanks have enveloped them, they'll still be able to blast at them from all directions as they pass. They'll be able to do the same to the APCs and they might even be able to take out some of our supply trains."

"With anti-tank lasers?" Dickenson scoffed. "That's ridiculous."

"We've seen their marksmanship with those things, sir. If they take out the towing tanks that will bring the trains to a halt. We won't be able to replace the towing tanks with regular tanks in a zone where the Martians can snipe at them because they'll just keep popping off any tanks we try to bring up for the task. And, while the trains are stopped, they could hit one of the ammunition carriers two or three times in exactly the same spot and get a burn-through. If an ammunition carrier goes up it'll take out most of the rest of the train with it. The Martians planned this defense well, sir, as much as I hate to give them any credit. The only way through this gap is to put our soldiers out on the ground and have them fight their way up those hills until the entrenched troops either retreat or until we get enough people up there to kill them all."

Dickenson thought that over for a second, trying to come up with a solution that did not involve sending dismounts up hills under fire. Unfortunately, there really was no other solution. There was no way to outflank the defenders because the mountains closed in on both sides of the gap. The only way to go around them was to take the entire army all the way back to the landing zone and come in by a circuitous route from the north. That would force them to march almost twice as far and they would still have to pass through a gap that was even narrower than Jutfield in order to assault the city. "Okay," he said. "I see your point. Should we go ahead and clear the Martian armor from the gap anyway? At least that way we'll have the positions surrounded when the dismounts go after them."

"I wouldn't advise that, sir," Fowler told him. "We've already lost hundreds of tanks. We'll lose hundreds more pushing their armor out. Not only that, but if we surround their hillsides the Martian anti-tank crews and infantry will no longer have the option of retreat. If we force them to fight to the death our losses will be much heavier. We should let them keep their rear open and hopefully they'll pull back when we start advancing ground troops on them."

Dickenson nodded. "I need to clear this with General Wrath," he said. "But for now, pull your tanks back out of range and have them regroup and re-arm. And then let's get all commanders together so we can hash out a plan to do this right."

"Yes, sir," he said.

Less than two minutes later the order went out. All tank units were to immediately disengage and pull back ten kilometers to the west.

Dickenson and Fowler would never know how close they'd come to forcing a retreat at the Jutfield Gap. They had assumed that if the Martian tanks were overwhelmed and cleared from their covering positions that the entrenched troops would remain behind to fight on — ultimately to the death but inflicting horrifying damage before that could occur. Had they bothered to study up on Martian Planetary Guard doctrine even a little bit before engaging their enemy they would have known that standing orders were for all troops to withdraw to safety when their position was threatened. It was against the MPG code to leave entrenched troops in a position where they were permanently cut off from assistance and withdrawal. In other words, if the supporting tanks and APCs were forced to withdraw, then the dismounted troops would withdraw as well, even if they weren't in immediate danger.

Such a withdrawal had been well under way when Dickenson's order went out. The first troops ordered from their positions had been the combat infantry units, including the platoon Jeff and Hicks belonged to. They were positioned below the anti-tank platoons on the hillside and had watched in terrified fascination as the hoards of WestHem tanks had closed on them and had been attacked by the lasers from above and below. While eighty millimeter fire had raked the hillside above them, sending dust, dirt, and rocks tumbling downward to sift into their trench, they had remained unscathed by a single round since they were not presenting an immediate threat to the tanks. And then, at the height of the battle, as WestHem tanks began to get within five hundred meters, they had been ordered to pick up all the ammunition and supplies they could carry and move as quickly as possible to the rear of the hillside to secure the extraction zone.

Jeff had been almost down on the valley floor, a pack containing seventy-five kilograms of ammunition clips and food packs slung over his back. That was when Walker ordered everyone to hold up.

"Captain Sing reports the WestHem armor is pulling back," he told them.

"Pulling back?" asked Hicks, who was just behind Jeff in the semi-orderly formation.

"Fuckin' aye," Walker said. "They did it. They beat the motherfuckers back."

A symphony of cheers and obscene epitaphs directed at all things Earthling filled the tactical channel for several seconds. They held in place for another five minutes, waiting for confirmation. Finally, it came.

"It's official," Walker said. "The marine tanks have withdrawn back over the horizon. We held. All infantry units return to your former positions."

"Yes!" Jeff said, pumping his fist in victory. "Fuck you, Earthling pigs! You got your asses kicked worse than the Thrusters in the Battle of Ninety-Second Street."

"Hey, watch that shit, dickweed," said Hicks. "You didn't beat us. We gave up Ninety-Second for economic reasons. The anti-dust units of the EPD were making it too hard to get good cash flow on our product."

"Are you fucking dusted right now?" Jeff asked him. "Ninety-Second was premo territory. We was clearing sixteen fucking grand a week down there."

"But what were your arrest stats?" Hicks enquired.

"Uh... if we could put this military tactics discussion on hold for a bit," Walker interrupted, "perhaps we could start shagging our asses back up the hill? We need to get everything re-organized before the marines start sending their dismounts after us."

"Right, sorry, sarge," Jeff told him.

They went back up the hill, working their way through the access trenches step by step. Jeff — though in the best shape of his life at this point — was huffing and puffing almost instantly. The discharge warning indicator appeared in his goggles letting him know he was using more oxygen than his suit was pulling from the atmosphere. By the time they made it back to their trench his reservoir was down to sixty-four percent and sweat was dripping down his face to pool in the neck junction of his helmet and suit. With relief he set his bag of ammo and food down and slumped against the rear of the trench.

"Okay, people," Walker told them. "Let's take about ten minutes to get our air supplies back up to full and then we'll start unloading and re-distributing everything. Remember the rule. No hoarding of food, ammo, or waste-packs or I'll personally back-flow your waste system until shit spews out your mouths."

Jeff stretched a little, relieving the ache in his tired muscles, and then leaned forward into the opening in his sandbags. He looked out over the landscape and saw dozens — no, hundreds — of burned out WestHem tanks, most still glowing red with the heat of their destruction. Beyond the horizon the blue tendrils and white twists of rising heat from the intact armor were still making their way upward.

"Xenia," he whispered, low enough that it was not transmitted over the channel. He felt a sudden stab of worry for her. Was she still alive? During the frantic exchange of laser shots just after the battle had begun he'd seen a bright, lethal-looking flash from somewhere down to the left of them. That was where the tank platoon Xenia, Zen, and Sanchez belonged to were holding their position. Had it been their tank that had bought it?

He called up his text messaging software and brought the holographic keyboard to life. He composed a quick message: ARE YOU STILL ALIVE DOWN THERE? He hesitated for a few moments, afraid to send it for fear of not getting a response. Finally, deciding he had to know, he addressed and shipped it.

A minute ticked by and he became increasingly convinced that she was dead. And then, just when he'd almost resigned himself to her demise, a reply came flashing in.

HANGING IN HERE, it read. TOOK A HIT ON THE LEFT SIDE AND BLEW A HOLE THRU THE CORNER OF THE TANK BUT NO MAJOR DAMAGE. LOPEZ, LEE, AND DEALERMAN BOUGHT IT THOUGH. DIRECT HIT.

Jeff's thrill at hearing that Xenia was still alive was dampened a bit by hearing about Lopez, Lee, and Dealerman. All three of them had been regular attendees at the nightly poker sessions during the waiting period and he knew them well. Now they were burned, blasted bodies in a smashed tank.

SORRY TO HEAR THAT, he responded. I'LL TELL HICKS. GLAD UR OK THOUGH. AND YOU TOOK IT OUT IN SPADES ON THE EARTHLING FUCKS.

YEAH, WE DID, she replied. ZEN GOT 16 CONFIRMED KILLS ON WESTHEM TANKS.

He felt a stab of jealousy at her mention of Zen but ignored it. He was about to reply back to her when Walker's voice suddenly barked over the tactical channel again.

"Hicks, Creek, Drogan," he said. "I'm showing that you three are almost fully charged on air. I got a little job for you."

They all turned in his direction, none of them speaking though, as was the custom in the MPG.

"They got some wounded upstairs," Walker said. "And they don't know when the WestHem armor is gonna come back so they can't release too many of their people to evac them down to the hover LZ. Shag your asses on up there and give 'em a hand. Leave everything but your weapons."

All three nodded and removed everything from their biosuits but their M-24s and their extra ammunition clips. They made their way through their own trench and into the rear access trench that led off of it. Once in the main withdrawal trench, a narrower side trench led off to the north and upwards. They entered it and began to climb. This time, without the extra weight on their backs, their biosuits continued to replace air faster than they were using it.

Jeff told Hicks about Lopez, Lee, and Dealerman.

"That fuckin' bites," he said, his voice a mixture of sadness and anger.

"Yeah," Jeff agreed. "It does."

They finished their climb and entered the main anti-tank trench near the crest of the hill. It was clear at first sight — even in infrared — that this position had not fared well during the battle. Many of the sandbags that lined the front had been blasted open, the shavings from inside of them littering the floor along with dozens upon dozens of spent charging batteries. In several places entire sections of the protective barrier had given way and fallen inside. As they made their way further inside the damage grew worse and the human casualties began to become visible. Pushed down beneath the protective overhang were two still bodies. On one of them the helmet had been blasted open and half of the head was gone. In the other a massive hole could be seen in the chest portion of the suit. All three of them stared at this sight in mute horror and fear.

A hand slapped against the side of Jeff's head, startling him. He looked up and saw a biosuited figure he recognized as Sergeant Johan Wing of the anti-tank platoon attached to his company. Wing's lips were moving behind his helmet but no sound was coming out of Jeff's audio system. Wing, looking frustrated, slapped him on the side of the head again and held up three fingers. He then pointed to the controls for Jeff's biosuit.

"Oh... shit," Jeff said, looking at his companions, who were just as perplexed. "It's a different platoon. We're on the wrong tac channel. Switch to three."

They all switched to channel three on their bank and Wing's voice immediately started chewing their asses. "What the fuck is the matter with you morons?" he asked. "You come walking into another unit's trench without announcing yourself and with your com system on the wrong fucking channel? Are you trying to get your asses shot off before the Earthlings even get here?"

"Sorry, sarge," Jeff said. "We forgot."

"Well don't fuckin' forget again," Wing said. "We just got the shit beat out of us up here and we're a bit jumpy. Fingers get loose on firing buttons when that happens. You here to help us, or what?"

"Yeah," Hicks said. "They sent us up to help evac your wounded."

Wing nodded. "Good," he said. "We got eight that need to be brought down to the LZ right away." He pointed further down the trench. "Go talk to the doc down there. She's the one with the fuckin' red cross on her helmet in case you forgot that too."

They moved further down the trench, passing two more dead bodies stuffed indifferently into the recesses as they went. They then had to push themselves into the recess in order to let a group of four soldiers pass by that were carrying two wounded between them. The group went by fast but not so fast that Jeff didn't see the horrible hole that had been blown open in the chest of one and then sealed with a medical patch.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Drogan said when they were gone.

They continued down the trench, stepping over more discarded batteries and collapsed sandbags, passing two soldiers that were standing watch over the openings, staring down over the battlefield. Finally they came to the group of wounded being attended to by the medic. She was kneeling down next to one of them, drilling something through the leg of his biosuit with a power tool of some sort.

She looked up at them. "Who the fuck are you guys?" she demanded.

"Hicks, Drogan, and Creek," Jeff told her. "We're from second platoon down below."

"Static," she said without much enthusiasm. "Okay, you two," she pointed to Hicks and Drogan. "Take that guy there." She pointed to a supine soldier lying just behind her. "He's a neck and chest wound, probably bleeding internally. Took shrapnel from an eighty through the gap in the sandbags. I've sedated him, patched the suit, decompressed his left lung, and gave him some synthetic blood. Hopefully that'll be enough to get him back to Eden alive. He's tagged priority so be sure to get him over to the priority section of the triage area when you're down there and be as gentle as you can with him."

"Right," Hicks said, squirming past her. Drogan followed him and a second later they picked him up — Drogan at the head, Hicks at the feet — utilizing the handles that had been installed in the biosuits for just that purpose. They squirmed back by in the opposite direction and began heading back the way they'd come.

"Nguyen," the medic barked over the tac channel. "This is doc. Get your ass over here!"

"On the way," a voice replied.

She looked up at Jeff. "Very nasty head wound here," she told him. "An eighty went off just outside his opening while he was firing on a tank. The AT blew up in his face and ripped through his face shield. As you can see..." She took a deep breath, a little of the strain she was under leaking through, "Well... he's hit pretty bad."

Jeff looked at the soldier's face. Her words were perhaps the worst understatement he'd ever heard. His entire face shield had been blown inwards, peppering the poor guy's face with plastic shrapnel and bits of the AT weapon body. A large shard was sticking out of his flesh just to the left of his nose. His entire left eye had been torn out of its socket and had smeared over the remains of his left cheek. The socket was slowly oozing blood down the side of his face even through the gauze the medic had stuffed in there. His teeth had all been smashed in and his tongue appeared to have been ripped in two, part of it hanging out of his mouth, part of it occluding his airway. His right eye was undamaged but obviously sightless, bulging out of its socket from the pressure change the loss of his face shield had caused. She had covered the hole with an opaque film to restore that pressure and had drilled a breathing hole in his neck and hooked an air hose connected to his auxiliary outlet to the fitting that protruded. He was gurgling and twitching, his arms and legs spasming.

"This is an intraosseous line I've just drilled into his tibia," the medic told Jeff. "I'm giving him a sedative/paralytic right now so he'll stop moving around."

"Right," Jeff said, having no idea what she was talking about, staring in horror at the man's ruined face.

She removed the drill and put an air syringe against the port that protruded from his suit. She injected something and a moment later the man stopped twitching and moving.

"There we go," she said. "He'll stay still for the trip now. His suit will automatically keep him ventilated, so don't worry about that. Just get him down there as fast as possible." She looked up at him, her eyes showing sadness even in infrared. "He's probably not gonna make it to surgery. Even if he does live... well... he'll be blind and probably brain damaged." She shook her head. "I have to try though."

"Right," Jeff said again, shuddering, picturing himself in the man's place.

Another soldier suddenly appeared, the Nguyen to whom she'd spoken apparently.

"Yeah, doc?" he asked.

"You and uh..."

"Creek," Jeff provided.

"Right... Creek. You and Creek here get him down to the LZ. Take him to the priority area. If his light turns red on the way, well... just put him in the trenches and come back. Got it?"

Nguyen obviously knew the man they were speaking about. "Yeah, doc," he said. "Does he have... I mean... is he gonna... gonna... make it?"

"It's possible," she said. "Unlikely, but possible. The faster you get him down there the more possible it'll be. Okay?"

"Right," he said, leaning down and grabbing the foot handles. "Come on, Creek. Let's get him down there." He looked meaningfully into Jeff's eyes. "He's a good guy, okay?"

"Right," Jeff said. He reached down and grabbed the upper torso handles. They lifted and began working their way back through the trench. As they went they turned their com sets to the extremely short range frequency to keep their chatter from overloading the main tactical channel.

"We thought we were safe after the arty, you know?" Nguyen told him. "They walked those 150s all over our positions and not a single one of us got so much as a scratch."

"Yeah, us too," Jeff said. "A couple of them blew pretty fuckin' close too."

"But those tanks," Nguyen said, shaking his head. "Goddamn, man. There were so many of them out there and their rounds came flying in from below instead of from above. The barriers absorbed most of them but some got through the holes because that's where they aim 'em. I saw Jenky get her fuckin' head blown clean off — well, not clean, it kinda exploded all over the back of the trench. You should see what happens to blood out here when it comes out. It boils, man. It boils and turns into vapor and goes drifting off into the air in this big fuckin' red cloud."

Jeff tried not to show any reaction to this horrifying description, knowing that it would soon be his fate to see it firsthand when the infantry attacked — or perhaps he wouldn't see it. Perhaps his companions would see his head explode into pieces, his blood go boiling upward. "You held 'em though," he said, fighting to keep his voice even. "You pushed their thieving asses back over the horizon."

"Yeah, at least there's that," Nguyen said. "I'd hate to have gone through all that for nothing."

They worked they way down to the bottom of the hill and exited the access point on the back side of it. Two hundred meters east of the access was a landing zone where the wounded were being triaged and flown out. Two APCs from the support battalion were parked here, their doors open. Three medivac hovers were sitting on the ground around them, their engines at idle. Two of them had the rear ramps down, the other was sealed up. As they carried their injured companion in that direction the sealed one suddenly flared bright red in the infrared and lifted in the air. It turned to the east and began heading for Eden, flying low.

The immediate triage area was the easiest to find. It contained the largest number of medics and evac soldiers. It also contained the largest number of wounded.

"Put him down over here," a medic commanded them when they entered the area.

They did so and the medic immediately kneeled down next to him and began running a scanner device over him. They heard him sigh as he examined the findings. He shook his head and stood back up.

"What are you doing?" Nguyen demanded. "His light didn't turn red! The doc says he needs to go out right away!"

"Sorry," the medic said, "but he's a goner. Brain activity almost nothing, heart rate less than thirty a minute, no voluntary respiration. He'll never make it back to Eden."

"You gotta fuckin' try, man!" Nguyen said. "Jesus Christ! You can't just let him lay there and die!"

"He doesn't have a chance," the medic said. "There's a lot of people out here who do have a chance and I'm not gonna take up space on a hover with someone who's gonna be dead before they even make it twenty klicks. I'm sorry, man. That's the way it's gotta be."

Nguyen shook his head angrily and fingered the rifle slung over his shoulder for a moment. He took a few deep breaths, dropped his hand and turned away. "That's fuckin' cold," he said.

"I know," the medic told him. "I wish it didn't have to be this way. This section got hit hard. I gotta go check on the other guys." With that he walked away, heading for the group of casualties closest to the front of the line.

"I'm sorry, Nguyen," Jeff told him, patting him on the back. "That fuckin' bites ass."

"Yeah," Nguyen said. "A lot of things bitin' ass tonight, huh?"

With that he turned and walked away, heading back towards the trench entrance. Jeff watched him go, his feet seemingly unable to follow after him.

Two figures approached him from the direction of one of the hovers. As they came closer and he was able to resolve their facial features with the infrared enhancement, he recognized them as Drogan and Hicks. Both of them were looking a little shell-shocked.

"Did you get your guy down to the hovers?" Jeff asked.

"We got him down there," Hicks said. "He's still waiting to be loaded. The medics said there's worse people that need to go first."

"How about yours?" Drogan asked.

Jeff pointed at the still body on the ground. "He gets to stay here," he said. "Medic says he doesn't have a chance."

They all contemplated that for a few moments, staring at the soldier's wrecked face, at the holes drilled in his leg and neck, at the green light on his suit that suddenly turned a lethal red as he finally, mercifully died.

"I guess he was right," Hicks said.

"Yeah," Jeff agreed. "Is this goin' on all up and down the line, you think? Does every fuckin' hill out here have this many casualties?"

"Not every one," Drogan said. "The medics told us the Earthlings hit the hardest in the center of the gap, where we are. A lot of the hills were hardly touched. They just decided to pound on this one because it's guarding the biggest opening."

"Which means they're gonna pound on it just as hard when they send the infantry after us," Hicks said. "We're on prime fuckin' real estate, man and the next time they're gonna be shooting those eighties at us. We'll be the ones laying down here, abandoned with fuckin' holes in our necks."

"They're not abandoning the living ones," Drogan said. "Just the corpses. You stay alive and they'll get you out of here. I watched how hard the medics are working to save those people."

"That'll make my mom feel real good when she gets the email that the Earthlings blew my face open," Hicks said. "She'll also love to know that they left my dead ass out here for all eternity. That she won't even get my ashes to put in a fuckin' jar."

"So what are you saying, Hicks?" Jeff asked. "You had enough?"

Hicks breathed deeply, looking around at the controlled chaos of the evac area, watching as two more groups of soldiers brought two more casualties down. "I didn't sign up for this shit," he said. "I mean... I knew I could die out here, but I didn't know... you know... that I could die like this."

"I'll admit," Drogan said, "it ain't as pretty as candlelight glinting off a wet pussy."

Her attempt at humor fell short.

"I ain't goin' back up there," Hicks said, looking at the hillside.

"You gonna walk back to Eden?" Drogan asked him.

"If I have to," he said. "Or I could hitch a ride on the back of one the support APCs. They're at least going back to the main line. I can get back from there."

"You're serious about this?" Drogan asked. "You're gonna leave us right before the battle? Abandon your platoon?"

"It ain't my fuckin' platoon," Hicks said. "It's Queen Laura the First's platoon and I ain't dying for her."

Jeff looked at him pointedly and shook his head in disgust. "Ain't that just like a fuckin' Thruster?" he said. "Throwing in the towel as soon as the shit gets a little too heavy."

"Hey, fuck off!" Hicks told him. "This don't have nothin' to do with the Thrusters or the fuckin' Capitalists."

"Sure it does," Jeff said. "This is the reason we kicked your asses off Ninety-Second Street and took over one of the finest dust selling locations in the whole city. We went after you and put the heat on you and you all caved like little kids on the schoolyard. The same fuckin' thing you're doing now."

"I told you, you didn't beat us! We pulled out of there 'cause of the heat, man!"

"You made that excuse to save face with yourselves," Jeff told him. "You know as well as I do that you couldn't take the heat from us. A couple ambush attacks, a couple of your main dealers blown away, and you went crying home and tried to say the cops are what made you do it. That's fuckin' bullshit and so is your Queen Laura rationale. You told me you voted for her, remember? You told me you wanted to fight to make Mars free, that you were fucking willing to die for it, but now that the shells have come flying in, now that you've had to look at people who did die for it, you're pussing out and making excuses about it. Go ahead and fuckin' leave, Hicks. We don't need some Thruster pussy up there anyway."

Jeff could actually see Hicks' face turning red. The increased blood flow showed up quite nicely in infrared. "I don't want to die, man!" he said. "Don't you understand that?"

"You think I want to die?" Jeff asked him. "You think I'm suicidal or something? You think I ain't scared shitless about what's gonna happen when them tanks come rolling on our position the next time? I am, man. I'm fuckin' petrified. But I'm going back up there and I'm gonna fight those assholes until they tell me to stop or until they drag my ass down the hill with half my head blown off. You know why?"

"Why?"

"Because I think we're gonna win this war," he said. "I think we're gonna be free. And twenty years from now, when they're teaching kids in school about the Battle of Jutfield Gap and the Battle of Eden, I wanna be able to say I was there, that I killed Earthlings there, that I fuckin' helped win the war. And if I ain't alive to say that, my fuckin' parents and my fuckin' friends will say it for me. What are you gonna say in twenty years, Hicks? You gonna tell people you was at the Battle of Jutfield Gap but as soon as the enemy shot a couple shells at someone else's fuckin' position you ran away like a little girl who saw a rat in the hallway?"

Hicks looked away from Jeff's face and stared up the hillside again. He shuddered a little and then turned back to them. Slowly he nodded. "You never would let me live that down, would you?" he asked.

"I wouldn't give you a second thought the moment you climbed on that APC and went away," Jeff told him. "But it ain't me you gotta worry about. Would you ever let you live it down?"

"No," Hicks said. "I guess I wouldn't."

"All right then," Jeff said. "So you coming back up the hill with us, or what?"

Hicks shifted his M-24 on his shoulder. "Let's go," he said. "Maybe we can catch a little nap before they come back."

They walked back to the trench entrance and started back up. On the way they passed three more wounded being brought down.

"Casualties are higher than expected," General Jackson told the image of Laura Whiting on his screen. "We held their tanks at the Jutfield Gap, but only barely. We were actually in the process of withdrawing our forces to the blue line behind the gap when they decided they'd had enough and turned back."

"I see," she said, her eyes probing. "What are the numbers?"

"Two hundred and sixty-three dead at Jutfield," he recited. "Half that many wounded and out of action. We lost fourteen tanks and eighteen APCs. A number of the trenches and tank positions got torn up as well and are unsuitable for primary protection in the next engagement. The commanders on scene are shifting units around to plug up those holes."

"And at New Pittsburgh?" she asked.

"It's not as bad there," he told her. "The gap protecting the New Pittsburgh approach is narrower and hillier, allowing us to concentrate more troops in a smaller area. They threw them back after only ten minutes. Seventy-five were killed, ninety wounded. Only eight tanks and twelve APCs lost. We did lose two Mosquitoes and their crews there, however. They apparently crashed into a hillside while making a run. The lead underestimated a turn and went in, the wing followed right behind."

"Inexperienced pilot?" she asked.

"Yes," he confirmed. "That and the fatigue factor is probably the cause of the accident. Some of those guys have done more than a hundred sorties since the invasion started. They're trying to keep the pressure up on the Earthlings and only getting three or four hours of sleep a day."

"Anything else?" she asked.

He nodded. "We also had a hover go down while evacuating wounded out of New Pittsburgh. More than likely that was a mechanical malfunction. Everyone aboard is confirmed dead."

"What about Libby and Proctor?" she asked next.

"It seems General Wrath might have learned from the beating he took at Eden and NP. The tank units were pulled back from Libby and Proctor before they even got in range to engage. That's a mixed blessing. Proctor has the narrowest defensive gap of them all, only fifteen kilometers wide. We would've massacred them in spades there and it's doubtful they would have even got close enough to put accurate fire on our trenches. At Libby, on the other hand, we have the widest first-line defensive corridor. It's almost seventy kilometers wide and there are several places they can flank it if they choose. We're spread extremely thin through that area and we have to keep one of the ACRs uncommitted and in reserve to defend against a flank attack. They more than likely would have been able to push through and open a corridor if they would have concentrated forces on the center."

"So how bad off are we?" Laura asked, not wanting to get into a discussion about what might have happened. "Why were the casualties so high at Eden?"

"I think the very factors that we've been trying to instill in the Earthlings might have worked against us to some degree."

"What do you mean?"

"Fatigue and breakdown of command and control at the platoon and company level," he said. "We've achieved that goal quite admirably. It's apparent just by watching how their units maneuver. They're all over the place out there, in nothing like a military fighting formation. They're more like ants advancing on a piece of chicken, coming in from all directions with little order or organization."

"And that worked against us?"

"When they came in to hit the positions in the Jutfield Gap, they didn't stick to their zones when attacking. Instead, all of the individual tank platoons seemed to fire at whatever they perceived to be the greatest threat against them. As a result, some of our trenches and tank positions took three and four times the volume of fire they were designed to withstand while others remained completely untouched. We didn't count on them being so haphazard in their engagements. We expected them to spread their fire across the entire gap, which we could have easily absorbed except for the occasional lucky shot that happened to make it through a firing hole."

"Is there anything that can be done to rectify this?" she asked.

"Not much we can do about the tank and APC positions," he said. "As for the trenches, I've ordered that any position under overwhelming cannon fire hunker down and that any position not under fire expand their zones to maximum in order to draw fire away. The battalion and company commanders will be the ones to initiate this. Hopefully it'll help."

"And how is troop morale?"

"Variable," he said. "It's in the danger zone on the infantry and tank units that got hit hard and took heavy casualties. Among the units that didn't get hit hard, however, it's about as high as we could expect."

"Desertions?" she asked.

"About a hundred at Eden," he said. "All from the units that took heavy fire. As per standing orders, support battalions are transporting them back to the main line if feasible. They can walk their asses back from there."

"And they're not being persecuted in any way?"

"I know your feelings on that, Laura," he said. "There is no official persecution going on against the deserters. When they make their way back to the city we'll discharge them and note in the personnel computers that they're ineligible for further military service or benefits. As for unofficial persecution from their peers..." He shrugged. "There's not a lot I can do about that."

"Understood," she said. "What's happening out there now?"

"The peepers are showing that they're formed up just over the horizon in all cities under attack. They're re-arming the tanks by APC shuttle from the supply and refuel point."

"Should the Mosquitoes be attacking those re-supply units?" she asked.

"I considered it," he said. "It's what conventional military thinking would dictate. But I still think our air assets are best utilized for doing what they do best — killing the WestHem foot soldiers who will be climbing those hills and trying to dislodge our infantry. For now the Mosquitoes are continuing their attacks on the APCs in their staging positions and leaving the supply units alone. Mortar teams and sniper teams are in the hills surrounding these staging areas. The snipers are directing mortar fire onto the units that are re-loading."

"You're the military expert," she said. "What about the pilot fatigue and the pilot errors that caused the crash in New Pittsburgh. Anything that can be done about that?"

"The fatigue factor is something we're trying to deal with. I've commandeered as much of the coffee supply as I could get my thieving little hands on and I'm feeding it to the air crews and their maintenance crews. As for pilot error, I've sent out an order that only senior pilots with more than five hundred hours logged are allowed to fly lead in a combat sortie. Again, we do what we can."

"And again, understood," she said. "When can we expect them to send in the ground troops?"

"I think they're hoping to have time to regroup before they do that," he replied. "We're actually trying to push them to commit sooner. The air attacks are causing constant attrition on them so hopefully they'll decide to move before they've had time to properly plan an attack and get their people rested in any way."

She smiled, a weak, strained, fatigued smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Did I ever tell you that I'm glad you're on our side, Kevin?" she asked.

"You may have mentioned it once or twice," he said. "Now why don't you get some sleep? I'll have someone wake you when things start to happen again."

"I'll sleep when you sleep," she told him. "That's the rule, General."

"Yo, boss," Matt Mendez said as he shook Brian Haggerty awake from his slumber. "It's midnight. Start of a brand new fucking day."

Brian opened his eyes slowly and shook his head a little, blinking, trying to come awake. He was lying on a sleeping bag in the back corner of the Mosquito hangar. The sounds of ratcheting air wrenches, hissing fuel hoses, and cursing maintenance techs filled the air. "Midnight?" he grunted, rubbing a hand over the three-day stubble on his face. "Already? Seems like I've only been asleep for two hours or so."

"Very funny, boss," Matt said dutifully. Haggerty had been asleep for only two hours. "The ground pounders threw the WestHems back on their first attack. They're staging twenty klicks west of the gap, re-arming and re-supplying for an infantry charge according to Intel. Our bird is done being cycled. They want us wheels-up in thirty minutes to keep the pressure on."

"Thirty minutes?" Brian said. "Are they smoking dust?"

"If they are, it ain't the good shit," Matt said. "Here, I brought you some coffee. They just sent a shitload of it over from a supply warehouse." He handed him a steaming cup.

"No thanks," Brian said. "I can't abide the Martian coffee. It tastes like printer ink mixed with bull sperm."

"No, this is the good shit," Matt said. "Try it. Best fuckin' coffee I've ever had. They tell me its triple strength too."

"Earthling coffee?" he asked, perking up a little.

"General Jackson's orders," Matt confirmed. "Coffee is to be distributed in bulk to all flight crews and aircraft maintenance crews on an unlimited basis. It seems like we lost a flight over in NP because of fatigue and pilot error. This is the way they're fixing that."

Brian took the cup and had a sip. His face took on a near-orgasmic expression. "Oh yeah," he said. "That's the shit. Amazing how you take things for granted, isn't it?"

"Wouldn't know," Matt told him. "I ain't never tasted coffee this good before. All we ever got in the ghetto was the Martian shit. I thought that's what coffee was supposed to taste like."

"Oh, man," Brian said, with genuine sympathy. "You vermin really were deprived. You know that?"

"I'm figuring it out," Matt said. He held up a small disc. "I went ahead and plotted out an initial ingress and egress route for our first sortie. We're coming in from the south this time."

"We're flying lead?" Brian asked. "I thought it was Boreland and Cocksman's turn."

"Not any more," Matt told him. "New orders from the CIC. Whenever possible, no pilot will fly lead on a combat mission unless he has at least five hundred hours of stick time."

"Really?"

"Really," he confirmed. "Cocksman and I composed the plot while you were sleeping. It's solid."

Brian took another sip of his brew. "Have you gotten any sleep?"

"I'm just a sis, boss," he said. "I don't need sleep. I can crash out in the back when we come off target. Come on. Let's go get our biosuits on. Finish your coffee on the way."

"Right," Brian told him, standing up. "Tell the guys to get the engines fired up and have us ready to move in twenty minutes. I'm gonna go to the head and finish this coffee while I'm taking a nice, healthy shit."

"Ain't you gonna check over the plot?" Matt asked.

"No need," Brian told him. "I trust you."

"General, have our lead elements entered any of the Martian cities yet?" asked the reporter from InfoServe during the question and answer period of the impromptu briefing in the pressroom of Nebraska.

Wrath was very tired and fighting a major migraine headache in addition to heartburn that could have powered his flagship long enough to break Martian orbit. Even though this was a staged question — as were all that were asked of him — he winced at the reply he had to give. With every briefing, every press conference, he was digging a deeper and deeper hole for himself. The fact that he was only saying what he'd been ordered to say by the Executive Council didn't matter a bit. If the house of cards finally collapsed he would still get the blame for it. It was how things worked. "In all four cities the lead elements are still completing the job of neutralizing the terrorist positions," he said. "As I've indicated in past briefings, we've encountered an enemy that is not following the civilized rules of warfare and whose goal is to kill as many of our brave soldiers as possible even against the logic of conventional warfare. Their willingness to die in the name of killing our people is something we didn't count on. Not even the Cuban and Argentine rebels have prepared us for the depth of their fanaticism."

"Have our losses been high?" asked another reporter, this one from ICS. "We're hearing from our reporters on the surface that several dozen marines have been killed in Eden alone."

"Unfortunately," Wrath said, "the number is even higher than that. My last count was that almost seventy marines have been killed in these latest engagements at Eden and New Pittsburgh and the Martian insurgents have managed to destroy or disable almost twenty of our main battle tanks. Coming on the heels of their suicide attacks on our hover squadrons, this is a grave situation indeed."

"Twenty tanks?" asked the InfoServe reporter. "Is that planet-wide or just in Eden."

"That is planet-wide," he assured her, his expression never changing, never hinting at the horror of the real numbers. As of fifteen minutes ago, the count at Eden was 633 tanks destroyed outright and another sixty or so damaged. At New Pittsburgh the losses were a little less — only 320 tanks killed and thirty damaged — but the violence and ferocity of the greenie resistance there had been terrifying. They killed all those tanks in less than ten minutes. "As I said, these suicide squads and their swarming attacks with laser weapons are something we honestly weren't prepared to deal with. In order to protect the rest of the armor and the men engaging in this battle, we pulled back a little to re-think our strategy."

"But we'll be engaging them again soon?" asked a WIV reporter.

"We will continue our march on all four of the Martian cities before sunrise," he assured them. "They will not stop us or break our resolve."

The press conference ended a few minutes later. None of the reporters asked the obvious questions. Why weren't the field reporters being allowed out of the ship? Why are the MASH units aboard the landing ships and the hospital ship up in orbit so overwhelmed? Why does there seem to be more than ten casualties returning for each one that you report? Why aren't we allowed to interview any of those casualties or tour the hospital ship? Just how did greenie kamikaze pilots manage to down two entire wings of hovers? All of the reporters knew that something was going on, something they weren't being told. All of them knew they weren't being told even the smallest portion of truth in their daily briefings. But none of them asked about it. The stories fed to them by General Wrath and Admiral Jules were not questioned or investigated. After all, they had their orders.

Wrath left the press room and walked back to the main war room. There he found the command staff studiously peering at their screens and making notations. On the main screen at the center of the room was a telemetric map divided into four squares — each one showing one of the areas of operation on the surface. He glanced up for a moment and saw that nothing had changed since he'd last looked at it — at least not on the map anyway. He went to his elevated command chair near the center of the room and sat down. A steward brought him a cup of coffee, unasked. He didn't bother to thank the man. Instead, he called for Major Wilde.

"Yes, sir?" Wilde said, appearing before him as if by magic.

"I sent a report on the latest battles off to the Executive Council just before my press briefing. It's just after nine in the morning in Denver so they will be reviewing this catastrophe in about twenty minutes. They're not going to be happy with us."

"No, sir," Wilde agreed, "I don't suppose they are."

Though Wrath and Jules both lied about everything to the big three reporters, to their men, to the WestHem public, they did not lie to Executive Council. Every setback, as well as the reasons for them — when such a reason could be found — had been reported in full detail. Needless to say, the politicians running this particular show and their corporate sponsors who ran the Executive Council, were extremely distressed about the shellacking the marines were taking down on the surface.

"I want some good news to give them in the follow-up briefing," Wrath said. "They're on the verge of removing me from command and confining me to the brig for incompetence. We need to achieve victory with this next push. We need to take those cities. They don't care about the casualty rate. They can manipulate that in the media quite easily. But we need to be standing inside those airlocks by the end of the day."

"We're working on it, sir," Wilde said. "The command staff is formulation battle plans as we speak. We'll launch them simultaneously, hitting all four first lines of defense at once with everything we have."

"Good," Wrath said.

"Unfortunately," Wilde said, "the 'everything we have' is getting less and less by the minute. We're unable to support the ground action with artillery or air power and the attrition of our APCs and the men inside of them continues due to the air attacks by Mosquitoes. If we try to dismount the men the mortars come flying in on top of them. And if we're still sitting in place after sunrise, the special forces teams will undoubtedly start hitting the APCs as well."

"So what are you saying?" Wrath asked.

"We need to hit them as soon as possible. Our men are dangerously fatigued and morale is about negative six on a one to ten scale. The quicker we blast through and achieve some sort of victory, the better."

"So you're suggesting we don't wait until sunrise to attack?"

"Yes sir, that is what I'm suggesting. I understand the rationale for waiting. We're allowed to plan more extensively that way, the visual spectrum will be available for the ground troops, and the delay in attack will allow them to get some sleep. The way things are going, however, they're not getting much sleep out there since every five minutes or so they come under air attack. Also, the Martian biosuits will actually be more visible during the night. And as for planning, well, if our units keep getting smaller with each air attack, it negates a lot of the planning on the small unit level because other forces need to be combined and shifted. I think sooner is much better than later."

"Uh huh," Wrath said. "Do we have any explanation for the ineffectiveness of our artillery barrage against those anti-tank positions? Or the ineffectiveness of our tank guns against those same positions?"

"We've been looking into that," Wilde said. "I managed to pull up some pre-war files we had stored on the computers about MPG positions and tactics. They were in the war plans section under strategy for an invasion by EastHem forces and the utilization of the MPG to assist the fast reaction division stationed on Mars. The plan had always been to utilize the MPG as a speed bump out in the wastelands. Their role was to occupy the various chokepoints — the Jutfield Gap is one of the prominent ones — to slow down the EastHem advance long enough for the fast reaction division to cover the positions in the main line of defense just outside the cities. Of course, we disregarded the possible contributions by the MPG air wing and the MPG special forces teams, writing them off as nothing more than a momentary hindrance to an advance."

"A momentary hindrance, huh?" Wrath said, shaking his head.

"We also considered that the MPG, at best, would provide us with twenty-seven hours of delay — just enough to get our division's equipment down from orbit and deployed. That was assuming nearly sixty percent MPG casualties by the way."

"It would seem that maybe those estimates were a tad conservative," Wrath said. "We hit them with three times as many tanks and men as even the worst-case EastHem scenario and we're still sitting out in the wastelands twelve days after touching down."

"And that," said Wilde, "is more in line with the MPG's assessment of their own effectiveness in such an invasion. The reports in the war plans from General Jackson state that MPG doctrine, training, deployment, and equipment is all designed to hold an invading force out in the wastelands for up to eighty days — long enough for reinforcements to arrive from Earth in the event the fast reaction division is deployed elsewhere and the two planets are in conjunction. These reports were thought laughable by our military experts. Now, however, it seems they were probably not that far off. If EastHem had hit with a standard-sized invasion force I think those Martians would have held them back, probably indefinitely."

"But we're not an EastHem invasion force," Wrath said. "We're the WestHem marines trying to liberate this planet from a bunch of terrorists. So tell me how this report is going to help us."

"Of course, sir," Wilde said. "Among the files was a description of the infantry positions and the armor hull-down positions the greenies had constructed in order to fend off attack. There are no actual blueprints of them, but they are described as: 'concrete reinforced bunkers protected by triple layer sandbags for the infantry positions and titanium shielding for the armor positions.' In addition, the infantry bunkers are protected from above by concrete-lined recesses impenetrable to fused artillery shells and highly resistant to penetrating shells."

"Concrete-lined?" Wrath said, shocked. "Titanium shielding? Recessed underlayers?"

"Yes, sir," Wilde said. "It would seem they're not sitting in simple trenches protected by dirt-filled sandbags. In addition, they cite an extensive network of cross trenches at each position that allows them to move between the anti-tank positions on the top and the infantry positions below them, to evac wounded to battalion aid stations or landing zones, and to retreat to the backside of the hills with almost complete defilade from troops, armor, and artillery to the front."

"Why in the hell didn't we know about this?" Wrath demanded. "Intel told us our artillery would destroy their positions with just a few shells!"

"It seems that no one took the greenie reports on combat effectiveness very seriously," Wilde said. "They were written off as MPG propaganda designed to justify their funding from the taxes the Martians placed on themselves. The reports were only accessed sixteen times since being filed fifteen years ago, and one of those sixteen times was me just thirty minutes ago." And most of the other's, he did not mention, were probably EastHem spies who transmitted the information to London.

"No wonder we're having so much trouble dislodging them," Wrath said. "Do the commanders in the field know about this yet?"

"We'll be updating them shortly — with your permission of course."

"Yes, of course!" Wrath almost yelled.

"The regimental commanders all have this information now," Wilde said. "They're using it to plan the ground assault on those positions."

"Is there any way to avoid the losses we experienced with the first assault on these positions?" Wrath asked. "Or do we just need to suck it up? We'll do what we have to do but I'd rather not lose another seven hundred tanks clearing the first line of defense."

"I don't think the losses need be that bad," Wilde told him. "We'll take casualties of course — both in tanks and infantry — but now that we know what we're up against, and after studying some of the live shots from the first engagement, we think we know how to minimize both casualty count and the amount of time it takes to clear those positions."

"How?"

"After reviewing the live shots and the telemetry, it's obvious that our tank division was disorganized in both movement and firepower during the attack. All across the line the units did not stick to their zones of fire, instead, they concentrated on the nearest threats and plastered those positions while leaving others completely untouched. At the positions they were firing upon, they were able to achieve significant suppression of anti-tank fire. The problem was, the untouched positions were able to keep up a heavy volume of laser fire in what was an obvious zone defense. The Martians stuck to their zones, expanded them when necessary, and inflicted heavy damage on us and ultimately forced us to retreat. This goes to show how important the concept of firing zones is. We need to make sure the attacking units utilize this concept and put fire on all of the Martian positions simultaneously. They need to ignore the Martian tanks and APCs until the infantry has climbed the hills and entered the trench networks. Once we've silenced those infantry positions — either by killing all the Martians or forcing their retreat — they can start concentrating fire on the Martian armor. Until that point, however, the grunts up on those hills with the anti-tank weapons are the most deadly foe."

"That makes sense," Wrath said. "And what kind of numbers are we looking at for a successful ground assault?"

"We have to assume that the Martians are probably at least company strength atop every one of those positions. They may only be platoon strength on some, but we won't know which ones since we can't get overheads of the area and, even if we can, they can't show the numbers on the hills. So, accordingly, we need to send battalion strength at each position in order to assure that we dislodge them with minimal friendly casualties and we need to keep the suppressing fire up until the ground troops get within one hundred meters."

"That will be almost our entire infantry force just to clear those gaps," Wrath said.

"Yes, sir," Wilde agreed. "But if we don't clear those gaps, we don't take those cities. This is the only way I see."

"Okay," Wrath said. "Write it up and make it happen. I want the units moving by 0300. Be sure to alert the medical corps to expect heavy casualties."

"They're getting used to that, sir," Wilde said, turning and walking away.

Chapter 17

Martian Wastelands, 20 kilometers west of the Jutfield Gap

0338 hours

"Concrete reinforced trench networks protected by triple layers of dense sandbags?" Callahan repeated slowly, his eyes looking at the solemn, digital image of Captain Ayers.

"That's what we're being told," Ayers confirmed. "They're built with an egress corridor that connects the upper and lower sections and that can facilitate the movement of the units deployed in the network out the back of the trench with almost complete defilade from any frontal or overhead attack."

"So in other words, the arty didn't do shit, the tank fire didn't do shit, and every Martian that stood in those trenches yesterday is still standing in them today?"

"Well, not every one," he said. "We have information that there were significant casualties from the tank engagements. Spies in Eden report the hospitals there are overwhelmed. We are also told there were a number of desertions after the first engagement. Apparently the weekend warriors are starting to show their true colors."

"How many desertions?" Callahan wanted to know.

"Unknown exactly," Ayers admitted. "But the fact that there were any at all proves their morale is slipping, doesn't it? Their will to fight is a finite thing, something that can be broken."

"Not as much as ours is breaking," Callahan said. "The only reason half of our people haven't deserted is there's nowhere for them to go. Even so, I've had almost a dozen of my guys trying to fake some minor injury to get taken off the line and I hear over in Bravo Company some private actually shot himself in the leg and tried to claim it was an accident."

"I heard that one too," Ayers said. "If investigation reveals that is actually the case he'll be put in the brig, court martialed under wartime rules, and will spend the next ten years of his life shoveling snow in the Andes Penal Colony."

Callahan shrugged. "His punishment wasn't the point of my story," he said. "The point is that he tried it at all. We're all tired out here, cap and it gets kind of depressing watching those Mosquitoes come in every five or ten minutes to pop off another thirty or forty of us. I thought we were supposed to start moving by 0300."

"The Martian mortar attacks have delayed the re-arming of the tank division," Ayers said. "About par for the course out here. We should be underway in the next thirty minutes."

"Yeah, so we can go up against concrete lined trenches full of Martian guns."

"We'll be hitting them with overwhelming strength," Ayers said. "Four to one advantage at best, probably closer to six to one at many of the hills. Our entire battalion will be going after this one position. There's no way we can lose."

"You know," Callahan mused, "I wish I had a blowjob for every time someone said there's no way we can lose since we touched down on this place. I wouldn't have to jack off for a month."

Ayers let this go. Instead he sent a copy of their operational map to Callahan's computer (and to the computers of the other three platoon commanders in the company — they were in on the conversation but all so junior they didn't dare talk unless spoken to). "This is the position our battalion will be securing," he said. "It's known as Hill 657 on the Martian maps and it's located in grid Charlie-nine. It rises one hundred and forty meters above the mean ground level of the valley and is one of the most important defensive positions the Martians have to guard the central gap access route. Intel estimates it is staffed with company strength — two platoons of anti-tank infantry, two platoons of straight infantry armed with M-24s, grenade launchers, and eight to ten squad automatic weapons. The flanks of the hill are guarded by a number of APCs and main battle tanks, although the MBT's will probably not be in a position to support the Martian infantry against ground attack. There are at least two eighty-millimeter mortar platoons stationed behind this hill in addition to the Martian mobile guns back at the main line of defense. The artillery will not be subject to counter-battery fire, as you're aware. All of our guns are hiding back out of range of the Martian 250s and being held in reserve for the eventual attack on the main line. However, the Martian 150s will only be effective against us during the dismount period and for the first three hundred meters of the advance. After that, the bulk of the hill itself will serve to protect us from them."

"What about the mortars though?" Callahan asked. "We've seen what they're capable of doing with them."

"They will be able to drop mortar fire on us until we're roughly at the base of the hill," Ayers said. "Their mortar teams, however, will be subject to counter-battery fire from our own mortar teams who will be firing from their APCs two kilometers back."

"Won't the Martians just counter-battery our mortars with their 150s?" he asked.

"They'll be shooting and scooting," Ayers said. "Counter-battery casualties should be minimal."

"That's what we said about our mobile guns," Callahan pointed out. "And they fuckin' massacred them, remember? What makes you think they won't use whatever spies in the sky they have to pinpoint mortar teams as well? Hell, they could even hit them with their 250s, couldn't they?"

"I have no information on that, Callahan," Ayers said testily. "I'm just giving you the briefing that I've been given."

Callahan sighed, stretching back in his command chair for a moment. "Understood, cap," he said. "Please continue."

"Okay," Ayers said. "This is the attack plan in a nutshell. The tanks will roll in first and start putting suppressing fire on their trench network. They'll concentrate on the anti-tank positions first and then switch to the lower positions — where the main resistance against us is going to be coming from — once we start to dismount. Alpha and Bravo Companies will hit the front and lay down heavy suppressing fire of their own once they achieve defilade from the Martian mortars at the base of the hill. Delta Company will hit the left flank of the hill and start working their way up to the trench network on that side. We'll hit the right flank and do the same from that side. Now remember, there are APCs guarding the flanks of the hills. In order to maintain defilade from their machine guns and their 60mm guns, we're going to have to wind through this series of knolls at the hill base here, here, and here." A red line traced its way over the map, showing the route that would keep them out of the line of fire — in defilade — of the Martian APCs.

"From there," he continued, "we climb, moving on our bellies most likely. The slope of this hill is about twenty-five percent on average. It's very rocky and covered with loose sand on the side we'll be ascending. They'll be putting M-24 and SAW fire on us and possibly grenade fire. We'll use heavy covering fire from two platoons while a third advances and the fourth hangs back. Move your platoons up ten and fifteen meters at a time and then leapfrog around each other until we get close enough to start putting grenade fire through the openings in the trenches. That should keep the direct fire suppressed even more. We move up further until we can breach the trench. Once we're inside, we simply clear them out of there. All of this is assuming they don't retreat prior to that point. We're deliberately leaving their rear open so they have that option."

"Hopefully they'll decide to take that option," Callahan said. "Because if they don't, we're gonna take a hell of a lot of casualties."

"Medical teams have been alerted and are moving up," Ayers said. "So far it appears the Martians are not deliberately hindering casualty evacuation from the battlefield, so at least if you get hit, we'll be able to take care of you."

"Yes," said Callahan, "and we're already conveniently pre-zipped into these body bags they call biosuits. Isn't that nice?"

"Enough of that shit, Callahan," Ayers scolded, though without much venom. "If everyone understands their role in the coming attack, why don't you get your squad leaders and the rest of your platoons briefed in. Be sure to let your APC drivers know that they need to follow the goddamn map and stay in formation no matter what. Let your APC gunners know to stick to their zones when laying down suppressing fire. Part of the reason the tanks were hit so hard was they were putting their fire all over the place and leaving a lot of the Martian firing positions uncovered with suppression fire. Stick to those zones and follow the routes we've come up with and we should be able to keep casualties to a minimum."

"And just what is the minimum?" Callahan asked. "Only twenty percent? Forty maybe?"

"You're out of line, Callahan," Ayers said dryly. "Get the briefings done and be ready to move out in thirty minutes."

Among the platoon leaders, only Callahan noticed that Ayers hadn't answered his question.

"They're moving in," said Sergeant Walker to his squad just after 0400. "We have the almost live telemetry again from whatever source Intel is using to spy on them. They're spread out like before, tanks in front coming in hot, APCs behind, mortar teams and support battalions behind that. ETA to first contact, five minutes."

"Oh yeah," said Hicks, who had given up the SAW to Drogan and was now manning a position near the end of the trench with his M-24. "I'm lovin' this now."

"You gotta die sometime, Hicks," Walker told him. "Hopefully it won't be this morning. Command estimates they're going to put suppressing fire on the anti-tank positions first and then bring up their APCs to dismount their troops. Once they start doing that they're more than likely going to start plastering our positions to keep us from firing on them. If the fire gets overwhelming our orders are to hunker down until it eases up. Adjoining hillsides will expand their zones to pick up the slack if they can. Likewise, if one of the hills to the north or south comes under heavy fire we're to expand our zones to take the pressure off them. We have to make sure that no exposed Earthling soldier down there doesn't have someone shooting at him. If they wanna take this hill, they're gonna have to pay the price for it."

"What about arty support?" Drogan asked.

"We have two batteries of 150s committed to this position," Walker replied. "Lieutenant Comesly will be serving as the forward spotter and directing that fire. We also have our mortar teams on the backside of the hill. Platoon lieutenants will be directing that fire and it will be answered based on priority."

"What kinda numbers we looking at to be attackin' us?" asked Jeff.

"Hard to tell by the telemetry at this point," Walker replied. "But you can bet your ass it'll be at least battalion strength hitting every hill, possibly more."

"That would be about four to one or so?" Jeff asked.

"Roughly," Walker said. "You didn't expect them to fight fair now, did you?"

"No, not really," Jeff said, watching as the heat tendrils and the swelling dust cloud grew more distinct.

The rumbling vibration of the approaching vehicles became noticeable again and grew worse. The tension grew thicker and the communication over the tactical channel became less and less frequent. Nobody seemed to have much to say anymore.

"Tanks coming into range," Walker suddenly announced. "AT positions engaging."

His observation was not entirely necessary since everyone could plainly see that the AT teams above them and on the hillsides around them were engaging. The flashes of laser weapons began to light up the night once again. Almost immediately the flashing of tank guns from just over the horizon began to answer back, sending streams of eighty millimeter shells streaking towards them. Explosions began to sound as their hill was hit but it was clear from the first that the volume of return fire was not nearly as intense as it had been during the first attack, when it had seemed like the entire hill was going to collapse atop them.

"Tanks approaching," Drogan announced. "Breaching the horizon across the whole line."

Jeff saw the forms of the main battle tanks becoming visible, three then four then eight then a dozen then two dozen, their laser mounts appearing first followed by their turrets and then the bodies. Some exploded as they were hit with anti-tank fire, one here, five there, three somewhere else, but always more appeared behind them, their cannons and lasers flashing. The ones not hit began to spread out a little, continuing to advance forward despite the horrendous losses they were taking. And still more and more kept appearing.

"Telemetry is showing sixty plus APCs moving toward our position, coming in hot," Walker announced. "They're starting to spread out for what appears a frontal and flank attack. The other hills are all getting about the same and there is a large reserve divided up into company strength units lagging behind them."

"Six hundred men," Jeff said, his adrenaline now flowing quite freely. "All for us."

"How fuckin' thoughtful of them," Hicks said, gripping the handle of his M-24 compulsively.

"This is the real thing, people," Walker said. "They're coming to get us. AT units will shift fire to the APCs as soon as they're in range to try to whittle their numbers down. As soon as they start to dismount, open up on them. Remember, controlled fire, stick to your zones, and try to put your recticle on center mass if you can. Don't try to be a video game hero and get everyone with headshots. A wounded marine is even better than a dead marine. You kill them and they just lay there. You wound them and someone has to take the time and manpower to pull them out. Drogan, remember to go after the large concentrations with that SAW. Keep them pinned in place if you can so the rest of the squad can pick them off individually."

"Right, sarge," she said, her voice cracking just the tiniest bit.

"And when its time to leave, we do it like we practiced," he added. "Take your weapons and as much ammo and supplies as you can carry and walk quickly to the egress point. Don't run, don't push, and don't panic. Panic kills. Remember that."

"The tanks are stopping," Drogan announced.

And indeed they were. They had spread out on a sporadic line about seven hundred meters out, many of them trying to find what cover they could. Some were hiding behind already destroyed tanks from the first engagement. Others were trying to put boulders or small rises in the land between themselves and the hill. The cannon fire began to pick up in intensity, still concentrated above, at the AT positions, still nowhere near as intense as before.

"APCs visible," someone shouted. "Here they come!"

Jeff saw the shapes of the APCs broach the horizon. They were moving fast, faster than the tanks, not zigzagging, just coming straight on. As soon as they became visible they began to fire their own sixty millimeter cannons at the AT positions, adding to the volume of fire. The hill shook harder with the explosions but even as he feared it would be enough to suppress the anti-tank crews, two of the APCs exploded from direct hits.

"Yes," he whispered, his thumb playing over the firing button of his weapon. "Take them out, guys. Take them right the fuck out."

As they drew closer, the APCs began to fire their twenty-millimeter cannons as well, sending high intensity streaks of shells into the hill. And still the AT crews kept after them. Three more exploded, then five more, their hulks stopping dead as smoke and blood vapor rose into the air. But still they came, passing through the ranks of tanks that were trying to protect them and advancing further. Half of them came directly toward the front of the hill. The other half split up into two and began to move towards the sides. Suddenly, they came to a halt, their guns continuing to fire as fast as they could. Their rear ramps came down and the small figures of WestHem marines began to pour out of them.

"They're dismounting!" Walker shouted. "Open fire. Arty and mortars are incoming!"

Jeff's zone was near the right flank of the hill as seen from the enemy perspective. He put his recticle over the figure of a marine and pushed the firing button on his weapon. It kicked in his hand and the figure dropped, a puff of blood vapor coming out of his back. He had just killed his first enemy soldier. He attached no thought or emotion to this save a small feeling of vicious pleasure. He was too scared to feel much else. And before he could even put his recticle on someone else, before Drogan could even open up with her SAW to keep them pinned near their egress points, both the tanks and the APCs shifted fire and began to plaster the infantry trenches.

"Fuck me!" someone yelled as the streaks of eighty, sixty, and twenty millimeter began to pound into their position. Explosions shuddered and concussed through his body. Dirt, sand, and rocks began to fly around the trenches. One of the shells went off right outside his hole and he felt shrapnel pinging off his helmet.

"Fuck me is right," he said. Still he kept his head in his hole and shot another soldier. He then shot another one.

"Fuck me!" Callahan yelled as he stepped out of the APC and into the living hell of the Martian battlefield. Bullets came flying in, pinging off the top of the APC, slamming into the dirt around them. Two of the squad members went down almost instantly, both shot through the torso. He covered behind the rear of the APC the best he could and tried to clear his mind enough to start taking account of his platoon, their positioning, and the best way to advance them to the base of that hill.

The advance forward had been bad enough, horrifying even. They'd rushed inward towards their flank of the hill, sixteen APCs in all, plowing through a broad plain littered with destroyed tanks. As soon as the hill had come in sight, the lasers began to fall on them. The APC directly next to his in the formation had blown up right before his eyes, its turret flying through the air, the blood of its occupants geysering upward and blowing off in the wind. Two and then three other APCs of the company exploded right behind it, another thirty men dead in an instant, the rest of them horribly exposed, their suppressing fire doing next to nothing to slow down the onslaught of laser energy.

"Dismount!" came Ayers' cry, his voice sounding scared, desperate, very unlike the cool, professional tone of command it usually instilled. "Get everyone out and start advancing towards the base."

The APCs stopped and they'd scrambled out in a disorganized heap, two hundred meters short of their planned egress point and without much of anything in the way of natural cover from the gunfire that was erupting around them.

"Callahan, Meyers," Ayers ordered. "Get your platoons to put some covering fire on those hillside positions!"

"Meyers is dead, sir," a terrified voice squeaked back at them. "This is Corporal Jones. I've taken command of fourth platoon."

"Just fuckin' great," Ayers responded. "Alright, Jones, start commanding. Third and fourth platoon cover, first and second advance inward to the original dismount location. Move!"

Callahan repeated the orders to his platoon and then quickly moved behind a medium sized boulder that was ten meters from the APC. No sooner had he stepped away than the APC exploded, struck by an anti-tank laser. It's turret landed exactly where Callahan had just been standing.

"Jesus," he muttered, resisting the urge to stare at the destroyed vehicle. He turned back towards the battlefield and watched as his men got behind anything they could find to use as cover — rocks, undulations in the landscape, destroyed APCs. Several more went down.

"They're killing us down here," Callahan told his men. "Stop crawling around and start shooting! We need some fire on those Martian gun positions or they're gonna pick us off one by one!"

The SAW gunners settled in and quickly set up their weapons. They started firing upward, raking their bullets over the trenches where the flashes from the Martian guns were emanating. The rest of the platoon soon followed, sending three round bursts at the gun flashes with their M-24s. It had no effect whatsoever. The Martians guns kept flashing and men kept getting hit, their weapons falling to the ground, their grunts and groans of pain, their death cries echoing over the tactical channel.

"Incoming!" several voices yelled at once.

Callahan looked up and saw the streaks of artillery and mortar shells coming at them, dropping out of the sky like deadly hailstones. The explosions began a few seconds later. Flashes of light blinded them, concussions slammed into them, and men were blown apart, arms and legs and heads flying from their bodies, torsos tossed through the air on clouds of blood vapor. Shrapnel lanced into Callahan's left arm, slicing neatly through his suit and causing a warning light to appear in his goggles.

First and second platoon took the worst of it, however. They had been rushing forward to their position when the shells started dropping. Their entire front rank was shredded.

"All units, advance!" Captain Ayers yelled. "The arty is killing us. Move forward to the base of the hill! There's defilade from the arty there!"

Callahan didn't have to tell his platoon twice. They stood and began moving inward, hurtling themselves along the ground as fast as possible in the bulky suits in .3G of gravity. It was nothing so organized as an advance, it was a panicked heap of bodies rushing from a killing box, a formation that resembled a stampede.

The shells continued to drop out of the sky, exploding some of the men, wounding others. Rifle and SAW bullets slammed into their ranks, cutting down others. Callahan saw a stream of machine gun bullets go streaking just over the top of his head. Behind him a private from his platoon was cut nearly in half. A shell went off somewhere in front of him and something struck him in the face hard enough to snap his head backward. He looked down and saw an arm, still covered in biosuit material, lying in the dirt.

They passed their intended drop-off point without slowing. This brought them across a shallow indentation in the ground that continued up to the base of the hill. In the center of this indentation was a large field of boulders that had collected over the millennia. Once inside this depression the 150mm artillery fire ceased to be a threat since the hill blocked their passage. This was not true of the mortars, however, since they were fired upward, lobbed actually.

"Get to that boulder field!" Ayers commanded. "Spread out and take positions behind the rocks!"

Callahan repeated the order to his platoon but it wasn't really necessary. That was where they were all heading anyway, driven by sheer survival instinct. They went scrambling in in a heap, throwing themselves to the ground and crawling forward the last thirty or forty meters to escape the gunfire. Several pushing and shoving matches broke out over ownership of the larger and best-positioned boulders. Callahan saw at least two people shot down after being thrown out into the open by larger, stronger, or more desperate competitors. He himself found a boulder about two meters in diameter. Two marines were already huddling against it. He threw himself between them just as another stream of machine gun fire came stitching in. It blew several chunks off the top of the boulder and then shifted to the right, killing two marines trying to make it two another boulder.

Callahan looked at his two companions and, upon seeing their faces, realized he had no idea who they were. They weren't from his current platoon, nor had they been members of this company as of two days ago. They were talking but their voices weren't coming across his audio system. They were probably displaced extras, piled into first or second platoon — or maybe both — because of the APC shortage.

He called up his mapping software to get a status check on his men. What he saw wasn't encouraging. One entire squad had been killed when a laser struck their APC. Of the remaining four squads (he'd absorbed an extra himself due to the APC shortage) sixteen men were lying still back behind them, either dead or wounded, and another four were no longer transmitting at all, which meant their suit computers or radio equipment had been completely destroyed.

"Doc?" he hailed, calling his latest medic whose name he couldn't remember. He couldn't even remember what his face looked like.

"Doc's dead, LT," said Corporal Hennesy, who was leading second squad. "A mortar blew him in half while we were moving up."

"Great," Callahan said. "Just great." He would have to trust that one of the other platoons medics — assuming they were still alive — would take care of his wounded.

He checked the positioning of his men who were still alive and saw without surprise that they were scattered all over the place, interspersed with the other three platoons. Meanwhile, the gunfire continued to slam into them and the mortars continued to drop down on them in volleys. He switched to the command frequency. "Cap, you there?" he asked.

"Got a fucking hole blasted in my suit," Ayers answered, "but I'm here. About thirty meters from your position. We need to get moving up the hill as quick as possible before the mortar fire takes us out group by group."

"My very suggestion," Callahan said. "We'll cover for first and second if you get 'em moving."

"Wait a minute," cut in the corporal in charge of second platoon (neither Callahan nor Ayers could remember his name), his voice sounding whiny and terrified. "Why do we have to move up first? I think it's third and fourth's turn to move first, isn't it?"

"This isn't the fucking kindergarten playground, asshole!" Ayers yelled at him. "Unless you want a friendly fire round through your goddamn nutsack, you'll go when I tell you to go. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," the corporal said. "I was just trying to point out that..."

"Don't point," Ayers told him. Just do. Third and fourth platoons, get some covering fire on those Martians! First and second platoon, move up to the base and start putting your fire up there. Move!"

There was no further dissent in the ranks. Callahan passed on the order and his remaining men started firing up at the Martians again. The members of fourth platoon did the same. As soon as the volume of fire was at it's heaviest, first and second got up and began to dash forward.

"They're moving in!" said Walker. "Keep the fire on them! Make them earn every inch of ground they take!"

Jeff was as scared as he had ever been in his life. Both the tanks and the APCs below continued to fire shells of all calibers directly at their trench, directly at the very holes they were firing from. Corporal Valenzuela had been killed right before his eyes, shrapnel from a sixty-millimeter shell ripping through his throat and upper chest. Private Mullins had been horribly injured. A twenty-millimeter shell made it into her firing hole and tore through her right shoulder, leaving her right arm hanging limp and useless. The trench itself had taken a royal beating. Sandbags were blown open, entire sections were collapsed in some places. Dust and smoke filled the entire length and everywhere you walked you were stepping on piles of expended shell casings.

Still, the damage was nowhere near as bad as what Jeff, Hicks, and Drogan had witnessed in the anti-tank trench above. For the most part the barricades were doing their jobs and absorbing the punishment instead of letting it through to the troops inside. And now they were undergoing their first sustained barrage of small arms fire as a multi-platoon sized unit below tried to keep them from shooting at the other multi-platoon size unit now advancing on them.

"Shoot and move, people," Walker reminded. "Don't linger in one hole or you're dead."

Jeff leaned his body to the right, putting his shoulder and head into one of the firing holes, pointing his weapon downward. He saw the group of marines — sixty to seventy of them — taking short, rapid steps toward the base of the hill, their biosuited bodies crouched low, their weapons held close to their sides. Behind them, from behind the rocks, were dozens of flashes, including streaks of SAW fire. Bullets plinked in everywhere, kicking up dust, breaking rocks, tossing pebbles, slamming into the sandbags. Any one of those bullets could be the one that flew in at just the right angle, that would make it through the hole and into his face or chest or neck.

Drogan fired a long burst with the SAW, the rounds cutting two of the advancing marines down. Jeff covered the nearest marine in his zone with his targeting recticle and pushed his firing button, hitting him right at center mass, dropping him to the ground. He targeted another, shot him down, and then one more. He then pulled out of the firing hole and hunkered down, none too soon as it turned out since a flurry of machine gun fire and three round bursts came flying in as the hole was targeted. Several of the rounds made it through to plink into the backside of the trench. An explosion boomed very close, close enough to rattle his teeth in his mouth. He had heard enough of them now to identify it as a sixty-millimeter shell. A piece of sandbag shredded from the impact and smoke and shrapnel came flying into the hole from the outside.

"Damn," he muttered, taking a few deep breaths. He then moved two meters to his right, positioned himself in another firing hole and leaned out again to take a few more shots.

"Drogan displacing," Drogan said to let everyone know the SAW would not be firing for a few moments.

"Make it quick, Drogan," Walker told her. "They're moving up fast."

"Right, sarge," she said.

"Wouldn't it be a little easier on us," Hicks asked, "if the fuckin' AT teams upstairs would stop shooting at the APCs and pick up their M-24s to give us some support down here?"

"Those AT teams are doing just fine the way they are," Walker responded. "In case you forgot, those APCs down there didn't just drive these marines up here, they're lobbing sixties and twenties at us. You know those big booms you keep hearing? That big boom that killed Valenzuela? The AT teams are killing them. Haven't you noticed the fire has slacked off?"

"Oh... yeah, I guess," Hicks said, firing a few shots with his weapon and then pulling back inside.

The first group of marines made it all the way to the base of the hill, minus twelve to fifteen of their number. The survivors, now safe from mortar fire, hit their bellies, taking cover behind some of the rocks and the outcroppings. They began firing up at them, momentarily doubling the volume of fire pouring in.

"Pull back inside for a few!" Walker ordered. "Reload if you need to and get ready to start hitting the second group when they move in. They're trying the leapfrog maneuver here."

Jeff leaned back against the trench wall — again just ahead of a bullet that came flying in. He checked the ammunition indicator display on the front of his weapon and saw he had five rounds left in his magazine. He ejected it, sliding it into a pocket on his left side where other almost empty magazines were kept for later reloading or in case of emergency. He pulled a fresh magazine from his right side pocket, slammed it into the weapon, and jacked the first round into the chamber. Beside him, Drogan was doing the same, putting a fresh two hundred round drum into the SAW. The two of them shared a look with each other — a look that was half camaraderie, half fear.

The small arms fire slacked off some, although the eighties, sixties, and twenties continued to slam into their position with depressing regularity.

"They're moving up again," Walker told them. "Let's get at 'em. The LT reports the marines at the center of the hill are not advancing and that tank and APC fire is concentrating on the infantry positions to the flanks. They're gonna try to take us from the sides."

"We need more people over here, sarge," Hicks said. "There's only seven of us trying to hold off a whole fuckin' company!"

"They're sending four people from first squad over to reinforce us," Walker told them. "We'll try to delay them as long as we can but as soon as they hit the halfway point up the hill, we're pulling out."

"Finally," Jeff said with a sigh.

"Now put some fire on those marines!" Walker ordered. "Don't let them just walk up this fucking hill!"

Callahan advanced just behind the bulk of his men. The fire from the Martian position above was not murderous by any means — it looked like no more than seven or eight weapons firing at them, not even squad strength. All the same, it was horrifyingly accurate and the covering fire provided by the APCs, the tanks, and two platoons of marines had absolutely no effect on it. Men dropped left and right of him, the blood boiling out of gaping holes in the their backs. SAW fire raked over them from time to time, taking out any group that had bunched up. He saw streaks of bullets go flying over his head several times as his feet struggled to find suitable ground to step upon. He knew he could be killed at any second, that only random chance had kept one of those bullets from slamming into him. This was not a situation he liked to find himself in.

They passed through first and second platoon — who continued to provide covering fire — and started up the hill. The slope was relatively easy, no more than twenty-five percent or so, but the ground itself was rocky and uneven with outcroppings of rock and drifts of loose, powdery soil blown in by the winds. Private Slawson — one of the few original members of Callahan's platoon — got himself a billion dollar wound when he stepped in a crevice and snapped his tibia and fibula at mid-shaft. The rest of them tried to scramble upward as quickly as possible, to get at least twenty meters ahead of their cover positions. Nine more fell to gunfire before they were able to hunker down behind some of the outcroppings.

Callahan saw he had lost one of his SAW gunners on the advance but the other three set up their weapons and began to shoot. The rest of his men began popping three round bursts at the spots where Martian gun flashes were originating.

"First and second platoon," Ayers commanded. "Move up. Third and fourth, keep that covering fire up. We need to suppress those positions!"

First and second started up the hill but they didn't get far. An increased volume of gunfire from the Martian positions — including another SAW — tore into them, dropping eight in the first ten seconds.

"Down!" Ayers yelled. "Get down! They've reinforced that position!"

They dove to the ground, finding cover wherever they could. The bullets followed them, popping off anyone who was exposed in any way, leaving the hillside littered with dead and wounded.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Callahan said as he witnessed this. "Cap, we need more men over here! Can they break loose a platoon or two from the center to reinforce us?"

There was no answer. Callahan knew instantly what this probably meant. Ayers was either dead or horribly wounded. He had been hanging out with first platoon and they had just gotten trounced with gunfire. He looked at his mapping software long enough to locate Ayers' dot on the display. It was still there, which meant the suit was still transmitting but it was lying still in the open. Not an encouraging sign.

Callahan struggled for a moment to remember who was currently leading first platoon. Was it that corporal who had been whining earlier? He thought it was. Now what the hell was his name? Or maybe it was that corporal who had...

A burst of SAW fire blasted into his rock, chipping pebbles off to spray against his helmet, breaking his train of concentration, reminding his over-fatigued, over-stressed mind that he was in the middle of a battle.

"First platoon commander!" he barked on the command channel. "This is Callahan."

"Sergeant Corals here, Callahan," a voice responded. It was neither the whiny voice from earlier or the other corporal. Callahan, in fact, had no idea who Sergeant Corals even was — hadn't even been aware that there was still a sergeant left to command anything at all.

Christ, he thought, shaking his head in terrified amazement. We're supposed to win a battle like this? When we don't even know who is running the fucking platoons in our own company? "Corals, what's the status on Captain Ayers? He's not responding to hails and he's positioned about ten meters behind you, not moving."

"That sounds like his ass then," Corals replied. "That would put you in charge, wouldn't it?"

"Get someone back there to check on him," Callahan ordered. "His radio might be out."

"Callahan, we're under fire here in case you haven't noticed. Ain't none of my men gonna expose themselves to go check on a fuckin' corpse. You're in command of the company now — what's fuckin' left of it. How about you make a command decision and order off this hill?"

"I'm making a command decision and ordering you to get someone back there to check on the captain," Callahan said. "Get someone right this fucking second or you'll be doing it yourself!"

A pause, then an angry voice replied, "Okay, I got some guys moving back there. If I was you, I wouldn't let myself get in their gunsights later if they survive this."

"You make another remark like that and your fucking head will be in my gunsight before you're done making it," Callahan told him. "Is that clear?"

"Sure, whatever," Corals said.

Callahan checked his map display again, watching to make sure Corals wasn't just jerking him off and pretending to send someone. He wasn't. Three dots separated from the rest of the platoon and began to inch their way backward — no doubt crawling on their bellies — toward the dot that represented Ayers.

"He's dead," Corals reported a few seconds after they arrived at their destination. "Took a couple of rounds right in the head and blew it clean open. You happy now?"

"Thrilled," Callahan said, unable to muster up anything like emotion to attach to news that the man who had been his friend for the last six years and his boss for the last two was dead, lying in a heap on some shitty Martian hillside. He was too tired and too scared to care. "Listen up. I want you to hold in place and keep the fire on that hillside. I'm gonna see about getting us some reinforcements."

"Sure," said Corals. "Take your time. We're just lying here under these fucking rocks enjoying the pretty light show."

Callahan ignored this for now. He turned his radio to the platoon frequency and told Corporal Hennesy, the most senior squad leader (which meant he'd been in that position almost thirty-six hours) that third platoon was all his. He then switched to the battalion command frequency and hailed Lieutenant Colonel West, commander of Second Battalion. "This is Lieutenant Callahan," he told him. "Captain Ayers is KIA. I've assumed command of Charlie Company."

"Goddammit!" barked West, who was commanding from an APC far in the rear. "That's two of my company commanders I've lost in the last fifteen minutes!"

"Uh... yes, sir," Callahan said. "We need some..."

"Schafers of Bravo Company over on the left flank got smoked by a mortar shell," West said although Callahan hadn't asked and didn't care. "And now Ayers is gone too? Goddamn! He was like a brother to me. We went to the academy together."

"My sympathies, sir, but..."

"Are you sure he's dead?" West cut in.

"I'm sure," Callahan squeaked as another stream of SAW fire slammed into his rock. "Some of the men checked on him after he stopped transmitting. But anyway..."

"How'd he get it?" West asked. "Was it those fucking mortars?"

"Uh... no, sir, it was bullets, probably SAW fire during the last advance. Took him in the head. Look, sir, we're pinned down here on the side of the hill, just above the base. We've taken heavy casualties and the Martians have reinforced their position. They have two SAWs and at least eight M-24s up there now. We need some more people up here if we're going to make it up that hill."

"No can do, Callahan," West told him. "Bravo and Delta Companies are taking heavy fire in the center of the hill and Alpha is pinned down just like you are."

"Uh... sir," Callahan said carefully, through clenched teeth, "aren't Bravo and Delta just a diversionary force to make the Martians think we're attacking the center? They're not meant to go up the hill until its secured, right?"

"Well... no," West said. "But they are keeping the bulk of the greenies occupied while your company and Alpha Company advance on the flanks. If I start shifting forces from the center they might figure out we're planning to take the hill from the flanks."

An explosion boomed ten meters to Callahan's right as a fragmentation grenade launched from a Martian M-24 detonated over the top of one of his squads. Two of his men rolled lifelessly down the hill. Another simply slumped over. "I think they've already figured that out, sir," he said. "They have at least one grenade launcher up there and they're starting to use it."

"Grenade launchers? Hmmm. Sounds serious."

Another one came flying in, air-bursting over yet another squad of marines, killing two more. "Yes, sir," Callahan said. "I'd say it's pretty fuckin' serious. If we don't get some reinforcements over here in the next five minutes we're gonna have to pull back!"

"There will be no retreat from this hill, Callahan!" West barked at him. "Do you understand that? No retreat! I will not have it be known that my battalion ran away from a bunch of greenies!"

"Then get me some more men over here, sir!" Callahan yelled back. "If you don't, your whole battalion will be dead! We need to get up that hill and stop this fire!"

"Valentine, man the eighty!" Sanchez ordered. "Command reports the marines are reinforcing the units on this flanks. At least two platoons heading this way!"

"What about the tanks?" Zen asked as another laser shot slammed into their barrier, burning through another section of their rapidly crumbling defensive emplacement with enough energy left over to peel a layer off the front of their turret.

"Fuck the tanks!" Sanchez replied. "Our job is to protect the infantry, not ourselves. Those platoons will have to pass right through that open area at two o'clock. Get some fire on them when they do. I'll man the twenty and rake up any stragglers."

"Fuck my ass," Zen said, popping off one last tank and then abandoning his laser cannons. He switched his control set up to the main eighty-millimeter gun, checking to make sure a round was in it. He looked toward the two o'clock position, a small open area about one hundred meters wide and tried to ignore the dozens of tanks and APCs that were still trying to kill them. He had never wanted to be away from any place as much as he wanted to be away from this deathtrap right now.

He had lost count of how many WestHem tanks he'd killed in the last fifteen minutes. The entire battle so far had been a mad, endless, terrifying stream of explosions and flashes, of covering tanks with his recticle and firing, of watching turrets flying into the air, of hearing Xenia cry out the damage being inflicted on their barricade and their tank, of hearing the reports of other tanks being destroyed or damaged when the overwhelming fire against them managed to burn through and hit in just the right place. Of the sixteen tanks of their unit, four had been annihilated with all hands. He supposed that wasn't a bad ratio since their unit was responsible for the destruction of at least seventy marine main battle tanks — their burned out carcasses were everywhere on the battlefield — but the knowledge that he might annihilated at any second, flash-fried by a laser burn-through or, even worse, blown to pieces by detonating ammunition — weighed heavy on him.

There was a clank as Sanchez used his load button to jack the first twenty-millimeter round into the externally mounted cannon. It was belt-fed from a compartment on the outside of the turret. The weapon was fired with remote control from inside by means of a camera/infrared system although the actual gun could be physically reached through the commander's hatch in the event of a jam.

"Artillery coming down out there," Sanchez reported, unnecessarily since Zen could see it as well. "Mortar fire too. They must have them in sight."

"They stopped firing at us," Xenia said. "Did you notice? Since we stopped shooting at them they must think we're dead."

"Let 'em think that," Zen said.

"The illusion will only last until we open fire on their dismounts," Sanchez said. "So enjoy it while it lasts. Xenia, I want you to put us up just long enough to take a few shots. Get back in the hull down position the second I tell you to. Remember, our turret will be exposed to direct fire from the marine MBTs while we're up."

"Got it," she said.

"And remember," put in Zen, "we're sittin' in the fuckin' turret."

"No shit," she said testily. "You put the fire on the marines and I'll get you back down."

The mortars and artillery rounds continued to explode in the open area without let-up, flying in in volleys. It was a strangely beautiful sight if you could forget that people were being blown to pieces by it — people who were intent on killing their comrades up on the hill.

"I've got movement over there," Sanchez said. "On the far side, by those rocky mounds."

Zen looked in that direction and saw two and then three biosuited figures crouched low near the rocks, probably evaluating the terrain before moving on. "Should we hit them now?" he asked. "Keep them pinned in there?"

"We're not here to pin them in anywhere," Sanchez said. "We're here to kill as many of them as possible. We'll wait until they're making the dash."

"Right," Zen said.

They saw the marines waving their hands forward. They then rushed out into the open area, trotting in that clumsy, awkward way Earthlings had. Ten then twenty than thirty then forty appeared behind them, their grouping nothing like an actual formation, more like a bunch of guys who were in a panic as they tried to get out of a killing zone.

"All right, do it, Xenia," Sanchez order. "Get us up there."

"Moving," she said, her hands going to the controls. She backed up six meters, turned to the right a bit, and then moved forward, bringing the tank up a shallow berm on the side of their position.

"Fire as soon as you can get the gun on the them," Sanchez told Zen.

"Bet your ass, sarge," he replied, staring fixedly at his gunnery screen. Slowly the view began to match what he was seeing from the laser turret camera. His targeting recticle appeared and he moved it to the center of the running troops and pushed the range button. "That's good, Xenia," he said. "I got 'em."

She stopped, her hands ready to pull them back down the second she was told.

"Getting range," Zen said, more to himself than anyone else. "Got it. Computer, set round for airburst, one, one, zero, zero meters."

"Set," the computer replied.

"Firing," he said, pushing the button on his console. There was boom as the round was fired and the tank rocked backwards on its treads. The shell streaked out and exploded in the midst of a group of soldiers halfway across the open area. When the flash cleared they were all on the ground, many of them in pieces.

As the automatic loading system ejected the spent shell casing and rolled another into the breech, Sanchez opened up with the twenty millimeter, raking it across other groups of exposed marines. Zen, who was watching the screen and looking for the best place to put his next shot, saw that the marines hit by these rounds weren't just falling down with a little blood boiling out of their wounds. They were being blown apart, arms, legs, heads flying free, some cut in half, some exploding as their air tanks were hit, their blood boiling out of their bodies like geysers.

"Jesus," he said, fascinated, horrified, surprised to find himself feeling something like empathy for the poor bastards on the receiving end of it. War truly was hell. You couldn't really appreciate just what that meant until you'd seen men being blown into pieces before your eyes.

"Loaded," the computer told him. "Default is airburst. State range."

"One, three, zero, zero meters," Zen answered. He pushed the button and sent another shell out, blowing another group of marines — this time cowering behind some small rocks — into oblivion.

"Okay, get us back under cover!" Sanchez ordered. "Move it, Xenia!"

The words weren't even completely out of his mouth before she had them backing down the berm to the relative safety of the flat ground. It was none too soon either. No more than three seconds after they were clear the berm lit up with laser strikes that fused the sand into glass and exploded it all over the front of the tank. She brought them to an abrupt halt and then went forward again, pulling them back behind their barricade. The laser fire shifted and began to slam into the barrier once more. There was a bright flash as one of them burned through. A warning alarm began to blare.

"Burn through!" Xenia reported. "They hit the left tread and damaged it."

"How bad?" asked Sanchez. If one of their treads had been rendered unusable they would be stuck here, unable to do anything but turn in a tight circle.

"Integrity is still intact according to the computer," she replied. "I don't know how long it'll carry us though."

"Okay, I guess we'll worry about it when its time to leave," Sanchez said. "In the meantime, Zen, start popping those tanks again."

"Right," he said, already putting his recticle on one and preparing to fire.

Callahan watched the reinforcements come straggling in, dashing and crawling their way forward, some of them dragging wounded with them, most of them looking panicked as the Martian gunners up above picked them off with SAW fire and M-24 fire. Sergeant Woodman was in charge of them. He found his way up to Callahan's position and threw himself breathlessly to the ground.

"Goddammit, I didn't sign up for this shit," were the first words out of his mouth when they switched to a close range tactical channel.

"Pretty bad coming over?" Callahan asked him, although without much interest. It had been pretty bad waiting for them too. Grenades or rifle fire had killed another ten or so.

"We left the center position with seventy-six men," he said. "We made it here with fifty-two, six of whom are wounded and unable to fight."

"Artillery?" Callahan asked. He had seen the shells coming over the hill, had heard the distant concussions.

"That got some," Woodman said. "And then the Martian tanks hit us when we crossed the open ground. Eighty millimeter shells and twenties." He shook his head, still able to vividly visualize the horror of it. "And then when we rounded the bend and started moving up to here, they opened up on us from the trenches. This just ain't a real good place to be."

"No shit," Callahan answered. "We need to get up there as quick as possible and chase them out of those trenches before they kill us all."

"Leapfrog approach?" Woodman asked.

Callahan shook his head. "Covering fire is completely ineffective against them," he said. "We move up all at once and overwhelm them."

"No covering fire? Just advance into..." He looked up at the hill, where the gun flashes were still lighting up despite the continued peppering from the tanks and APCs. "... into that?"

"It's the only way," Callahan told him. "Brief your men but do it quick. We're moving in five minutes."

Jeff looked out his firing hole, his weapon pointed downward, his targeting recticle bouncing around as he turned his head left and right, looking for people to kill and finding none. All of the marines down there, including the reinforcements they'd just plastered, were hunkered down behind cover, denying him a target.

"All the dumb ones are dead now," said Drogan. "We're dealing with the Darwinian result of survival of the fittest here."

"They still have to come up this fuckin' hill after us," said Hicks.

Even Corporal Woo, one of the reinforcements sent from the center with a grenade launcher attached to his M-24, had not found a target to launch at in the last three minutes or so. In fact, everything was quiet. Most of the tanks and APCs had stopped firing, probably, opined Walker, because they were getting low on ammunition and wanted to conserve what was left for their final push.

"Our AT units are pulling out," Walker said. "They're out of charging batteries. We'll be following shortly."

"Thank you, Laura," Drogan said.

"No more suppressing fire on the armor?" Hicks asked. "Are we going to be able to hold?"

"We're not here to hold, remember?" Walker replied. "We're here to kill as many as we can and then get the fuck out. And you can thank those AT teams for the damage they did. Look at all that burned out armor down there."

This was true. There was an awful lot of dead WestHem tanks and APCs down there. The steel corpses of their mechanized army littered the battlefield. The AT teams had continued hitting the APCs whenever they could even though they had no troops in them. This served the dual purpose of silencing the suppressing fire the APCs provided and denying the marines who had been assigned to them a ride.

"How much longer until we pull back, sarge?" Jeff asked.

"Until we can't keep them contained any more," he replied. "Don't worry. We're not here to fight to the death."

Flashes suddenly began winking at them from out beyond the hill as the surviving tanks and APCs opened fire on them all at once. The rounds began to slam into their position again, exploding more sandbags, rocking the very ground beneath their feet.

"Movement to the front," someone reported. "They're coming in!"

Jeff looked down and saw dozens of marines crawling out of their cover positions and scrambling upward, many more than had advanced on them before.

"Fire at will!" Walker said. "Stick to your zones!"

Drogan sent an extended burst downward with the SAW. Woo sent a grenade down to explode in front of a group of three marines who had made the mistake of being too close together. Jeff put his recticle on the closest marine in his zone and fired, dropping him.

"There's no covering fire!" Hicks said. "They're all coming up at once!"

"We're not gonna hold them back very long," Drogan said. "There's no way we can kill them all before they get up here!"

"I'm talking to the LT now," Walker reported. "They're doing the same thing on the other flank — making a rush uphill without suppressing fire. Their center position is continuing to hold in place. Our center is withdrawing now. As soon as they clear their positions we're getting out of here. The APCs are already moving to the extraction point."

Jeff continued to fire at the exposed troops below but it was difficult at times to find a target since they were moving from outcropping to outcropping, staying as low as possible, almost crawling. These troops had learned from their previous advances. He saw two men make a dash from one piece of cover to the other. He dropped one of them but the other disappeared from view.

"Fuck," he muttered, looking toward the back of his zone where a marine had just poked his head up to scope out his next dash. Jeff put a round into his face and then shot ineffectively at two other marines in the near portion of the zone.

This went on for five long minutes. The marines worked their way upward, little by little, more than a few being shot or blown up but none of them shooting back. Drogan fired her SAW empty and had to change the barrel in addition to the drum. Woo ran out of grenades to launch at them. Their advance sped up until they were within fifty meters of the lower trench openings.

It was just as Drogan stood back up to put the SAW back in the firing hole when a tremendous explosion flashed just outside of it. An eighty-millimeter round had come in and it had been almost perfectly on target. Shrapnel sprayed through the opening and caught the shoulder and neck portion of her suit, ripping it open, shredding the flesh beneath. She made a startled squeal of pain and fear and dropped down into the trench in a heap, the SAW crashing down next to her.

"Shit!" Jeff yelled. "Drogan's hit, sarge. We need doc over here!"

"Doc's dragging some of the other wounded down to the extraction zone," Walker responded. "You and Hicks see what you can do for her. If she's viable we need to get her out of here."

Jeff put his weapon over his shoulder and ran over to Drogan's side. He looked first and foremost at the light on her suit pack. It was still green, which meant the suit was still recording a heartbeat and respiration. He rolled her onto her back and blood vapor came boiling out of the hole ripped in her suit. Her shoulder was torn to pieces, as was part of her neck. Her eyes beneath her helmet were open but dazed, uncomprehending. She was bleeding badly from her wounds and the hole in the suit was too big to seal on its own.

"Oh fuck, no!" Hicks said when he reached them and got a good look at her.

"We need to get a patch on that hole," Jeff said, reaching into the stomach pocket of her suit where the first aid kid and the emergency patching supplies were kept. He pulled out the tube of polymer sealant and opened the top. He squirted a generous amount of it all over the holes and it slowly sank in and hardened, stopping the leak of air pressure from within and putting direct pressure on her wounds, which, unfortunately, also ground into the jagged shrapnel that had caused the wounds. Her eyes widened and she began to scream in pain.

"It's okay, Drogan," Jeff said, unsure if she could hear him, unsure if she could comprehend even if she could.

"Vexal," Hicks said. "Give her some fuckin' Vexal!"

"Right," Jeff said, reaching for the suit computer controls near the chest. Vexal was a synthetic, very potent, very fast acting form of morphine. Every model 459 military biosuit had several vials of it in the inside lining of the stomach portion and both leg portions. Jeff opened a panel on the computer face and pushed the button for the left leg vial. The suit auto-injected the drug into her thigh. Ten seconds later the screaming faded out and her eyes closed.

"That's better," Hicks said.

"How is she?" Walker's voice asked.

"Alive," Jeff said. "Hit bad on the shoulder and neck. We got the suit sealed and got some Vex in her."

"Good job," he replied. "Now get her downstairs. Woo, pick up the SAW and start putting some fire on those marines. They're less than forty meters out now and moving in fast."

"Right, sarge," Woo said.

"Everybody else, pick up as much ammo and supplies as you can carry and then follow Hicks and Creek down. We're pulling out. Woo and I will keep shooting at them until everyone is down and then we'll follow."

Jeff and Hicks grabbed the handles on Drogan's suit and began moving toward the egress trench. They had to step over broken sandbags, empty ammunition boxes, and squeeze around the other squad members who were picking up the full ammunition boxes and putting them in their bags.

"How... how bad?" Drogan's voice asked dreamily, barely loud enough to make it over the link.

"Bad enough to get you sent back to Eden but not bad enough to kill you," Jeff replied, although he was not completely sure of either one of these statements.

"Billion dollar wound," she mumbled. "Static."

"We're switching to credits now, remember?" Jeff said. "It's a one hundred million credit wound. Get your terminology right, Drogan."

She smiled a little, her hand reaching up to grasp his forearm before falling back down. She soon drifted back into la-la land.

They made it to the bottom of the hill and out the back of the access trench in near record time. Spread out before them in a neat line were the APCs that had transported them to this place, their back ramps open, their gunners pointing the cannons and the lasers back towards the opening where any WestHem armor or troops would come through. Every retreating soldier was assigned to one of these APCs and his computer had already been updated to turn the one he or she was assigned to a pale blue color in the infrared spectrum. Hicks and Jeff saw their vehicle was near the center of the line. They didn't head for it. Instead they went towards the casualty collection point fifty meters to the north. There were no hovers there — which was a bit disconcerting — but they did find two support APCs with red crosses on the sides. They also found their medic.

"Doc!" Jeff hailed when they came close enough to recognize him among the chaos. "We got Drogan here. She's hit in the shoulder and the neck."

"Fuck my ass," the doc replied. "Put her down over here. Let me take a look at her."

They did as requested and Hicks gave a quick report on the first aid they'd rendered so far.

"Good, good," the medic said, nodding, as he did a quick scan of her and determined she was still bleeding despite their measures. "I need to get some sealant on those wounds," he muttered.

"Where are the hovers?" Jeff asked.

"It's not safe for them here anymore," the doc replied. "The WestHems have started shelling this area with their mortars."

"Shelling an evac point?" Hicks asked angrily. "That's a war crime!"

"So is parading our POWs in front of their cameras and charging them with terrorism, but they don't have no problem doing that." He pulled a large syringe from his kit, attached a needle to it, and drew up some kind of milky white liquid from a vial. He pushed it into the neck/shoulder junction of her suit and into her very flesh. He injected some, moved the needle a little, and then injected some more in a different spot.

"You guys saved her ass," he told them as they watched. "If you wouldn't have got her suit patched and the pressure on the wounds she would have either bled to death or decompressed enough to get the bends."

"Is she gonna make it?" he asked.

"If we can get her to surgery in the next hour or so, she'll not only make it, she'll be back out here for more fun in a couple of days."

"Oops," said Jeff. "I guess it wasn't a hundred million credit wound after all."

"Incoming," the doc said calmly, his information received from listening in on a tactical channel on a different frequency.

Jeff and Hicks looked up and, sure enough, the streaks of eighty-millimeter mortar shells were now coming out of the sky towards them. They ducked down, terrified at being in the open.

"Don't worry too much," the doc told them as he protectively covered Drogan's body with his own. "They're just plastering this whole area, probably trying to hit our support teams. No one is directing their fire and it just lands all over the place."

The barrage went on for about a minute or so, with explosions and flashes peppered all over the surrounding square kilometer. None of them even came close to an occupied position.

"Okay," the doc said when it was over. "Get her in that APC there." He pointed to one of the nearer ones. "They'll transport her to the rear of the blue line and a hover can pick her up from there."

They hefted her motionless body up off the ground again and trotted her over to the open APC. Inside were three other wounded infantry troops in various states of distress and another medic. They set her gently down in the only open space available.

"Okay, we're gone," the doc told them. "Get your asses over to your own APC and I'll see you in a bit." He patted each of them on the shoulder. "Free Mars."

"Free Mars," they both replied wearily.

Meanwhile, back in the main infantry trench, Sergeant Walker and Corporal Woo were still shooting at the advancing WestHem troops. The marines were now less than twenty meters away from entering the trench network and most of them were shooting back with both small arms fire and their own grenade launchers. The barrage of tank and APC fire had stopped but this was not particularly good news. It was only because the tanks and APCs in question — realizing that their quarry was retreating — had started to move forward. They were being held somewhat in check by the continued presence of the Martian tanks down below, who were slated to be the very last to withdraw.

A grenade came flying at Walker. He had just enough time to pull his head back in before it detonated in front of his hole, sending a spray of shrapnel through. A few errant pieces dinged off his helmet but none were at the right angle to penetrate.

"Motherfucker!" Woo said, blasting the marine that had fired it to pieces with an extended burst of the SAW.

"Walker!" said a voice in Walker's ear on the command frequency. "Everyone is down. Get the fuck out there right now!"

"Gladly," Walker acknowledged.

"Don't forget to arm your section before you go," he was reminded.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he replied. He looked at Woo and changed back to the tactical frequency. "Everyone is down. Let's get the fuck out of here."

Woo fired one more burst, not hitting anything but forcing two marines trying to make the final dash to the entrance to dive down under cover. "I'm down with that," he said, pulling the SAW from the hole and picking up the bag behind him that contained the ammo they'd been able to salvage.

They moved quickly through the trenches, stepping over their dead comrades who had been abandoned there, working their way to the egress trench. When they reached it, Walker let Woo go before him and then took one look back. More grenades were exploding and more gunfire was coming in but they were quite safe from it here. He spoke a command to his suit computer, gave an access code, and a radio signal was sent out, turning on a serious of sensing devices that had been deployed throughout the trench network in this section long before they'd made first contact.

"Okay," he said when he received acknowledgment that his actions had taken place. He threw a little salute at the unseen marines who would soon be occupying this particular position. "The place is all yours guys. Hope you enjoy it."

He began to follow Woo downward toward relative safety. With his departure, Hill 657 had officially fallen to the enemy.

"Targets, tanks, two o'clock, three o'clock, and one o'clock," Sanchez reported. "Moving fast."

Zen didn't answer. He simply shifted his view to the nearest — the two o'clock tank — waited for the cannon to catch up, and then fired, blasting it into oblivion. He looked to the next, noting the range was less than half a kilometer now. He blew it up as well.

"I don't mean to nag or anything," Xenia said, her voice trembling with fear, "but how much fucking longer are we talking here?"

"We'll be pulling out any second," Sanchez replied. "The APCs are loaded up and moving out now. We need to make sure we keep the WestHem tanks from coming through here until they're behind Hill 701 and out of range."

Xenia shook her head, wondering why she had been so hot to sign up for the tank corps instead of the infantry. Her hands gripped her controls tightly, ready to back them out of here and get them turned around the microsecond the withdrawal order came down.

"There coming in too fast, sarge," Zen reported. "I can't keep up."

"Do the best you can," he said, carefully controlling his own fear. After all, they needed to get beyond Hill 701 as well.

Another twenty seconds ticked by. Zen popped off two more tanks but more than fifteen were still rushing right at them, intent on revenge for the punishment their colleagues had taken. Finally, the order came.

"All right!" Sanchez said. "It's official. Get us the fuck out of here, Xenia!"

She jerked backward on the controls, pulling them out of the barricade position and then spun them around so they were facing forward. She then put the pedal to the medal and began accelerating at top speed towards Hill 701 and safety. As soon as they started to move, however, she knew something was terribly wrong. A hideous clanking noise was coming from the left side and she had difficulty keeping the vehicle moving in a straight line.

"What the fuck is that?" Zen asked.

"The left tread!" she reported. "It's slipping from the damage on that last hit."

"We gonna make it out of here?" Zen wanted to know.

"The fucking computer doesn't tell me that!" she said. "It just says it's damaged!"

Despite the clanking and the difficulty in control, she accelerated them to top speed, almost one hundred kilometers per hour. They made it about half a kilometer before the left tread snapped in half with a large bang. Everyone was thrown violently to the right as the right tread, still moving at full speed, sent them into a vicious left turn. The left side of the tank actually rose into the air for a moment from the force of it before slamming back down and sending them into something that resembled a skid. The entire tank shuddered and groaned.

"We lost it!" Xenia said, a bit of panic in her voice. "The tread's gone!" Her hands using the controls to try to maintain something like control. They skidded, bumped, and bounced for a few seconds before she could bring them to a halt.

"Everyone out!" Sanchez ordered. "Right now!"

They threw their hatches open and scrambled out through them, jumping down onto the Martian soil, not even bothering to grab their M-24s from the holders inside.

"Move towards the hill!" Sanchez said. "Get as far away from this tank as you can! I'll get us some help!"

They began trotting towards the hill, which was three kilometers distant, across a horrifying stretch of open ground upon which they could be gunned down in an instant when the WestHem tanks broke through. Sanchez declared an emergency on the command frequency, explaining that their tank was disabled and they were on foot. One of the other tanks of their company immediately turned around and started heading for them.

It rolled up in a cloud of dust and came to a halt just in front of them. "Climb up and hang on!" it's commander told them. "The WestHem tanks are pushing through the gap right now! They'll be here in seconds!"

Xenia and Zen went up first, pulling themselves onto the body of the tank and then the turret. Xenia laid across it, grasping the twenty millimeter cannon to support herself. Zen went further up, wrapping his hands and legs around the eighty-millimeter gun, his butt resting on solid steel beneath it. Sanchez came up next. With nowhere left to go he climbed to the very top of the turret and grabbed hold of the laser cannon mount. It was very wide, too wide for him to get a good grip on but it would have to do.

"Go!" Sanchez barked on the emergency frequency. "We're on!"

The driver of the tank didn't hesitate. He put the pedal down and they jerked forward, quickly accelerating up to top speed, trying desperately to clear the area.

"Shit," Sanchez muttered in fear as he was bounced up and down from the uneven terrain. His grip started to slip almost immediately. He grasped harder but was unable to bring his hands together to secure himself. He felt himself slipping to the left and tried to right himself by swinging his momentum. It didn't help. His legs pulled him downward and his hands grew further and further apart.

Behind them, six WestHem tanks eased carefully through the gap and then, seeing no opposition directly in front of them, put on the speed. As they came further around they saw the Martian tank that Zen, Xenia, and Sanchez had just abandoned, sitting there motionless, its infrared signature indicating the engine was still running.

"Tank! Eleven o'clock!" burst across their tactical channel from three different voices.

They had to slow down to engage it — at top speed it was difficult if not impossible for a gunner to put his recticle on target. As a unit they slowed to forty kilometers per hour. There was no discussion about who would be taking the shot so all six of them did, all firing both laser cannons within two seconds of each other. The tank before them exploded quite spectacularly, the turret flying off, the body cracking in two and falling into pieces. A celebratory cheer went out over the airwaves.

"There's another one out there!" someone yelled. "Ten o'clock! Moving fast!"

But everyone's laser had been discharged and needed to recharge. It would be about twenty seconds before they could engage it. They gave chase at sixty kilometers per hour while they waited.

"We need to get to the depression!" Sanchez heard Corporal Cleanburn yell over the tactical frequency. "Half a klick, straight ahead. Get us down there and they won't have a shot!"

The driver turned slightly and Sanchez's hands slipped a little bit more from the centrifugal force. He slid backwards a little more, knowing he was about to fall, unable to do anything about it. When they hit a small boulder with the right tread the inevitable happened. The tank jolted upward and he was flung free, his hands ripped from their precarious hold.

He found himself flying through the air, looking at the ground he was about to strike. This is not good, he had time to think before he landed in the rocky soil on his left side. He felt a blow like a sledgehammer on his ribs, felt several of them snapping like twigs. He bounced, spun head over heals, and then came down on a rock directly on his back. He felt another snap back there, a huge flare of pain, but it was not over. He was now spinning and tumbling across the ground, bending and unbending, striking rocks and feeling bones break every time. He went into an extended roll, a few more snap bounces, and finally the one hundred kilometers per hour inertia he had been saddled with was used up. He came to rest on his side, broken, twisted nearly in half, pain shooting through his entire body, but alive and horribly alert.

"Holy fuck! Sarge!" screamed Zen as he saw him fly free, as he saw him go bouncing across the ground behind them. "Stop the fuckin' tank! Sergeant Sanchez just went over!"

"I can't," replied Cleanburn, his voice agonized but determined. "The WestHems are sniffing up our ass right now! I don't even know if we're gonna make it to the depression!"

"Goddammit, Cleanburn, its Sanchez out there!" Xenia yelled at him. She too had witnessed the fall. "We need to get him."

Cleanburn was a part of their company and knew Sanchez well. He had played poker with him, taken bonghits with him, had even been to visit his apartment once. But he didn't stop the tank — he couldn't. "We'll all die if I do that," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Jesus Christ, Cleanburn," Zen said, near tears. You can't just leave him out there!"

"Yes he can," a voice groaned. It was weak but they all recognized it as belonging to Sanchez. "I order it. Don't worry about me."

"Sarge," Xenia said. "Can you get under cover? We'll send a hover to come..."

"I'm broke up pretty bad," he interrupted. "Back, both legs, both arms. My suit's leaking in a couple of places and I'm having a hard time breathing."

"Cleanburn, goddammit!" Zen yelled. "Get this fucking tank turned around and let's go get him! Let's bring the whole fucking company over there and fight off any WestHem tanks."

"No," Sanchez said. "Don't even... even think about it. The WestHems are coming. They'll find me out here and take me to their... their aid station."

There seemed to be some logic in this but there also seemed to be some pitfalls. Everyone clung to this the best they could though. In any case, the point was now moot. They were fast approaching the depression and Sanchez was now too far behind them. Even if the company did turn around to fight for him, they wouldn't reach him in time.

"We'll see you later, sarge," Zen told him solemnly. "When this is over."

"Yeah," Xenia echoed. "They'll fix you up and we'll have a drink when you get exchanged."

"Right," Sanchez said, his voice fading now. "When I get exchanged. Free... free Mars."

"Free Mars," they repeated.

The tank dropped down into the depression, putting it out of view of the pursuing WestHem tanks just seconds before their lasers were recharged.

The six tanks that had been following were the mixed survivors of two different battalions, all from different companies. Each had just watched friends and comrades blown to pieces left and right of them during the battle. They had seen the biosuited body of Sanchez come flying off the tank they'd been chasing and could see it now, lying on the ground ahead of them. Every crewmember on these tanks knew the rules of warfare and what those rules dictated they should do when an enemy combatant was injured and helpless on ground that they occupied. But none of them were much in the mood for compassion after the hell they'd just endured.

They slowed up to less than twenty kilometers per hour and turned in the direction of the fallen Martian. There was some discussion about how many points a fucking greenie terrorist was worth. Eventually they decided he was only worth ten since he wasn't a moving target and therefore not that challenging. There was another discussion — this one quite profane and animated — about which tank was entitled to collect those points. Sergeant Hornsby — the commander of the second tank — finally settled this matter by pulling rank. He ordered his driver to make it slow, just to make sure that accuracy was maintained.

The tank was still in motion and Zen was still clinging quite precariously to the underside of the main gun, but he was wedged in just enough that he could free up his left hand. He opened his computer panel and brought up a menu in his combat goggles. He needed to make sure that Sanchez was okay, that the Earthlings actually did pick him up and get him to medical help. He switched his goggle view so he could see what Sanchez's goggles were seeing. It was an action that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

He couldn't have timed it more perfectly. Sanchez was looking southwest, towards the gap that had just fallen to the Earthlings. The tank tread was approaching him slowly, clanking towards his bent and broken legs.

"Oh fuck... oh my god!" Zen yelled, unaware that he was even speaking aloud, overcome by the horror of what he was seeing. "No!"

The tread rolled up onto Sanchez's legs, smashing them, driving them into the ground. It continued to move forward, inch-by-inch, crushing his pelvis, his back, his stomach. When it reached his chest the video feed suddenly, lethally cut off.

"What is it, Zen?" asked Xenia. "What is it?"

"Oh my god," he whispered. He couldn't answer her. It would be years before he would talk to anyone about what he'd seen through that brief video link.

Sergeant Woodman led two platoons into the trench on the right flank of the hill. The opening was small, only a meter and a half in diameter. The men tossed fragmentation grenades through the hole and then went inside right behind them, their weapons ready to shoot anything that moved. But nothing moved. The trench was deserted except for a few dead Martians and thousands of empty shell casings.

"Clear so far, Lieutenant," Woodman told Callahan, who was hanging back about twenty meters. "A couple of dead Martians in here so we did manage to pop a few of them off. There's ammo boxes, waste containers, and used food gel packs everywhere in here."

"No live Martians though?" Callahan asked. "Not even wounded?"

"Not so far," he said. "I'm sending the men forward to check out the rest."

"Got it. According to Colonel West, the center units are moving upward now too. No opposition. Left flank is up at trench level but is still trying to find the entrance. No opposition there either. Tanks have encircled the hill. They saw a few stragglers heading east but that's about it."

"What about the other hills?" Woodman asked, more out of morbid curiosity than anything else.

"West only touched on that for a minute — after all, we've got our own fucking hill to worry about — but some have fallen, some are still shooting but it's mostly holding action. It looks like they're withdrawing in force from the gap."

"So we won?"

Callahan looked down below, where a full-scale triage operation was being set up to start getting the many wounded taken care of, where the dead were littering the ground amid the burned out tanks and APCs. "I wouldn't exactly call this a victory," he said, "but the Jutfield Gap seems to be in our hands now. Let's finish getting these trenches secured, huh? We need to get some defensive positions up by sunrise and we need to get everyone resupplied on ammo and air."

"Sure, LT," Woodman said. "We're gettin' it on."

Woodman trailed behind four of the men, watching as they worked their way forward, deeper into the trench network, their weapons held out before them. The lead man — some private Woodman didn't know and had never seen before the battle — walked close to a sensor imbedded in the wall of the trench, a sensor designed to detect the heat of a biosuit. It triggered a Stevenson mine that had been imbedded in the far wall. The directional explosion ripped through the trench, nearly vaporizing the private and the two men behind him, and sending razor sharp industrial diamond slag through Woodman's face shield and into his face. He fell backward, blinded, the blood boiling out of his head and into the air. Fortunately for him the loss of air pressure killed him long before he was able to suffocate from the lack of air.

Callahan felt the concussion, heard the crack of the explosion, saw the flash of light from the trench above. He tried to contact Woodman to no avail, this despite the fact that his suit was still transmitting.

"What the fuck is going on up there now?" he mumbled.

It took the better part of three minutes before it occurred to one of the surviving men in the trench to switch to the command frequency and update him.

"Fuck," he said, shaking his head, feeling like crying. Even the victories in this war were full of pitfalls. "Okay," he told the corporal on the other end of the radio link. "Get everyone out of that trench and back on the outside. We need to get some sappers up here to clear them for us."

"Yes, sir," the corporal replied.

Callahan switched to the battalion frequency. "Colonel West," he hailed. "This is Callahan."

"Go ahead, Callahan," West said. "Is your section of the hill secured yet?"

"No, sir. I've pulled all the men back out of the trench. The Martians have booby traps up there. One of them just went off and killed four men."

"Booby traps?" West said, seething. "You mean mines? The greenies are utilizing mine warfare?"

Callahan sighed. "I suppose that technically they are mines but they fall mostly into the definition of a booby trap. In any case, my thought is that if they've got this trench wired up then they probably got all of the others up and down the gap wired up as well. You might want to pass the word on to regimental about this before anyone else gets hit."

"You're suggesting we pause here until sappers can clear every trench in this gap?" West asked, appalled.

"Yes, sir," he said, not caring if he was being impertinent or not. "That is exactly what I'm suggesting."

West didn't order it right away, deciding that Callahan's men being blown up was just a fluke. Nor did he pass the information along to regimental, so they could pass it on to the division commander, so he could pass it on to General Wrath who then pass it on to the other units currently attacking the other cities.

It was only when three other hills throughout the gap reported the same thing — that troops attempting to clear the recently vacated trenches were being blown up by powerful booby traps — that someone higher in the chain of command made the decision for him.

When the sun came up at 0605 that morning all of the dismounted marines that had survived the Battle of Jutfield Gap were standing on the various hills, waiting patiently for specialized sappers to make their way through the trenches so they could secure them. It was expected to take hours. And in the meantime, the Martian special forces teams, including the mortar squads and the snipers, left their bases in their Hummingbirds and were transported out into the hills around the gap for another day worth of operations.

Chapter 18

Martian wastelands — 12 kilometers west of Eden

September 1, 2146

The latest artillery bombardment came raining down across the area, shells bursting just above the ground sending shrapnel into anyone unfortunate enough to be underneath and unprotected. Callahan was jerked awake once more as he felt the ground quake beneath him, as he felt the concussions hammer into him. He checked his time display and saw it had been less than fifteen minutes since he'd gone unconscious. That was typical. His body was crying out for sleep, was demanding it with every fiber, every molecule, every atom, but he had only been able to provide it with about three hours or so of that most precious commodity since they'd taken the Jutfield Gap seventy-seven hours ago — and that had all been snatched in ten to twenty minute grabs.

Callahan, along with his ever-battered, ever-changing, understrength company, the battalion it was part of, the regiment it was part of, and the division they were all a part of, along with the remaining tanks and APCs, were now less than six kilometers from the Martian main line of defense. If he were to climb out of the hole beneath the burned out APC he was hiding under and stand up he would be able to see the skyline of Eden off to the east, including the AgriCorp Building. Of course he was not so mad as to actually poke his head or any other body part out just to admire the pretty buildings — not with artillery and mortar fire coming in every ten minutes or so, not with Martian snipers hiding in the surrounding hillsides. To show yourself out there was to invite a quick and nasty death.

The artillery barrage went on for another three minutes or so and then petered out, the fire shifting to another sector of what was being called "the line". Callahan stretched out as much as possible, trying in vain to loosen up his sore and cramped muscles. During the battle of Jutfield Gap the division's APCs had been hit very hard — losses were well over fifty percent of the original vehicles. Losses in men, while heavy, were not as bad. What this meant was that there were no longer enough APCs to transport all of the ground troops no matter how many they crammed into each one. He and the remainder of his battalion had basically walked from the Jutfield Gap to here — a distance of more than thirty kilometers.

Of course it had not been a casual stroll through the majestic Martian landscape. Not at all. After pulling back from the gap the Martian forces had installed themselves in another set of hills ten kilometers to the east, forcing yet another bloody battle in which even more APCs were smashed, even more tanks were destroyed, and even more marines were mowed down by gunfire or artillery fire or mortar fire. And when they'd forced the Martians out of those positions — with depressingly little evidence of enemy casualties found — the Martians had fallen back another eight kilometers to yet another set of prepared positions where the entire process started over once again. In all, they'd engaged the Martian armored cavalry regiments a total of four times before finally forcing them off of the last set of hills. While it was true that the engagements became easier and faster as the valley leading to Eden opened up and forced the Martians to spread themselves out thinner and thinner when they made each successive stand — they'd bloodied the marines badly each time, destroying morale and overwhelming the medical resources with wounded.

Callahan took a drink of the lukewarm water from his reservoir — a very small drink. The reservoir was down to twenty-eight percent and there was not enough spare water to go around. The same was true of food paste, waste packs, and even air bottles. Nor was this the only shortage they were dealing with. Ammunition was being severely rationed, with orders given to no longer utilize suppressing fire when advancing, to no longer engage a target unless there was reasonable chance of hitting it. It was absolute madness, and a madness that was destroying the very discipline that held an army together in combat.

"No more suppressing fire?" Corporal Cayenne, the newest leader of his second platoon, said during a private conference Callahan had held with his "officers" (although only one of them was even an NCO at this point) after they'd dug in at this latest position. "How the fuck are we supposed to take a position without suppressing fire?"

"Shit," said Sergeant Nichols, a recent transfer to the company from another unit and the highest-ranking person after Callahan himself, "the fucking suppressing fire doesn't do any good against them anyway. Why shoot the fucking guns at all? We might as well just shoot thirty percent of the troops ourselves and then walk up the hill and save the Martians some time."

"Alexander Industries wouldn't like that very much," one of the other corporals put it. "They wouldn't get to sell us the replacement ammo."

"And meanwhile," Nichols said, "the Martians have all the ammo they need because they've got a secure supply line back to Eden and their base."

"Their wounded get to the hospital right away too," Cayenne said. "They just take them out the back side of them hills and fly them right to the base. When we get hit we have to lie there until the battle is over before a medic even comes to take care of us."

"That's it then," said Corporal Senate, who was leading third platoon, "I'm joining the greenies. They got better benefits, better healthcare, and unlimited ammo."

This was good enough for a small chuckle from the group but Callahan knew there was an underlying message to it. Everything they'd faced to this point had been nothing but a warm-up. Now that the main event was upon them they were being told not to shoot as much, not to breathe as much air, not to eat and drink as much, not to shit as much. In short, they were being told to do something that couldn't be done.

"All company commanders, this is Colonel West," Callahan's radio link suddenly spoke up. "I need you to make your way over to my APC for a conference."

"Fuck that," said the voice of Sergeant Mike Rollins, who was now in charge of Bravo Company (a fucking sergeant leading a company, Callahan thought in amazement every time he was reminded of this).

"What did you just say, Rollins?" West demanded. "I think I must have misheard you."

"Then let me repeat myself," Rollins told him. "I said 'fuck that'. Do you have a death wish or something? What do you think is gonna happen when those Martian snipers see four men go trotting through the open and climb into the same APC? Why don't you just put a fucking sign up that says 'command staff meeting right here, please put a laser through our asses'?"

There was silence on the channel for a few moments and then West said, "You do have a good point, Rollins, but you need to watch how you make them. You were being impertinent to a superior officer. Just because you've been put in charge of a company doesn't mean you can start talking to a lieutenant colonel like he was a plebe in the academy."

"If he wasn't gonna do it, I would've," Callahan said. "I'm sorry, Colonel, but if you want to have a conference I think we'd better all just stay right where we are and do it over the command channel."

"I'm willing to concede that point," West hissed. "But I will not have lieutenants and sergeants speaking to me in that manner."

"Whatever," said Rollins, and you could almost see the jerking-off motion he was making. "So what do you got for us?"

"A pull-back order I trust," said Captain Boothe, commander of Alpha Company. That had been the prevailing rumor of late, what had been deemed to be the only viable solution.

"Of course we're not pulling back," West said, shocked that one of his captains would make such a suggestions. "I've got our battle plans and objectives for penetrating the greenie main line of defense. We will start moving in at 1300 hours. This will be your battle briefing."

Since all four of the company commanders were separated by anywhere from thirty to one hundred meters it wasn't really possible for them to share a disbelieving look with each other — but somehow they managed it anyway.

"We're attacking that line?" asked Lieutenant Strawn, Delta Company's CO. "With only the men and armor we have here?"

"Yes," West said. "Is there a problem with that?"

"Is there a problem with that?" Strawn responded. "Colonel, I've been looking over the reports on that position Intel shipped to us. We can't punch through there without reinforcements."

"And even then we would take heavy casualties," Callahan added. "Have any of you high and mighty battle planners actually looked at what we're facing here?"

Callahan surely had. He had looked over the schematics and briefing material their intelligence department had sent to all company commanders and above. The Martian main defenses, though on much flatter ground and spread across a much greater area than in the Jutfield Gap, were much more formidable. The Martians knew they had to stop an enemy cold with this final defensive network or Eden was lost and they had constructed it with this thought in mind. Stretching all across the vast plain on the western edge of the city was a system of concrete trenches and pillboxes interspersed with concrete and titanium hull-down positions for tanks and APCs. Half a kilometer in front of this were networks of anti-tank ditches and tank traps that would prevent most armor from approaching the line at all and would channel that which did into vicious killing boxes from which there was no escape. Even if there were enough APCs for all the ground troops to mount up in, they wouldn't be able to bring them close to the Martian infantry positions. Any advance would be over five hundred meters of open ground that would be saturated with Martian artillery, mortar fire, heavy and light machine gun fire, tank and APC main gun fire, and, of course, small arms fire from the defending infantry.

"Yes, of course we've read the documents over," West told them. "We understand that our casualties have been a bit heavier than expected, but nevertheless..."

"A bit heavier than expected?" Callahan interrupted. "Save that shit for the media assholes. Those Martians kicked our fucking asses!"

"Goddamn right," agreed Boothe. "How many men have we lost in this sector anyway? I know my company was down almost thirty percent before you sent me that last batch of cooks and dishwashers from the LZ."

"I don't have exact figures on that," West said.

"Bull-fucking-shit," Boothe yelled at him.

"How dare you talk to me like that!" West yelled back.

"Yeah?" Boothe returned. "What are you gonna do about it, sir? Send me to fucking Mars? Oh wait! I'm already here, ain't I? And now you're telling me you want me to lead this ragtag, overtired, ass-kicked company against a defensive emplacement that makes the positions The Corps faced on Callisto look like a kid's tree house? If I'm gonna even consider doing that, I want to know how many goddamn men we've lost and how many we have left. You can throw me in the brig if you want, but that's the way it's gonna be, sir!"

West sighed, seeming to realize he was handling a batch of nitroglycerine that could explode in his face at any second. "We have taken almost eleven thousand casualties moving from the LZ to this point," he admitted.

Silence on the net, stretching out so long it seemed the net was broken.

Eleven thousand casualties? Callahan thought. Jesus fucking Christ! Eleven thousand? And that was just in the Eden sector of operations. How many at Libby? At Proctor? At New Pittsburgh? Not even counting the marines that had been killed in transit by the Martian "suicide attacks" and the so-called "accidents" among the Panamas, they had easily lost more men just getting to the main lines of defense than had been lost in all three attacks on Callisto during the Jupiter War.

"This is insane," whispered Boothe, so softly his words were barely heard.

"Amen to that," agreed Strawn.

"I understand how you men feel," West said. "We underestimated our enemy to a certain degree and we paid the price for it but now we know what kind of positions we're facing. We have a coherent and logical attack plan formulated by the best military minds on this planet and above it."

"Oh really?" said Callahan. "General Jackson was nice enough to come up with an attack plan for us?"

"That's blasphemous, Callahan!" West barked. "Don't ever let me hear you say anything like that again!"

"Truth hurts, doesn't it?" Callahan shot back.

"Look," West said, "I didn't ask you men to like your orders. You are WestHem marines and you will follow them. We will attack at 1300 and we will be standing on the streets of Eden by 1500. Now would you like to hear the briefing on how we're going to do that or not?"

"No," Callahan said. "I wouldn't."

"What?" West demanded.

"I'm sorry, Colonel," he said. "I've been in the Corps my entire career and I've been loyal to the Corps that entire time. I've always believed in our mission no matter where it was — Argentina, Cuba, and even Mars when they first sent us here. But I can't be a party to this. The way I figure it we're standing here with about seventy thousand combat troops and we're facing an enemy of at least twenty-five thousand. That is less than the three to one ratio that doctrine dictates for the best of conditions."

"That is against a professional army," West said. "These are a bunch of greenie weekend warriors we're facing."

"Greenie weekend warriors that have caused eleven thousand fucking casualties with their 'speed bump'," Callahan said. "And you'll note that I said 'the best of conditions'. That is hardly what we're dealing with here. We have lost almost half of our armor and most of us have walked the last thirty kilometers. We've lost most of our captains, lieutenants, and senior NCOs and we have fucking sergeants leading companies (no offense, Rollins), corporals leading platoons, and privates leading squads. We have cooks, dishwashers, toilet plungers, and computer programmers carrying guns out here now. Nobody even knows the names of the people in their unit anymore. We're short on medics, short on ammo, short on breathing air, short on water and food. Each and every one of us that have managed to live this long out here are living on less than six hours of sleep since we left the LZ however many fucking days ago that was. It is impossible for us to take those positions in these numbers under those conditions, sir. Impossible. And I will not order my men to engage this enemy any further unless we are allowed to rest, be fully re-armed, and, most of all, reinforced in some way so we can attack in the strength necessary to achieve our objectives. You can court martial me if you wish, you can execute me on the spot if you feel that's necessary, but I will not walk another foot forward under these conditions, nor will I order my men to walk another foot forward."

"I can't believe you just said that to me, Callahan," West said, his tone sounding more hurt than angry — like that of a father whose son has defied him. "You are relieved of command as of this moment. Your second in command will take over Charlie Company and you will be placed under arrest and transported back to the LZ for processing. I hope you like snow because you're going to be shoveling a lot of it at the penal colony for a very long time."

"At least I'll be alive to shovel it," Callahan said.

"You'd better save some room in the APC for me, Colonel," Captain Boothe said. "I'm with Callahan. I will not order my men forward into a hopeless battle. They will be killed for nothing and I will not be a party to that."

"Put me on the list as well," said Strawn. "That's a meat grinder in front of us."

"Me too," agreed Rollins. "I will not go forward from here."

Now the anger appeared in West's tone. "This is mutiny!" he yelled at them. "I could have you all shot for this!"

"That would certainly help morale, wouldn't it?" asked Callahan.

"Look, Colonel," Boothe said. "None of us are making this decision lightly, I can assure you of that. You're asking too much of us. You're asking us to commit our men to death when there is no possible hope of victory. Now you can sit there and debate the fine points of the legality of our position if you want, but my suggestion would be that you contact regimental command and let them know what we've done. My guess is we're not the only ones."

Colonel West did just that. And it turned out that Boothe was entirely correct.

Mars Orbit

Aboard the WSS Nebraska

General Wrath had just finished another briefing of the WestHem media in which he'd explained yet again why his forces were still not standing in the Martian cities. The story now was that the greenie terrorists manning the main line positions were utilizing "human shields" in the form of Martian civilians and captured Earthling non-combatants. They were placing these hapless civilians in the very trenches they were defending their cities from in order to keep the WestHem marines from unleashing the full fury of their superior training and firepower.

"They've committed this cowardly, unprecedented act in all four of the cities in which combat operations are under way," he'd explained with his usual straight face. "This is an action that defies any and all civilized rules of warfare, an action even more appalling than their use of suicide attacks against troop concentrations and unarmed transit ships. While this will not break our resolve or even bend it, and while we will neutralize and occupy those positions in a matter of hours no matter what, we have pulled back a bit and held in place in order to evaluate the best way to deal with this new tactic in a way that will eliminate or at least minimize the possibility of innocent deaths in this conflict."

And that was it. The explanation was accepted as the gospel without any questions about how the marines knew the Martians were putting civilians into the trenches, about how the Martians were getting these civilians outfitted in biosuits and marching them out there. And there were definitely no questions about the twenty-six thousand men who had been killed in the last three days, or about the thirteen thousand that had been wounded.

Major Wilde was waiting for him in the hallway when he left the pressroom. His expression was one of trepidation mixed with a little bit of sorrow.

"New developments?" Wrath asked, popping his fifteenth antacid tablet of the day.

"Yes sir," Wilde told him.

"By the look on your face I'm guessing it is not a favorable development."

"No sir," Wilde agreed. "Should we talk in your office?"

Wrath sighed and then nodded. They walked through the halls, past a few marine sentries, and entered the luxurious, blue-carpeted office just adjacent to the war room. A large window in the wall looked out over the surface of Mars far below. It was view that had seemed to mock him for days now.

Wrath sat down behind his desk, practically falling into his custom-made chair. Wilde took a seat before the desk without waiting for permission. The two men had long since ceased to adhere to such formalities.

"What is it?" Wrath asked, already bracing himself.

"It's what I was afraid would happen," Wilde said. "The morale problem among the combat units down on the surface has reached the breaking point."

"What do you mean?"

"In all four theaters of operations, company commanders and, in some cases, battalion commanders, are refusing to follow orders to advance."

"Refusing to follow orders?" Wrath repeated. Though Wilde had warned him that something like this might happen just twelve hours before the very concept was so foreign to a man who had spent his life in the Corps that he had trouble acknowledging what he was being told. "You mean... refusing? As in, 'I'm not going to do that'?"

"Yes sir, that's exactly what I mean."

"How many?"

Wilde sighed, almost ashamed to admit the truth even though he had foreseen this. "Nearly all of them," he said. "The dissent is pretty much unanimous at the company level in Eden and New Pittsburgh. In Libby, several of the battalion commanders are in on it too. At Proctor... well... you know how things are going there."

"Yes," Wrath said bitterly. He did. At New Pittsburgh and Eden the units were in position to attack the main line of defense that guarded the cities themselves. In Libby, they had already attacked it once and had been soundly repulsed. But in Proctor — the most mountainous of the four cities and the one protected by the narrowest approaches — the marines had still, after three days of vicious fighting, not pushed through the first line of defense. Every attempt had failed, resulting in bloody, agonizing defeats.

"Everyone from battalion level down to the platoon leaders — those that are left — are refusing to mount another attack on that line. They have defied General Baggenstein's orders and have actually pulled back thirty kilometers, out of the range of the Martian artillery. A message sent to Baggenstein read that we could come down and shoot every last one of them if we wanted but they were not going to attack their objectives any more."

"That's mutinous," Wrath said angrily. "It's absolutely mutinous!"

"I agree," Wilde said. "But it's also the reality we're dealing with."

"You send a message to those men down there that I order them to follow their goddamn orders and take those cities!" Wrath yelled. "How dare they defy me like that!"

"Sir," Wilde said, "I think you need to face some facts here."

"What facts?"

"The Martians have achieved their objectives in this first phase of the conflict."

"They've what?"

"We cannot take their cities, sir. Not with the configuration of forces we now have. I've been over this again and again in the past twenty-four hours and there is simply no way, short of utilizing tactical nuclear weapons, that we can clear those defensive positions with the men we have available. In every one of the theaters of operation our ratio is down to less than a three to one advantage in combat troops. Our armor has been decimated, particularly the APCs. The Martians have air superiority and the ability to suppress our artillery with impunity. Most of all, our unit cohesion has been destroyed by the loss of so many officers and NCOs. The commanders down there on the surface are not throwing a fit or trying to be difficult, they simply realize there is nothing to be gained by pushing forward but the needless deaths of their men. You can punish them if you want but they're only responding to the reality of the situation."

This was a very hard pill for Wrath to swallow. "So you're saying... we've lost?"

"We've lost this battle, sir. We haven't lost the war. We can still come out of this with a victory but we need to take some drastic steps."

"What kind of steps?"

"We need to pull everyone back to the LZs immediately."

"What?" Wrath cried. "Pull back? Retreat? That's impossible! Do you have any idea what the council will do to me if I even suggest such a thing? How would we even explain such a thing to the media? I know they're a bunch of sheep who do what they're told, but this would be too much for them to swallow."

Wilde sighed. "Sir," he said. "I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in relations with the council or with the media. The politics of this conflict are your field. I'm your aide because I hold a Master's degree from the WestHem military academy in Military Strategy. I only deal with the reality of the given situation and I'm here to tell you there is no hope whatsoever of taking even one of those cities under the plan we have operating now. We need to disengage from the Martians and pull everyone back to the LZs. We then need to launch our landing ships off the surface and pull everyone back into orbit."

"Leave the planet entirely? Wilde, you should be shot for even saying that! Marines don't run away!"

"We ran away at Callisto," he said, "and we need to run away here. We need to regroup everyone back in orbit, re-arm, re-assign, and get some unit cohesion back in this task force and then we need to go back down in full strength on a single target."

"Send everyone after one target? We can't recapture the planet that way."

"No sir, we can't," Wilde agreed. "No matter what we do, another task force is going to have to be sent here from Earth in order to recapture Mars completely."

"I can't accept that," Wrath said. "I can't do that! I came here with half a million troops to take this planet back from those greenies and that is what I'm going to do."

Wilde shook his head. "With all due respect, sir," he said. "You've already failed at that task. We're down to two choices here. You can continue to push forward and get a lot more men killed for no gain, or you can do as I suggest and withdraw to orbit and regroup. Once that is done we go after Eden with everything we have and we capture it."

"What about the other eleven cities?" Wrath asked. "What about Triad?"

"We're not going to take the other eleven cities or Triad no matter what. More troops, more equipment, more armor, and more fuel will need to be sent here in order to do that. But if we can at least take Eden from them, we'll have their most important city under our control until those additional troops get here. We'll have a sizable portion of their agricultural industry in our hands and, most important, we'll have a fully functional spaceport to which those additional troops can be offloaded. We won't have to land the next wave of marines out in the wastelands. We can land them at Eden, which is the central hub for their entire rail system. Troops can be moved to just outside the air umbrella of New Pittsburgh, assembled, and can then march in force on that city. Or we can head to Libby, or to Proctor, or to Ore City. If we control Eden, we will eventually take everything back under control."

"Eventually?" Wrath asked. "How long is eventually?"

"Several years, sir," Wilde admitted.

"Years? You're suggesting we let those greenies control the majority of this planet for a couple of years?"

"Again, sir, I'm talking realities here. We're not letting them do anything. We're going to have to fight and sacrifice heavily to win this war. What I'm suggesting is the best option we have. The Martians have turned out to be a worthy opponent. If we're going to retake this planet at all, the only way we're going to do it is to hit one city at a time with at least a six to one advantage. If we do anything less, they will defeat us."

Wrath leaned forward and took a cigarette out of his desk drawer. He lit up despite the knowledge that it was going to make his ulcer flare up within minutes. "The council will not like this at all," he said.

"No, sir, I don't think they will."

"They will remove me from command, probably have me arrested, probably blame this defeat on me."

Wilde nodded. "That's a very likely scenario, sir," he said.

"And yet you still think I should pull the men back?"

"You're going to have to face the consequences one way or another, sir," Wilde told him. "If you take my advice and pull them back they might have you arrested. I won't deny that. But if you don't take my advice and order them forward, they will be defeated as surely as I'm standing here, even if they do agree to follow your orders. You will surely be arrested when that happens, wouldn't you say?"

Wrath slowly nodded. "Yes," he said, taking an especially deep drag and blowing it slowly out of his mouth.

"So what are we going to do, sir?" Wilde asked.

"The frying pan or the fire, huh?"

"Yes sir."

Wrath gave a small smile, a cynical, unhappy smile, but a smile nonetheless. "I guess I'll have to take the frying pan then. Let's get a staff meeting going and start drawing up some withdrawal plans. Once that's done, I'll get on the line with the executive council and tell them what I've done."

The 17th ACR, having defended the middle position throughout the entire first line of defense period had finally been pulled off the front line and moved to the rear twelve hours before. Now that the marine units had reached the main line of defense, which was guarded by the 2nd Infantry Division, the 17th, along with the other two ACRs, were being held in reserve, their job to respond to any potential breeches in the line as reinforcements when the marines attacked. Their tanks and APCs were spread out in a neat line some two kilometers from the entrance to the MPG base. Most of the men and women were taking the opportunity of this lull in combat operations to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

Jeff Creek had grabbed about six hours or so, stretching out on the ground next to his squad's APC. And now, after a nourishing meal of beef paste and reconstituted water he slung his M-24 over his shoulder and wandered off to the east, towards the tanks.

He knew Xenia was still alive and she knew he was still alive. Though the past three days had been an endless serious of bloody battles in which he'd killed hundreds of WestHem marines followed by frantic retreats from position after position, he and Xenia had still found the time to text message each other during the slow periods. She had told him about Sanchez dying out in the wastelands on the first retreat and about how Zen had been promoted to commander of the tank and she had been promoted to gunner. She had told him that a woman named Belinda Maxely (god how he even hated hearing his wife's name now) had replaced her as the tank driver. But those were just text messages, little thirty word essays that were almost impersonal. He wanted to see Xenia in the flesh — or at least in her biosuit — and talk to her person to person in real time. He only hoped she wanted to see him as well.

It turned out that she did. He found her by asking his combat computer to locate her for him and then followed his mapping software to the little red dot. She was sitting atop the turret of the tank, leaning against the main gun barrel and looking to the east where the flashes from the artillery cannons could be seen firing an endless stream of 150mm shells at the WestHem positions. Lying on the tread guard, seemingly unconscious, was another figure — probably Zen Valentine. Jeff crossed around the back of the tank until he was in Xenia's field of view. It took her a moment to recognize him but when she did she practically leapt off the tank and rushed to him, throwing herself into his arms and wrapping hers around his back.

As far as hugs went, it wasn't the most physically satisfying. They were both still wearing their biosuits, of course, and the body contact just wasn't there. Nevertheless Jeff found himself flushing at the contact in a way he'd never flushed when putting his arms around Belinda.

They broke the embrace and looked at each other through their faceplates for a moment. Xenia then tapped her leg where her radio controls were and held up seven fingers, meaning they should switch to the extremely short-range channel seven so they could talk. They did so.

"It's good to see you," she told him. "Especially after the pounding you guys took over the last few days."

Jeff nodded. The ACRs in the Eden theater of operations had suffered 650 killed, twice that many wounded. His own squad had suffered two killed outright, two injured badly enough to be permanently disabled, and one — Drogan — who had been wounded and returned to the line just yesterday. "It was pretty bad out there," he agreed. "You guys in the tanks didn't exactly have a fuckin' cakewalk either."

"No," she said. "We lost some tanks and... you know... Sanchez."

"I was sorry to hear about that," Jeff said truthfully. "How did he... I mean, what got him?"

She shook her head. "I don't know exactly. Our tank got disabled in the first retreat and we had to go out on foot. Another tank picked us up to get us out of there but the WestHems were right on our ass. Sanchez fell off at full speed and we... we couldn't stop to pick him up. We were hoping the WestHems would get him and take him to a hospital but they didn't. They killed him."

"Shot him?" Jeff asked, trying to envision the horror of being broke and injured and having an enemy just walk up and shoot you.

"I guess," Xenia said. "Zen says he patched into Sanchez's combat goggles and saw him get killed. He won't say anything more about it though. I think he saw something that..." She sighed and shrugged. "I don't know. Let's talk about happier things, huh? You like our new tank?"

Jeff thought it looked like any other tank out here. It was painted in the Martian camouflage scheme and was covered with Martian dust. "It's nice," he said.

"It's more than nice, it's one of the first fully Martian tanks."

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"It rolled off the assembly line in New Pittsburgh less than two weeks ago. One of the first generation that we've produced without Earthling managers in the plant. How about that?"

"I think that's fuckin' static," he said, at first just saying what he thought she wanted to hear but after thinking it over for a second he really did start to think it was fucking static.

Another biosuited figure came strolling over to them. It was a female, Jeff saw, and, though it wasn't possible to make a really good assessment through the faceplate and the curve-hiding biosuit, it appeared she was reasonably attractive. She carried a long, steel, tubular looking device in her hands. She smiled as she saw Xenia looking at her.

Xenia held up seven fingers again and the woman switched to that channel.

"Belinda," Xenia said, "this is Jeff Creek from the infantry. He's the guy I've been telling you about. Jeff, Belinda Maxely."

"Nice to meet you," Jeff said, politely enough.

"Nice to meet you," she returned. "Xenia's been telling me a lot about you these last few days."

"Has she?" he asked, pleased and a little surprised.

"Well... not a lot," Xenia cut in, her face obviously in a state of blush. She shook her head a little, as if to clear it. "Jeff, did you know that Belinda here is a master chef?"

"A master chef?" he said. "No shit?"

"No shit," Xenia confirmed. "She's from New Pittsburgh, like Zen. She went to culinary school after high school and worked in a Mama Rosa's as one of the culinary techs until the war."

"Mama Rosa's?" Jeff said. "Ain't that one of them high-class rich prick places the Earthlings all eat at?"

"Yes," Belinda said. "I guess you could say that. Have you ever been to one?"

Jeff laughed. "I ain't never been in a fuckin' restaurant in my life," he said. "I'm fuckin' vermin, you know."

This statement made Belinda look a little uncomfortable. Silence descended on the net. Xenia gave an annoyed look at Jeff and then turned back to Belinda. "What do you got there?" she asked. "You lubing the tank again?"

"I just want to put a little more in the seals," she confirmed. "Just to be sure."

"It's a brand new tank, hon," Xenia said. "I don't think it's up for a maintenance regiment yet."

"Better safe than sorry," Belinda said. She looked at Jeff again, looked away, and then back at Xenia. "Well, I'd better get to it. Nice to meet you... uh..."

"Jeff," he said.

"Right... Jeff," she responded, something that seemed almost venomous in her tone now.

She walked over to the other side of the tank, disappearing from view.

"Why don't we take a little walk?" Xenia suggested. "My legs can use a stretch after all the sitting around."

"Uh... right, fuckin' aye," Jeff said.

Xenia gave him an uninterpretable look and then led him off to the east, in the direction of the artillery guns. They passed other tanks and a few APCs, most of them with crewmembers sleeping on the ground or on the tread guards. A few infantry troops were wandering around, doing what Jeff was doing and visiting acquaintances. They all nodded at him when they saw him, as the tankers did when they saw Xenia. Soon they came to the base of a small hill, well outside the one hundred meter range of the extremely short-range frequency. They found a rock to sit on at the base of a shallow hill.

"What's up with that Belinda bitch?" Jeff asked. "She looked like she wanted to tear my asshole out."

"Belinda's a sweetie," Xenia said. "She's just shy with people she doesn't know."

"She a clit-licker?"

Xenia winced a little and gave him a sour look. "The correct term for lesbian homosexuality is 'muff muncher'," she said sternly. "I'll thank you to use that in my presence."

Jeff looked at her, somewhat taken aback. "Sorry," he said, wondering what he'd done to offend her. "Muff muncher then. Is she one of them? I mean she is a culinary specialist and seems to know a lot about tank mechanics."

"She's a muff muncher," Xenia confirmed. "And she has a bit of a crush on me as I'm sure you've picked up on. That's why she was giving you the cold shoulder." She blushed a little. "I'm afraid I've been talking about you quite a bit these past few days."

Jeff felt the flush again, worse even than when she'd hugged him. "Really?" he asked.

She nodded. "Really," she confirmed, flashing him a smile that shined right through the faceplate.

"I've... uh... been talking a lot about you too," he said. "And thinking about you too."

"I know," she said. "And so has Belinda."

"She just met you," he said. "She just wants to eat your tuna casserole, doesn't she?"

"No," Xenia said. "To both questions."

"Huh?"

She sighed. "We didn't just meet. Belinda and I went to basic together and were sent to armor training together. She was assigned an admin position until now because there weren't enough combat positions open. When Sanchez died she requested transfer to my tank. And she doesn't just want a piece of my casserole. She's been in love with me since the beginning I think."

"In love with you?" he asked.

She nodded. "We had a... well... a little fling in basic," she said. "It seems that might have reinforced the feeling a little."

Jeff was completely unshocked by this revelation. In Martian culture there was no stigma whatsoever about homosexual relations, bisexual relations, or even both at the same time. Among women especially a little feminine piece on the side was almost the normal state of affairs, although until the revolution the FLEB had tried to crack down on that sort of thing. "Doesn't she know you like the beefsteak better?" he asked her.

"Who says I do like the beefsteak better?" she shot back.

This one shocked him a little. He had taken her for primarily heterosexual. "You... you don't?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I'm only twenty-two," she said. "I'm too young to know what I like the most. I'm also too young to be falling in love."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm not saying anything," she said. "I'm very fond of you, Jeff. I'm very fond of Zen too, although I think that is more of camaraderie thing." She took a deep breath. "And I can't stop thinking about Belinda either. She loves me."

He had never said this to anyone in his life before — not his parents, not his best friend, not his wife — but he said it now. "I love you too."

She shook her head violently. "Don't say that right now, Jeff," she told him. "Don't even think it."

"But, Xenia..."

"This is the same thing I told Belinda the first day she came to my tank. It's the same thing I told Zen and even Sanchez, rest his soul. Don't say you love me and I won't say I love you. We're in the middle of a fucking war here in case you haven't noticed."

"Yeah," Jeff said, letting a little of the confusion and bitterness show through. "I seem to have noticed that, especially when one of my squad members got his fuckin' head shot off right in front of me."

"That's my point," she said. "Any of us could die at any time out here. Don't you see what that means? We can't love out here, not when death is so near."

"Why can't we?" he asked. "I've never felt like this about anyone before. Never."

"You want to fuck me?" she asked. "Okay. We'll do that as soon as they let us inside again — assuming we ever get inside again. We'll change out of these biosuits and we'll fuck, just like Martians have done since the Agricultural Rush."

"No," he said. "I don't wanna fuck you."

"What?"

"Uh... maybe I should put that another way," he said. "I do wanna fuck you — more than anything — but I'm not going to fuck you."

"You're not going to fuck me?" she asked, confused. "What are you? One of those God-freaks or something?"

"No, I'm not a God-freak, but what I feel for you is so far beyond just fucking that I won't cheapen it by tearing one off with you. I'm making a vow, Xenia, a fuckin' sacred vow. I will not fuck you until you tell me you love me."

She looked at him as if he were mad. "You won't fuck me?"

"Until you tell me you love me," he confirmed. "And you have to mean it too."

"Wow," she said, shaking her head a little. "That might be the most counter-productive pick-up line I've ever heard."

"It's not a pick-up line," he said. "It's the truth."

She thought that over for a few seconds. "In that case," she said, "it's one of the most romantic things anyone has ever said to me."

He shrugged, a little embarrassed. "No one ever accused me of being romantic before. I'm just sayin' what's on my mind and shit."

"Does that include all forms of sex, or just fucking?"

"All forms of sex," he said.

"You won't let me blow you?"

He wavered a bit but held his ground. "No. No blow jobs, no muff munching. Not until you tell me you love me."

She leaned closer to him, so her faceplate was touching his, her brown eyes looking into his through the two layers of plexiglass. "How about a kiss?" she asked. "Will you do that?"

He looked at her, his mouth suddenly dry. "I don't think I could keep from doing that," he told her.

She pursed her lips and pushed her head forward, so they were touching the inside of her faceplate. He did the same. They touched them together. It didn't carry the physical sensation of a real kiss, but it did carry the emotional one.

They broke apart and looked at each other, both unsure what to say next, what to do next. That was when another biosuited figure appeared over the small rise that hid them from view. Jeff knew, ever before he made a positive visual identification, that it was Hicks. Who else would it be?

"Hey, guys," Hicks said when he figured out what channel they were conversing on. "What the fuck's the haps?"

"We was talkin'," Jeff said, trying his best to shoot a murderous glare at Hicks but finding himself hampered by the face shields.

"Oh yeah?" Hicks replied. "About what? The war and shit?"

"Yeah," Xenia said, casting a warm look at Jeff. "Something like that."

"Well uh... sorry if I interrupted anything," Hicks told them. He laughed a little. "It's not like you can fuck out here or anything, right?"

"Was there some reason you came out here, Hicks?" Jeff asked. "Or did you need help finding the fuckin' bathroom again?"

"Hey, man," he said. "Chill your shit a little. I was just coming out here to tell you the main line units are reporting lots of movement from the Earthling positions."

"What?" they both exclaimed.

"Are they moving in on us?" asked Xenia.

"Why the fuck didn't they broadcast an alert?" asked Jeff.

"They're not moving in on us," Hicks said. "The word is they're packing up their equipment into their APCs and getting ready to pull back."

Xenia and Jeff both forgot about their fledgling romance.

"Pulling back?" Xenia asked. "Are you sure?"

"No confirmation yet," Hicks said, "but that's the word."

Lisa was looking through her combat goggles, trying to find the next target for her AT laser when the mass movement of marines began. She was on her belly atop a shallow hill on the northern edge of the WestHem positions. The artillery had just pounded the area they were watching and then shifted fire to another position. Suddenly hundreds of marines broke from cover, crawling out from under rocks, from beneath wrecked APCs and tanks, from within hastily constructed foxholes, and began to move in a semi-orderly fashion towards the scattered undamaged APCs to the west.

"Holy shit," Lisa said. "You seeing this, sarge?"

"Yep," Lon said from the next hill over, where he was sequestered with Jefferson and sighting in on potential artillery targets. "They're going to mount up."

"All of them?" asked Horishito, who was with Lisa. "There's not enough APCs for them all. What the fuck are they going to ride in?"

"And look," said Lisa. "They're all carrying handfuls of stuff. Ammo boxes, waste packs, food packs. This doesn't look like an advance."

"It's not," said Lon. "It's a retreat."

"A retreat?" Lisa said, the very word foreign to her in relation to the WestHems. They had been out here for the last three days, moving from position to position mostly on foot, getting resupplied by daily Hummingbird drops, paralleling the marines as they slowly but surely pushed the MPG armored cav units out of each position. They'd inflicted a considerable amount of damage of their own during these battles, sniping at APCs, calling down artillery and mortars on exposed troops, and occasionally — very occasionally — getting into brief, violent firefights with marine units that got too close to them. Each battle had been marked by a hasty retreat of their own before the increasingly accurate WestHem mortar fire could zero in on their position. At one point they'd waited too long — either that or the WestHems had just gotten lucky on their first volleys. Two members of the squad had been hit with shrapnel — one dying right there on the Martian sand, the other with one of his legs blown off. All of them had taken the casualties very hard but Lon — as commander of the squad — had become almost morose.

"A retreat?" Horishito asked. "Holy fuck. They're pulling back?"

"That's the general definition of the word," Lon said. "They know they can't push past our main line with the numbers they have available so they're pulling back. Someone finally made a sound military decision on that side of the war."

"So what do we do?" Lisa asked.

"We report it," Lon said, "and we call down artillery on their asses and kill as many of them as we can while they're exposed. What the fuck else do you think we'd do?"

"Uh... oh... sure, sarge," Lisa said, a bit taken aback by his tone. "I guess that's the plan then."

"Right," Lon said. "Jeffy, get on the com and send off a quick report. Take a couple pics of the retreat if you can. While you're doing that, get me a side channel to fire control so I can get some shells flying at these murdering fucks."

Jefferson made it so. Fire control, however, had to put him on a waiting list.

"A fucking waiting list?" Lon screamed back at them. "There are exposed WestHem marines all over my sector at this very moment! Get some shells down on them before they get in their APCs!"

"Sorry, Lon," the lieutenant on the other end of the link told him. "The same thing is happening all up and down the line. They're pulling back in force. There are too many fucking targets for us to hit them all."

"What the hell are we supposed to do then?" Lon asked.

"When your sector is up I'll get hold of you again for current targeting info. Should be ten or fifteen minutes."

"Shit," Lon said in disgust before breaking the connection.

They went back to watching. The marines continued to appear from nowhere and move backwards, deliciously exposed in large numbers but there was nothing they could do. A few of them fell here and there as the snipers hidden on the other hills took potshots at the target-rich environment but Lon knew if they were to engage they would hit ten, maybe twelve of them before they'd have to retreat from the answering mortar fire. Since the deaths of two of his men he liked to make the body count worthwhile before he committed to an engagement.

"Look what they're doing," Horishito said. "There's a squad of APCs pulling out three klicks to the west, at three o'clock."

Lisa looked over there and saw what she was talking about. The APCs had been presumably stuffed as full as possible on the inside and then other troops — eight to ten on each vehicle — had climbed onto the outside as well. They were clinging to the gun mounts, sitting on the tread guards, sitting atop the turret. "There has to be twenty-five marines to each APC."

"And they can't go much more than ten or fifteen klicks an hour that way," Jefferson said. "They're sitting ducks."

"You want us to engage them, sarge?" Lisa asked. "We have four AT lasers. We can kill a hundred or so right now before they get out of range. That's a good body count, ain't it?"

"Goddamn right," he agreed, something like emotion in his voice for the first time in days. "AT teams, light those APCs up. Everyone, get ready to displace as soon as they burn."

Lisa sighted in on the slow moving formation, picking the furthest forward of the APCs. She zoomed in with her goggles until she could see the individual marines holding onto the sides for dear life. They looked a bit pathetic, even though she couldn't actually see their faces, and she felt a bit squeamish at the thought that she would have to put her laser shot right through one of them to get it into the main body of the vehicle where it belonged. Oh well, she thought as she put the recticle on the man's chest, you gotta do what you gotta do. At least he would go fast. "I got the three o'clock tank," she said, letting the other AT holders know not to target that one.

"I got twelve," said Morales, on the next hill hover.

"Sarge," interrupted Jefferson before the next AT holder could chime in. "I got a priority message just came in from command."

"Give it to us after we pop these fuckers," Lon said. "Who's taking six o'clock?"

"Sarge," Jefferson said, "I think you need to listen to this. It's a cease fire order."

"What?" Lon said, his voice picking up a notch. "What the hell are you talking about? A cease fire order for us?"

"For everyone," Jefferson said. "Let me read it to you. 'All MPG units on Eden defensive line are to cease offensive action until further notice. Do not, repeat — do not fire on any WestHem unit, vehicle, or personnel unless fired upon or unless they are advancing toward an occupied MPG position. Defensive measures only until further notice.'"

Lon was appalled. "What in the fuck is that shit about?" he asked no one in particular. "Don't fire at them while they're at their most vulnerable? Who in the fuck ordered that?"

"It didn't say, sarge," Jefferson told him. "It came directly from Eden command and was correctly coded."

Lon shook his head. He seriously considered just ordering his AT teams to engage anyway. They would be able to claim they'd fired before getting this most asinine order. In the end, however, he couldn't quite bring himself to do it. "Discharge your weapons," he told them. "Let's see if maybe they want us to bring those poor marines some food packs or something next."

Lisa and the rest of the team discharged their lasers, feeding the energy back into the charging batteries. They put the weapons back down and watched helplessly as the mass exodus of marines continued, as more and more of them piled into and atop APCs and began to move slowly off to the west, unharmed and untouched. They noticed that even the artillery had stopped.

Thirty-six kilometers north of Lon and his squad, Brian Haggerty and Matt Mendez were in the cockpit of their Mosquito, screaming in through the hills preparing to make their fourth firing run of the day. It had been very productive so far. They'd had last night off and had lifted off for the first time at 0700, well rested and well fed. Nineteen marine APCs had fallen to the their flight of two so far and the news that their targets were now in motion, going slow, and chock full of marines inside and out, had instilled the blood lust in them. Since flight crews had the luxury of not having to see the people they killed — before, during, or after their strikes — the thought of massacring twenty or thirty per shot was not the least bit repugnant to them. After all, their mission was to kill marines, wasn't it?

But now this puzzling message had come across the all units network just a minute or so before they reached their IP. Matt read it to him as it decoded, wondering just what the hell this was about. "All units on the Eden defensive line?" Matt asked. "That doesn't apply to us, does it?"

"Well, we're not on the defensive line, that's for sure," Brian said, his eyes continuing to track on the terrain before him, turning and diving as they moved closer and closer. "It must be just for the ground pounders, although I can't imagine who would order something like that."

"Maybe they surrendered?" Matt asked.

Brian shook his head. "No way in hell," he said. "They may be pulling back but it's only to regroup. They're not giving up yet."

"Then why the fuck would they tell anyone to stop shooting them? That's against the rules of war, ain't it?"

"It's certainly against conventional military thinking," Brian agreed. "In any case, I can't believe that message was meant for the air crews. We'll finish this firing run and then get clarification after we withdraw and break radio silence."

"You're the boss, boss," Matt said happily, pushing the buttons to charge up his lasers. "You're turning right to one-seven-zero in five, four, three..." A distinctive beep sounded in his headset, alerting him to a priority message from Air Ops Command. "Shit. Priority message."

Brian made the turn and then leveled off. "Bring it up fast," he said. "IP in less than thirty now."

Matt quickly changed to the communications screen and ordered his computer to decrypt and display the message. This took two and a half seconds. He stared at the words on his screen, wondering if the whole planet had been smoking dust. "All air units disengage immediately from hostile action," he read. "Do not fire upon enemy vehicles or aircraft except in self defense. Units on firing runs return immediately to your staging areas and await further instructions."

"Fuck my ass," Brian said helplessly. "What in the hell is going on around here?"

"Someone got some explaining to do, that's for sure," Matt agreed. "You want me to go manual and plot us back to staging?"

"Yeah," Brian sighed. "I guess you'd better. I guess it's okay to break radio silence too. Get me our wing on my channel."

Matt pushed a few tabs on his screen. "You're on," he said.

Fifteen seconds later both aircraft spun around the hill that was supposed to have been their initial point for their run and headed back the way they had come, their lasers unfired.

The cease-fire order had been transmitted not just to the units deployed at Eden, but planetwide — to New Pittsburgh, to Proctor, and to Libby as well. It was an order that was universally derided as asinine, as idiocy, as against all rules of military logic by every soldier of every rank who heard of it. Most wondered just who in the hell it had originated from and what kind of hell General Jackson was going to raise when he heard of it. Only the highest of the command staff — at the moment anyway — knew that General Jackson was the one who had sent the order.

"Kevin," pleaded General Zoloft, commander of Eden forces, "you are being criminally negligent by letting those marines walk away from the lines untouched. They haven't agreed to a cease-fire, they haven't asked for terms of withdrawal. We are still in active combat with them! You can't just let them retreat to regroup in safety!"

"I can and I will," Jackson replied. They were on a video link with the other generals in charge of the other cities' defenses. "We will not shoot at a retreating enemy. That is MPG doctrine."

"But they're not retreating from the war!" cried General Montoya — commander of the New Pittsburgh forces. "They're only pulling back to regroup. You know as well as I do that they're just going to launch back up to orbit and then come down in a single group, probably at Eden or New Pittsburgh. Every one of them that we let back to their LZ is a soldier we'll face in the next battle."

"I understand your logic, Frank," Jackson told him. "I even agree with it. But you're not following my logic."

"What fucking logic?" asked General Azacan, commander of Proctor forces. "My people beat the shit out of those fucks. They never even broke through my first line! My tanks and my APCs are more than ninety-eight percent intact while theirs are down more than seventy percent! Do you know what that means, Kevin? I can counter-attack them while they retreat and while they're vulnerable. I can use my armor to circle ahead of them and cut them off at the entrance to the gap! We'll kill or capture all of their combat units that are left! How can you possibly order me not to do that?"

"Because it would be a bloody battle that would unnecessarily kill MPG troops and because it would go against the precedent I'm trying to set for the WestHems with this unpopular order of mine."

"What precedent?" demanded Zoloft. "What the hell are you trying to accomplish by letting them walk away untouched? They're going to hit us again!"

"Yes," Jackson said. "I know they're going to hit us again. That's why I'm doing this. I want every WestHem soldier that fights in this war to know that we will not shoot at them if they retreat. I want them to know at all times that retreat means their safety, that it means an end to the death and the bloodshed. I want them to be able to walk away from a battle with us at any time because if they know that, eventually, when we push them enough, they'll do it."

All three of them were shaking their heads in consternation.

"I'm sorry, Kevin," said Azacan, "but I must protest this order in the strongest possible terms. I've got enemy units retreating in disarray over here. They're clinging to their APCs like they were lifeboats. Do you realize they can't even return fire from their armor when they have men holding onto the outside of them? I can not only defeat the forces that attacked Proctor but utterly destroy them in a matter of hours! Your order makes no sense to me and I'm demanding that you rescind it immediately and fight this war like it's supposed to be fought!"

"Your demand is denied," Jackson told him. "My cease-fire order will stand until such a time that enemy units are advancing instead of retreating."

"I will not accept that," Azacan said. "You're throwing this war away."

"You will follow my orders, General, or you will be relieved of command and returned to civilian status," Jackson told him. "Is that clear?"

"Maybe you should be relieved of command," Azacan shot back. "You've fought brilliantly up until this point but you're making a lethal decision right now that could very well cost us this war."

Jackson looked at the images of his other three generals. "What do you say, guys?" he asked them. "Are you with Azacan? Are you going to forcibly relieve me from command?" He looked directly at Zoloft. "How about you, Matt? You're second-in-command. Are you going to take over for me?"

Zoloft shook his head immediately. "No," he said. "I strongly disagree with your logic and with this decision and I implore you to change your mind, but I'm not going to disobey your order and I'm not going to advocate your removal."

"I agree," said Montoya. "On all counts."

General Visser, commander of Libby forces, nodded his head. "I too will obey this order though I strongly protest it, and I will not advocate General Jackson's removal."

Azacan was fuming, his face red, his eyes actually bugging out with anger. "You just lost this war for us," he told his colleagues.

"We've trusted Kevin this far," Zoloft said. "He's engineered the complete humiliation of a professional armed force that outnumbered us more than five to one when they left Earth. Though we disagree with his decision now, I think we owe him our continued loyalty and faith just for the simple fact he's gotten us to the point where we have to worry about what to do with retreating forces."

"Thank you, Matt," Jackson said. He looked at Azacan's image. "So what do you say?" he asked. "Are you staying or going? You're a brilliant military strategist and you've done an outstanding job defending Proctor. I'd really hate to lose you but if you can't work with me after this, if you can't abide my orders any further, I'll accept your resignation now."

It took him a few seconds to answer. Finally, he said, "You're not getting my resignation that easily. I'll obey your orders."

"And that means no recon in force that's designed to draw their fire," Jackson said. "No Mosquito fly-bys designed to make them shoot at us. Is that understood, General?"

Jackson could tell by his face that he had been considering just those options. He gave a little smirk and then nodded. "Agreed," he said. "My units will remain disengaged until further orders."

General Wrath and Major Wilde were in the war room, still trying to process the fact that their units were being allowed to retreat without attack when the door opened at the far side of the room. Wilde looked up and saw General Todd Browning — Wrath's second-in-command — enter the room accompanied by four armed military police officers. He knew instantly what this had to mean. After all, he'd been semi-expecting it ever since Wrath had sent his last transmission to the council.

Wrath looked up from his screen for a moment and saw them. Wilde could tell by his face that he realized the same thing.

"General Wrath," Browning said formally as he approached.

"Yes?" Wrath said, resigned to his fate.

"I have been ordered by the executive council of WestHem to relieve you of command, effective immediately, and to assume command of all WestHem forces in the Martian theater of operation." He held out a piece of paper. "This is my authorization."

"I see," Wrath said, taking the paper but not looking at it.

"And furthermore," Browning said, "I am ordered to place you under arrest and confine you to the brig for the duration of this mission."

"On what charges?" Wrath asked.

"Insubordination, criminal negligence of command, falsification of reports, and twenty-three hundred counts of manslaughter of WestHem marines under your command."

Wrath nodded, not even bothering to question. After all, he knew the game better than anyone. "Okay," he said, standing up. "I'll come peacefully."

A camera crew appeared from nowhere, their microphones and lenses probing at him. The MPs stepped forward. Their commander — a lieutenant colonel — removed Wrath's firearm from its holster. He then placed him in handcuffs, struggling a bit with the process since it had probably been years — if ever — since he'd last performed this task.

"Do you have anything to say, General?" one of the reporters accompanying the camera crew enquired.

"No," he said, a tear appearing in his eye and tracking slowly down his face. "I have nothing to say."

They led him away, the camera crew following. Browning stayed behind.

When they were gone, Wilde looked up at him. "And what about me?" he asked, not bothering to ass-kiss or grovel. "Am I relieved of my position as well?"

Browning looked at him, considering. "You and Wrath were pretty close, weren't you?"

Wilde shrugged. "I wouldn't call him my friend by any means, but I was his aide for the last six years. I helped him plan this war."

"And that right there should automatically result in your removal, possibly your arrest as well. The way this war has been run so far has been criminal."

Wilde reviewed what he knew about Browning. He was two years junior to Wrath, a WestHem Military Academy graduate, and the son of a famous pre-Jupiter War General of the Corps. His advancement through the ranks was rumored to be more because of his father's reputation than his own. He was, in fact, a hopeless yes-man who kissed any ass put in his face and stepped on every head below him on the ladder as a matter of course. He probably knew next to nothing about military history and only a little bit more about military strategy. In short, he was a man who would rely on his staff to make decisions for him, just like Wrath.

"I agree with you, General," Wilde said. "It was apparent to me from day two or so after the landings that we were in serious trouble. General Wrath tried his best to control this situation but, unfortunately, he did not always take my advice on the best way to conduct this war when things began to turn for the worse. You can call me criminal if you wish, but I am a military realist and I have tried to give the best advice for the situation at all times and I would continue to do so if retained in my position as aide."

"I already have an aide," Browning said. "Major Mitchell Fling. I understand you were a classmate of his?"

"That is correct," Wilde said. Fling had been an English major of all things — a man who had cheated and backstabbed his way through the academy and had cheated and backstabbed his way up the ladder since. If Browning started taking advice from that clown they might as well just go home now and save all the blood that would be shed as a result.

"Do you think you are better qualified to act as my aide than Major Fling?" Browning asked.

"Yes," Wilde said. "If only for the fact that I have been intimately involved with all stages of this war since the beginning and I have already established the communication lines and the trust of the generals on the ground."

"But you think you know more about warfare as well, don't you?"

"Yes, sir, I do," Wilde confirmed. "I have a master's degree in military tactics and have made the subject my life's work. I understand that Major Fling's degree is in English Composition, is it not? He may be able to write prettier reports than I, but I don't think his advice would be quite as sound."

"You're very arrogant about your experience," Browning said. "I like that. So tell me, Major Wilde, what do you think is the best, fastest way to bring this war to a successful conclusion? Major Fling is of the opinion that we should turn those troops around right now, right this moment, and order them to blast through the greenie lines in a lightening fast assault."

"Major Fling's opinion is as wrong as an opinion could be," Wilde said. "As I told General Wrath when I suggested we withdraw to orbit and regroup, we cannot push through any of the lines guarding any of those cities after the losses we've taken to this point. It is flat out impossible. A perfect example of a military unreality. To even attempt it would be to doom thousands more marines to their deaths and to give the Martians a morale boost that later expeditionary forces would have to deal with. We've lost this battle, sir. There's no way to turn things around at this point. All we can hope to do is capture a single Martian city and hold it until the next wave of marines gets here."

"So you're saying there is no way to achieve the objectives we were sent here to achieve?" Browning said.

"That is exactly what I'm saying, sir," Wilde said. "The Martians have proven to be a much more formidable foe than we ever dreamed of giving them credit for. I was as guilty of underestimating them as anyone else in the beginning. But now that I see the reality of the situation, I can state unequivocally that the absolute best we can hope for at this point is to capture and hold a single Martian city — I would suggest Eden — and wait for more troops to come to help liberate the rest of the planet."

"So you're saying that I cannot fulfill the orders the executive council charged me with when they put me in command?"

"If those orders were to capture the entire planet with the troops we have left, I would have to say yes. That is what I'm saying."

"But Major Fling tells me that I can capture this planet with those troops."

"He's either stupid or telling you what you want to hear," Wilde said.

"That's a very inflammatory proclamation," Browning said.

Wilde simply shrugged. "If you want to have a few moments of glory on the Internet cameras and then eventually end up being led away in handcuffs like General Wrath, you just keep listening to Major Fling. If you want to walk away from this war with your rank and career intact, you listen to me. It's your choice, General, although I think those marines down there on the surface would fare a lot better if you chose me."

Browning thought this over for a few moments. "Okay," he finally said. "Why don't you give me an outline of your master plan? If I agree to retain you and listen to your advice, what would you advise me?"

"We haven't been treating this like a real war," Wilde said. "We've been treating it like a pushover. Well, it's turned out that the Martians are not a pushover and I think its time we start treating them with the respect due a worthy adversary."

"What do you mean?"

"Pull everyone back up to orbit," Wilde said. "Get them re-outfitted, re-armed, re-organized into one huge army designed to take a single target — as I said, Eden makes the most sense because it's centrally located, it's a rail hub, and it's their largest agricultural production center as well as their most important city. Before we make our landings we need to send atmospheric craft down and bomb their railheads and rip up their intra-city rail tracks. This will keep them from moving forces from the other cities to help defend Eden and will break their supply lines. We also need to send space fighters out to destroy every communications and navigation satellite we can hit. This will take away their GPS advantage and cripple their ability to talk to each other and send orders out. Once we've done all that we come down and send everything we have through the Jutfield Gap and into the main line of defense. Our numerical superiority should be somewhere in the vicinity of ten to one, maybe a little more since the Martians are not attacking our units as they retreat. We'll capture Eden and occupy it."

"And from there we can take the rest of the planet?"

"It will take a while," he admitted, "but eventually, we will prevail. With the ability to land our forces directly in one of their cities and move them by rail to where they're needed next, we will be able to capture each city one by one until they are all back in our hands."

Browning paced about the room for a minute as he considered what Wilde was telling him. It was obvious he didn't like the thought that he would not be able to take all of Mars in one fell swoop like the council wanted him to. But it was also obvious that he retained just enough military knowledge from his academy days and his years in the Corps to realize that Wilde was right.

"Okay," he finally said. "You've convinced me. I want to have a full briefing for the council by this time tomorrow. You start drawing up your plans and have them on my computer by 0600."

"Yes, sir," Wilde said, feeling something like hope for the first time in weeks.

Chapter 19

Eden MPG base

September 3, 2146

The smell in the outside deployment male locker room was horrid, perhaps the worst olfactory sensation Jeff had ever experienced. The thought that he was contributing to it did nothing to ease his disgust. It was the smell of over a thousand combat soldiers who had been outside for eight days, sweating inside of their biosuits, unable to shower or even evaporate the sweat properly. The moment they began to remove the biosuits in the confined space all those layers of perspiration, most of it old, began to permeate the air like a gas.

"I'm gonna fuckin' puke," said Hicks, who was standing next to Jeff and who did indeed appear to a bit green around the gills.

"Go ahead," Jeff told him, peeling the main portion of his suit downward as gingerly as possible. "It can't possibly make it smell worse in here." He disconnected the urine catheter and eased away from the solid waste tube stuck to his anus. His penis was raw and tender from so many days with a piece of latex on it and he winced as the air hit it. He stepped out of the suit, leaving him standing naked except for the MPG T-shirt he'd donned nine days ago after his last shower. It was pretty much beyond salvage at this point. Even if it was washed and sterilized the smell and the sweat stains would probably remain. He took it off and put it in a plastic bag from his locker, intending to simply throw it away.

He had already unloaded his M-24 and removed all of the magazines from the outside pockets on the suit. He now removed his last waste-pack, his food pack, the water tank and the air supply tank and put them all in his locker. He made a last check of all the pockets, finding two loose M-24 rounds, two rocks he didn't remember picking up, and the wrapper from a food pack. He tossed all these onto a back shelf and then removed the combat computer module that controlled the suit. This he set on a different shelf. Satisfied that the suit was now completely empty he turned it inside out — a process that took the better part of five minutes — and then hung it on a hook on the outside of his locker door.

"You got the Spray-clean?" he asked Hicks, who was still going through his own pockets.

"Yeah, right there, top shelf."

Jeff reached into his locker and grabbed the aerosol can. The contents were something that had been developed by a Martian chemist about five years before and it made the process of cleaning one's biosuit a breeze instead of the agonizing, two to three hour ordeal it had once been. All you did was sprayed the entire inside with the concoction, which was a combination of disinfectant and cleaning compounds that would bind to any foreign matter. The active ingredients were mixed in with a sodium bicarbonate base that would absorb most of the odor. He sprayed nearly a quarter of the can, saturating the entire suit. In two hours all he had to do was wipe it all off with a towel and the suit would be ready for action.

"Thanks," Jeff said, putting the can back. "Now its time for a shower, a shave, and some real fuckin' food."

"I heard they got steaks and artichokes out there for us," Hicks said, starting the process of turning his own suit inside out.

"I heard they got us some beer too," Jeff said, his mouth salivating at the very thought.

"If they don't, I'm gonna find me some. Some smokes too. After eight fuckin' days out in the wastelands I wanna drink and smoke until I barf and my lungs get coughed out."

"Well put," Jeff said, grabbing a towel, some soap, and some shampoo.

"You wanna join me?" he asked. "Me and Zen are gonna hit the Troop Club and see what we can score over there. I heard a rumor that they held some of the booze back for the combat soldiers."

"I got something I need to do," Jeff responded.

"You sure, man?" Hicks said. "Xenia might be there. She's pretty much shot me down at this point but you could probably jack your round into her chamber if you play your cards right."

"Xenia and I have an understanding about that," Jeff said.

"What the fuck you mean?"

"Never mind," he said. "I might head over later on, especially if they got booze and smokes over there. But first I gotta go home."

"Home?" Hicks said, raising his eyebrows a bit. "I thought you hated your old lady like the marines hate the Mosquitoes."

"I do," he said. "And its time for me to do something about it. A little promise I made to myself."

"Ahhh," Hicks said knowingly. "You're gonna tell her to take a flying fuck at Phobos?"

"Yep," he confirmed.

"I can respect that," Hicks told him. He considered for a second. "You gonna tear off one last piece first? A farewell fuck?"

To his surprise, Jeff actually found himself seriously considering this suggestion for a few seconds. Sure he hated Belinda now and she had put on more than thirty kilos since they'd been married and sex with her had been nothing but a chore for the last year or so — a chore that had been unsuccessful in its goal of conceiving their one child so they could get that two-bedroom apartment — but the thought of sliding into her body and rutting atop her until release was strangely compelling at this particular moment in time. Wow, he thought, trying to shake the image off before it produced an erection, I'm really fuckin' horny right now. What the hell is up with that?

"No," he told Hicks when the thought was finally banished. "I may need to get my weapon oiled but I don't need it that bad. I'll score me a little something later at the club."

"Not if I score it first," Hicks told him. "I'm horny enough to fuck Drogan and you know how fuckin' ugly she is. It must be all that death and shit we saw that does it, you know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Jeff said as the image of stripping Drogan's manly, yet female body down and slamming into her locked into his consciousness — and not in a bad way either. "I think I know what you mean. I'm gonna go hit the shower. Maybe I'll make it a cold one."

It was quite some time before he actually got to the shower. There were only thirty showerheads in the locker room and there were almost a thousand people wanting to use them at one time. He waited in a long line that stretched all across the back and side walls of the room. The stink of so many naked, disgusting bodies gathered together in close proximity was almost more than he could take at first. Gradually, however, his nose became desensitized to it and he stopped noticing it. Once that happened he was able to engage in conversation with those in line around him. The topics were mostly about the last eight days and what was going on out there now.

"I still can't believe General Jackson called a fuckin' cease-fire on those marines just because they're retreating," said a squad sergeant just behind Jeff in line. "They're just strolling their way back to their LZ right this minute! The Mosquitoes and the special forces teams could be beating the shit out of them!"

"I heard that in Proctor General Azacan almost resigned over that order," said a private in front of Jeff. "He could have gotten his armor in front of the marines and cut them off completely. He could have fuckin' destroyed them, man!" He shook his head. "I'm wondering if Jackson's lost it. Maybe Laura Whiting oughtta replace his ass with Zoloft."

"Amen to that," said the sergeant. "I used to have a lot of respect for Jackson, but now... I'm not so sure."

Jeff listened to the conversations but contributed little to them. He, like most of the troops that had actually put their asses on the line, that had seen friends killed and horribly wounded, that had known that they themselves might die at any moment, had a sincere wish that every WestHem marine on Mars and above it would be killed in some horrible, painful way. He hated the thought that they were just driving at their leisure back to their landing zones where they would launch back into orbit to regroup and then come back down again in overwhelming strength, probably at Eden or New Pittsburgh. The sour taste of their getaway was taking away from what should have been the euphoria of victory. But as for actually replacing Jackson with Zoloft? He wasn't so sure that was a good idea. Nor did many of the others around them.

"Jackson's got us this far," was the common argument among the pro-Jacksonians. "He may have fucked up a wet dream with this cease-fire but he's still the fuckin' man."

"He choked under the pressure," was the common argument among the anti-Jacksonians. "He thinks they're really giving up and he decided not to make them mad."

The entire argument was somewhat of a moot point, of course. General Jackson wasn't offering his resignation, nor was Laura Whiting asking for it. At least that was the story being passed around at the moment. The WestHems in all four theaters were back at their LZs and in the process of loading their equipment back into their ships. Though the main line units were still under deployment, just in case, the ACRs and the support units had been brought back in and given forty-eight hour passes. Another rumor floating about was that many of the soldiers — particularly those in the units that had taken the heaviest losses — weren't planning to come back.

Jeff finally made his way to a showerhead. An MP guarding the entrance to this particular section of the locker room warned him — politely at least — that he only had three minutes to shower and get out.

He made the best of his three minutes, luxuriating under the spray even though it made the abrasions on his penis sting quite badly. He put on a thick layer of soap and scrubbed everywhere with a washcloth, quickly turning it a dingy brown color. He used almost a hundred milliliters of shampoo on his hair and then quickly brushed his teeth before the final rinse-off. When he left the stall for the next soldier in line he felt almost human again — starving, dehydrated, sore, and very tired — but almost human nonetheless.

He walked naked back to his locker and quickly used his laser shaver to take the eight days worth of bristly stubble off his face. He put on some deodorant and combed his hair and then put on a fresh pair of MPG shorts and a fresh MPG T-shirt. He slipped his moccasins on his feet and then headed for the exit and the hopefully fresh air that would be found there.

They were indeed serving steaks and artichokes in the mess hall, along with sautéed mushrooms, garlic baked potatoes, and two bottles of beer for each soldier. The smell alone when he walked into the room was nearly enough to trigger an orgasm. He waited in another line for another twenty minutes before getting his tray. He then went searching for an empty spot at a table. In this endeavor he scored rather well. Not only did he find a place to sit down but it was next to Xenia, who was working on cleaning the rest of the artichoke leaves so she could get to the heart.

"Food has never tasted so fucking good," she told him, her face blissful, her long hair still a little damp from her shower. "It's even better than the shower."

"Where's Zen and Belinda?" he asked, cracking open one of his beers. He took a long, delicious drink of it, savoring the flavor, savoring the warm feeling it put in his empty stomach.

"Zen's grandmother came to town and set up a little apartment for him in the Brophy Towers."

"His grandmother?"

"She's the one who raised him," Xenia said. "His parents were killed in the Jupiter War. A laser strike took out their building while he was visiting her for the day. He's very close to her."

"I didn't know that."

"He sent all the credits he made since he enlisted to her. It's the first time they've had income since she had her medical license taken away. She apparently remembers how to manage money. She used those credits to come here and find him a place to stay. He was very excited about it. It'll be the first place other than public housing he's ever lived in."

"Well that's an ass fuck for him," Jeff said, actually glad he was gone — it was a little less competition for Xenia's affections. "And what about... you know... Belinda?"

The look she gave him was evil. "She went with your friend Drogan."

"Drogan?" he asked, pausing in the act of cutting his first piece of steak. "Where did they go?"

"Back to Drogan's place. She's going to stay with her."

"Stay with her? But... how... I mean, they don't even know each other, do they?"

"They do now," she said. "Drogan came over to the table to talk to me — it seems she has a little crush on me as well — and the next thing you know, they're chatting like they were old friends. Belinda mentioned that she'd been deployed here from NP and didn't have a place to stay..."

"Wait a minute," Jeff interrupted. "I thought she was gonna stay with you."

"She was," Xenia said. "And then I told her about that little emotional blackmail scheme of yours."

"Emotional blackmail scheme?"

"I call things what they are," she said. "That thing about you not fucking me until I say I love you?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it blackmail," he said. "It's just... you know, the way I feel."

"A funny way to feel," she said.

Jeff shrugged, refusing to discuss it any further. "She decided not to move in with you because of that?" he asked. "I would've thought she'd be happier than a marine at full retreat."

She giggled a little. "Good one," she said.

"I just made it up."

"Anyway, I would've thought the same, but Belinda seemed to take it as a challenge to her love for me or some shit like that. She said if you could do it, she could do it too. Now she won't give me no tongue — or anything else — until I tell her I love her."

"No shit?" Jeff asked, unsure how he should feel about this, jealous or relieved.

"No shit," she pouted. "So here I am, all alone and horny while the people who are supposed to love me won't give up the trim."

"Kind of ironic, isn't it?" he asked, utilizing a word he'd just learned a few days before.

"Oh shut the fuck up and eat," she said, though not unkindly.

He shut the fuck up and ate, spending the next ten minutes in an orgy of chewing, chomping, drinking, and swallowing. The steak was easily the best he'd ever had. The artichoke was the first he'd ever had. And the sautéed mushrooms were almost better than sex. Xenia watched him silently as he made a pig of himself, occasionally taking a sip from the remains of her beer or picking at a stray mushroom on her plate.

"So where are you going now?" she asked when he drained the last swallow of his second beer.

"I'm gonna go see the other Belinda in my life," he told her. "And I'm going to tell her she ain't in my life no more."

"Are you doing this just because of me?"

He wanted to lie and tell her he was but he couldn't bring himself to. "No," he said. "Not at all. Belinda was a mistake from the beginning. We've never loved each other — hell, we've hated each other most of our relationship. She was the wife I was programmed to take. It's time to put an end to it."

She nodded. "At least there's no kid to worry about, huh?"

"At least there's that," he said.

"And what are you gonna do after that? You coming to the Troop Club?"

"Wouldn't miss it," he said. "Are you going?"

"Fuckin' aye." Her eyes took on a little shine. "And where are you going after that? I don't imagine your wife will be too keen on you staying with her after you tell her what you have to say."

"Wouldn't want to stay with her anyway," he said. "To tell you the truth, I haven't thought that far ahead. I'll probably go back to the base and crash out there. They have some bachelor quarters available."

"Those are just tents in the exercise yard," she said. "You don't want to sleep there."

"I've been sleeping in a biosuit in a fuckin' trench for the past eight days," he said. "I don't think it will bother me."

"What if you get lucky?" she asked. "I presume you're going to be looking for a little female companionship, right?"

He cast his eyes downward, unsure what to say.

"Oh come on now," she told him. "If you're not gonna fuck me there's no reason why you shouldn't fuck someone else. I certainly have no plans to remain celibate while you and Belinda are having your little hunger strike. I'm gonna find me a guy with a big, hard dick and a girl with a tight, wet pussy and take both of them back to my place and behave like the full-blooded Martian I am."

Jeff felt a minor stab of jealousy at this revelation, but only a mild one. In Martian culture it was not all that unusual to have sex with others for the sheer enjoyment of it, even when in a committed relationship — which he and Xenia certainly were not in. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I wouldn't turn down a little action."

"That's my boy," she said, reaching across the table and caressing his cheek. "So where you gonna take her?"

"Her place?" he asked.

"Or you can take her to my place," she suggested. "I got a spare bedroom you can stay in. No strings attached."

"And you won't try to fuck me?" he asked.

She gave him a saucy smile. "I didn't say that."

"I won't do it," he told her. "I told you how I feel about you. I told you what you have to do to get a piece of me."

"Fine," she pouted. "But the offer is still open."

"I'll think about it," he said.

"You do that. I'll see you at the Troop Club. I'll be the one rubbing my wet pussy over everything in sight."

"Except me," he said.

She stood up and leaned over him, lifting his chin up. She kissed him gently on the mouth, a soft, sensuous kiss that sent chills down his spine. "I didn't promise that either," she said.

She walked away without another word, leaving him with a raging erection.

Jeff found that the MarsTrans system was still operating under emergency operation rules. Although it was back to running on a normal schedule there were armed MPG military police in each car and there was no charge being levied for any passengers. He simply walked past the turnstiles and the empty guard booth and boarded, finding a seat near the rear among many other men and women, most of whom were in MPG shirts and T-shirts like he was.

As he rode towards Helvetia Heights and the place he'd called home since birth, he took out his PC and powered it up for the first time since they'd been deployed outside. The first thing he accessed was the financial software, fearing what he would find. All of the credits he'd been paid since his first day of basic training had been placed into his main bank account, which was a joint account he shared with Belinda. He hadn't talked to her or emailed her since he'd left for basic training three months before but he'd kept an eye on his accounts during that time, watching for her to start spending all of the new form of Martian money. To his surprise, she hadn't. She'd left the credits completely alone but had regularly spent the dollars in the account when they were deposited every two weeks by the Martian welfare system. As he checked now he saw that the credit account was at just over seven hundred — pretty much where it had been before deploying outside although his last bi-weekly pay allotment had been deposited since.

"Dumb bitch," he muttered, shaking his head in amusement. She was too stupid to spend the new money like she'd spent dollars. Oh well, that was good news for him.

He then checked the dollar account to see how bad that was. Typically she had spent the entire eight hundred dollar allotment within days of receiving it. To his utter surprise and suspicion he saw that the balance was not in the negative as he'd expected, or even close to it. There was almost ten thousand dollars in there. Ten times more than had ever been in there at one time in the past.

"What the fuck?" he asked the screen. It had no answers for him. At least not yet. He paged over to the list of recent transactions and the mystery only deepened. There were multitudes of them there, mostly deposits from other personal bank accounts in fifty and one hundred dollar increments. Interspersed among these were other, outgoing transactions of six hundred to seven hundred at a time to other personal bank accounts. Something very strange was going on with his soon to be ex-wife.

The MarsTrans train dropped him off six blocks from his building. As he walked toward it, through streets that he and his fellow gang members had once ruled, he noticed a stark difference from the last time he'd been here. There were still gangs of juveniles about but they didn't seem as tough as they once had, nor as numerous. Though some were drinking Fruity it was the exception rather than the rule — ditto for cigarette smoking. When he passed them they gave him deference and respectful nods, not because of the Capitalist tattoo — for that was covered by the sleeve of his T-shirt — but because of his uniform.

"Free Mars, man," one of them told him as he passed. "You guys kicked some fuckin' ass out there."

"Fuckin' aye," Jeff replied, exchanging a Capitalist shake with him, to their collective delight.

"Were you in the shit, man?" another asked. "Out on the fuckin' line?"

"17th ACR," he told them, knowing they would know what that meant.

They did. "The fuckin' Jutfield Gap, man!" one said excitedly. "You walked the fuckin' war to 'em out there, man! That was fuckin' static!"

"Hell yeah," another said. "I tried to join up but they wouldn't fuckin' let me 'cause I'm too young still."

"Me too," said another. "I only got two more months to go though and my print's on the fuckin' line, man!"

"Hell yeah!" said several others, which prompted another round of Capitalist shakes.

They tried to prod Jeff for details of the action but he deferred, telling them he had some important shit he had to attend to. They respectfully said their farewells and told him once again how badass he was. He walked away with a smile on his face and shortly arrived before his building.

The building looked the same, from the graffiti in the lobby to the graffiti in the hallways. When he reached the door to apartment 6312 he paused, staring at the numbers for a few moments, bracing himself for the confrontation he was about to embark upon. Finally he put his finger to the door panel, letting it read his print. The door slid open and a smell rushed out at him, a horrid odor of stale alcohol, old urine, and rotting garbage. It was almost as bad as the locker room back at the MPG base.

"Jesus fucking Christ," he muttered, fighting back a gag. He stepped into the living room and looked around in disgusted amazement. Garbage was strewn everywhere. Old laundry, empty beer cans and Fruity bottles, overflowing ashtrays, and food containers from the welfare mart store in the basement of the building. Belinda had never been the best housekeeper in the solar system but this was far beyond her worst episodes of domestic laziness.

The door slid shut behind him and we walked further into the room. Belinda was nowhere in sight. He walked into the kitchen and found an even bigger mess, with more empty bottles and cans, more garbage strewn about, more cigarette butts. He found something else that was very interesting as well. Stacked against the pantry door were more than twenty cases of Fruity, thirty cases of canned beer, and sixty cartons of premium cigarettes.

"Holy shit," he muttered. He turned towards the living room and then stopped. He went over to the cartons of cigarettes and opened one, pulling out a five packs — as much as he could carry. He stuffed all but one in his pockets. The last he opened, extracting one of the smokes. He walked to the stove, pushed aside a week's worth of garbage and dirty dishes, and then lit up using one of the burners, inhaling deeply.

"Nice," he said, savoring the flavor and the instant rush of nicotine to his brain. Those Earthlings were a bunch of corporate worshiping assholes but they sure knew how to make a decent smoke.

He took a few more drags and then tossed the butt into the sink when he started to feel queasy. He then walked through the kitchen and back into the living room. The bedroom door was closed. He hesitated for another second or two and then pushed the button that opened it. It slid on its track revealing what had to be the filthiest room in the house. The old laundry and the booze bottles covered every square centimeter of the floor and most of the bed. The sheets, blankets, and comforter that had been a wedding present from Jeff's parents were piled in a heap with the rest of the laundry. Lying naked on the bare mattress, snoring drunkenly, was Belinda, a half bottle of Fruity still sitting on the nightstand along with an overflowing ashtray and a half burned cigarette. Her legs were slightly spread and a dried crust of semen was plainly visible leaking out of her vagina.

"Belinda!" he barked. No response. He kicked the bed a few times and her eyes gradually fluttered open.

"Whu..." she muttered, trying to focus. "Is that you, Galen? My pussy's already raw from the last fuck."

"It's me," he said dryly. "Your husband. At least for now."

Her eyes opened a little wider and she seemed to come fully awake. Her face grimaced for a moment and then took on an expression of amusement. "It's my soldier boy," she said, her words slurred and thick. "Finally decided to come home from Queen Laura's army, huh?"

"I'm on a forty-eight hour pass," he said. "I've been on the front line for the past eight days. Not that you give a shit."

She laughed drunkenly. "You got that shit right," she said. "It's not like they're paying you in real money. Just those fuckin' credits that won't be worth a shit when the real bosses jack this place back from us."

He didn't want to get into a debate about the war or the revolution with her. They had already hashed that one into the ground in the days before he'd left for basic. "Where'd all the shit in the kitchen come from?" he asked.

She sat up, her breasts, which had actually looked something like alluring while lying, sagged down to mid stomach, the nipples disappearing entirely. Jeff grimaced at the sight.

"You mean the booze and the smokes?" she asked. "It's a little business venture I'm engaged in with Galen Mocker from upstairs. You remember Galen don't you?"

"Yeah," he said, although he didn't. "You're hoarding?"

"Fuck no," she said. "We're selling the shit. I'm bringing in some real fuckin' income while your sad ass is out making useless credits and setting yourself up for a treason charge when the WestHems kick your asses. You have any idea what booze and smokes are selling for these days? We're getting a hundred dollars a bottle for Fruity, fifty dollars a can for beer, and fifty a pack for smokes."

"That's hoarding and profiteering," he said. "It's illegal."

"So is running dust but you didn't used to have any problem with that, did you?"

"That was the past," he said. "I've grown up a little these past few months."

She made a jerking off expression. "You're a Queen Laura man all right," she nearly spat. "The big money comes from coffee though."

"Coffee?"

"Check the closet," she told him slyly.

He walked over and opened it. Where their clothes had once been stored were now over two hundred one kilogram sacks of premium WestHem coffee beans. The smell was potent enough to cut through the funk in the room. "Jesus," he said.

"We're fuckin' rapin' the employed pricks on that shit," Belinda told him with a laugh. "They're paying six hundred dollars a kilo for the shit. Can you fuckin' believe that? And we don't even have to deliver! They come into this shitty ass neighborhood and come begging at my door just to get some of my coffee. We're fuckin' rich, you ungrateful slob! You oughtta get down on your knees and eat my scummy pussy for this."

His anger started to rise. "You're sitting here on top of all this coffee, all that booze, and all those smokes when those of us who put our asses on the line for this planet had to make do with two beers apiece? That's fuckin' criminal, Belinda! It's a fuckin' atrocity!"

"Oh save your bleeding heart shit for the fuckin' MarsGroup bitches," she said. "This is the most money we've ever had in our lives — and we get free booze and smokes too. You're just jealous you didn't think of it first."

"Get dressed," he told her, picking up a filthy pair of shorts and an even filthier shirt from the nearest pile. He tossed them at her. "We need to talk."

"Why don't you give me a fuck first?" she asked, lying back and spreading her legs a little. "Galen's been hosing me while you been gone but his reproductive block is in place. Yours is still off, ain't it?"

"Yeah," he said, ashamed to find himself actually considering her offer — even if it was only for the briefest of seconds. "It's still off."

"Well let's get to fuckin'," she said. "I'm fuckin' ovulatin' right now and I still want me that two bedroom apartment."

"I'm not having a child with you," he said. "I'm not doing anything with you anymore. I came here to tell you we're finished. I'm filing for divorce tomorrow."

She looked at him and then started cackling. "Divorce?" she said. "Are you shitting me? Why the fuck would you wanna divorce me? You got something better lined up?"

"That's not any of your business anymore," he said. "I've grown up, you haven't. I'm fighting for this planet and you're profiteering from it. I never loved you or even liked you very much, and I never will. This is the end, Belinda."

She was shaking her head through this entire speech. "You ain't divorcing me," she said. "I'm not gonna have my welfare benefits cut because you're all fuckin' caught up in this independence bullshit. Now get over here and fuck me. You know you want to."

"You'll have to find someone else," he said. "We're through. I'm filing the forms first thing in the morning."

She stood up, wobbling a little at first but eventually finding equilibrium. She pointed her finger at his chest in little stabbing motions. "You are not divorcing me!" she told him. "Not now. You are gonna fuck me until I'm knocked up first and then you can leave if you want. I won't give a shit then. They'll keep my welfare where its at if I have a kid."

"You're disgusting," he said, turning away from her. "The greatest thing that's ever happened to this planet is going on all around you and you're sitting here trying to make money off of it and pretend it's going to go away." He started to walk toward the door.

Something hit him in the back of the head hard enough to stun him. It was a vase that had been propelled from Belinda's hand. It bounced upward and then shattered on the floor at his feet.

"Don't you walk away from me!" she shouted. "Nobody walks away from me, motherfucker!"

He turned around, anger in his eyes but his emotions still in check. He reached up and felt the back of his head. There was already a bump starting to form there. She swung a roundhouse at him but he blocked it easily. He pushed her back toward the bed, causing her to fall onto her ass on it. "Don't ever hit me with anything again," he warned.

"Fuck you!" she spat, leaping to her feet and rushing at him, her fists clenched, murder in her eyes.

He pushed her back again, this time hard enough to make her roll off the backside of the bed. She got right back up, this time picking up a lamp. Before she could throw it at him he kicked the bed, pushing it at her and knocking her feet out from beneath her. She landed prone on the mattress where she began hitting it with her fists.

"You can't leave me until you knock me up, asshole!" she kept yelling, over and over again. "Nobody fucking leaves me."

"I am," he said. "Now do you wanna talk about this like adults or do you want to keep acting like a spoiled little bitch?"

"Fuck you, motherfucker!" she yelled. She got to her knees on the mattress and reached for the nightstand, where the remains of a chicken dinner from the welfare mart were lying. She picked up a steak knife and charged him, raising it over her head and fully intending to stab it into his chest. He caught her wrist and twisted it, perhaps little harder than was really necessary. The knife dropped to the floor but not before he heard and felt a sickening crunch from her forearm.

Now her screams were from pain. She held her arm out before her, the wrist angulated at an unnatural angle. "You broke my fuckin' arm, asshole!" she screamed. "You motherfucker!"

"You were trying to kill me," he said, his anger peaking once again. "You fuckin' deserved that, bitch!"

"Get me to the fuckin' hospital!" she cried. "I can't believe you did this shit!"

He didn't get her to the hospital. He did what any ghetto inhabitant would do under the circumstances and called for the dip-hoes to take her. They showed up fifteen minutes later, accompanied by two Eden police officers. In that time she continued to rant and scream and cry but she did maintain enough sense of propriety to at least put her clothes on.

"So what happened here?" one of the cops asked while the dip-hoes went about the task of putting a splint on her.

"He broke my fuckin' arm!" Belinda screamed. "He twisted it until it popped!"

"Is that true?" the cop asked him.

"She was trying to stab me with a steak knife," Jeff replied. "I grabbed her arm and twisted it until it dropped. Her arm broke while I was doing that."

The two cops looked at each other, and then at Jeff, and then at Belinda, who was still ranting about abusive husbands.

"You just came home from the line?" the first asked.

"Yeah," he said. "17th ACR. I came to tell her I was through with her and she didn't like it very much."

"You fuckin' liar!" Belinda screamed. "He's a fucking cook in the MPG! He was never near the line! And he came home and tried to fuck me after being away for months! When I told him no he broke my fuckin' arm just to hear me scream!"

The cops ignored her. "17th ACR huh?" the second one asked. "You were in the gap?"

He nodded. "Infantry," he said. "I've spent the last eight days in a biosuit in the trenches killing Earthling marines. This is my welfare wife, the one I was programmed to marry before Laura Whiting. I don't want her anymore and I came home to tell her that. She didn't like it much. I didn't mean to break her arm but she was throwin' shit at me — look at my head." He turned so they could see the large goose egg that had formed on his skull.

"That's a nasty bump all right," the first cop said.

"I was trying to fight him off when he started beatin' me!" Belinda yelled.

"She threw a vase at me," Jeff went on, ignoring the interruption. "I pushed her off me a few times and then she picked up the knife and was trying to kill me with it. That's when I broke her arm."

"He's a fuckin' liar!" Belinda yelled. "He came back here looking for some pussy after cooking for the rear echelon motherfuckers and broke my arm when I wouldn't give it up! I wanna press charges against his ass! Take him to fuckin' jail!"

Jeff was angry again. "She's lying, officers," he told them. "But maybe you oughtta take her ass to fuckin' jail instead."

"Are you saying you want to file charges against her?" the first cop asked.

Jeff smiled. "No," he said. "It ain't worth my time. But you know something?"

"What?" the cop asked.

Belinda seemed to realize what he was about to do. "Don't you say shit, asshole!" she screamed. "You do and I know people that will kill your stupid ass!"

He looked at her, triumph in his eyes. "She's hoarding cigarettes, beer, Fruity, and coffee," he told the cops. "She's got a shitload of all of it in this apartment right now. You want me to show you?"

"Hoarding?" the cops said in unison, their eyes widening in anger.

"He's a fucking liar!" Belinda screamed. "That shit is all his! He's been making me buy it and sell it and put it in our fucking bank account!"

One of the cops stayed with Belinda while Jeff led the other into the kitchen and then to the bedroom closet. The cop grew angrier and angrier at each stack of contraband he counted and became particularly incensed by the presence of so much coffee.

"I haven't even had a cup of the welfare coffee in six days and your bitch is sitting on two hundred keys of Costa Rican prime!"

"She ain't my bitch anymore," Jeff told him. "You gonna arrest her, or what?"

"Does a rump ranger like a rimjob?" the cop replied. "She's spouting off about the shit being yours. I trust there's no truth to that?"

"I just got back from combat deployment half an hour ago."

"That's easy enough to check out but she's gonna say that you were running things while you were away, that she was afraid of you."

"So you gonna arrest me too?" he asked.

"Well..." the cop said thoughtfully. "If you were to consent to allow me to examine the communications usage on your PC that might go a long way toward clearing this up."

Jeff shrugged and took out his PC. "Computer, display last two monthly personal communication statements."

"Displaying," the PC replied. Jeff handed it to the cop.

He took it and examined the screen for a few minutes, scrolling from top to bottom. There truthfully wasn't much to look at. "Nothing at all to or from your wife in the past six weeks," he finally said. "It would be kind of hard to run a black market booze, coffee, and cigarette operation from the line without communication, wouldn't it?"

"Fuckin' aye," Jeff agreed.

"And six weeks ago we weren't having the shortages so there really wasn't much of a black market yet."

"True," Jeff said, feeling something like friendliness towards a cop for the first time in his life.

"Okay then," the cop said. "Let me run you through the system and make sure your MPG story checks out. If it does, you're in the clear."

"Sounds like an ass-fuck," Jeff said.

His story checked out, of course. They went back in the living room where Belinda was still drunkenly yelling that she'd been forced to sell all the contraband by Jeff under threat of beatings and even murder.

"She admitted she's selling the shit?" the first cop asked the second. "Not just hoarding it?"

"Oh yeah," the second cop replied. "She even told me how much she charges."

"How much he makes me charge," she corrected.

"Of course," the first cop said. "In any case, you're under arrest for..."

"Me?" she screamed, leaping to her feet. "Haven't you been listening to me? I told you..."

"You are under arrest," he repeated, overriding her. "The charges are hoarding war shortage items and profiteering from war shortage items. We'll investigate to see if any of this shit is stolen and if it is, we'll add a possession of stolen property charge as well."

She began to rant at them. After a minute or so of this, she ran at them, unmindful of the broken wrist. She was wrestled onto the dip-hoes' gurney and her good arm was handcuffed to the side rail. She then tried to strike them with her bad arm and kick them with her feet. They tied her feet down and put another set of handcuffs on the broken arm. The dip-hoes wheeled her away, still screaming, cop number two accompanying them.

When they were gone the first cop looked at Jeff pointedly. "I can't imagine why you would want to divorce that sweet woman."

Jeff smiled wearily, more embarrassed than anything else. "Mars has moved on," he said. "She didn't move on with it."

The cop nodded and then did something that no uniformed police officer had ever done to him before. He held out his hand for a shake and introduced himself. "Zogan Ishiyudo," he said.

Surprised, Jeff shook with him. "Nice to meet you," he said.

"No, it's me who is honored to meet you," Zogan told him. "I'm standing in a city that's still free and unoccupied by WestHem marines because of you and people like you. Let me be the first to thank you sincerely for what you're doing."

Jeff was surprised to find himself near tears for a moment. He choked them back. "I'm just doing what's right," he said, his voice not quite steady. "All of us are."

"I wanted to serve too," Zogan said. "I was in the MPG fifteen years ago, back in the early days, but got out after only five years. I tried to re-enlist after the declaration of independence but they told me that since I was forty-five and not in the best shape that I'd probably serve Mars better by staying on the streets and being a cop."

"You ain't gotta explain yourself to me," Jeff said. "Someone needs to arrest the fuckin' profiteers, don't they?"

"Indeed they do," he agreed. "And we caught ourselves a prime one tonight, didn't we?"

"Yep," Jeff said. "So how long will she stay in jail? Will she do hard time?"

Zogan shook his head sadly. "Governor Whiting is promising radical law enforcement and justice system reform when we get around to writing a new constitution but for now we're still operating under the old system. Even though the laws against hoarding and profiteering are new ones and they wrote in stiff penalties, it's simply not possible to hold anyone for something like that with the system we have. She'll be out on her own recognizance in twenty-four hours and it'll be months before her case comes to trial. It goes without saying that she won't show up for her court date and there aren't enough cops on the streets yet to go tracking down every failure to appear warrant. She'll probably be back doing business within two days, although we'll make an effort to keep an eye on her."

"That's a fuckin' retreat," Jeff said.

"That ain't no shit," the cop agreed. "If you're serious about divorcing that bitch you'd better file tomorrow before she gets out. Ask for an emergency financial settlement from the clerk. He'll clear it with a judge on duty and divide up your accounts into halves. That'll keep her from spending all your money."

"Most of that money in there is from her selling this shit," Jeff said. "I don't want anything to do with that. I just want the credits in the account. I earned those motherfuckers and I don't want her slimy hands touching none of them."

Zogan smiled respectfully. "Tell that to the clerk," he said. "If he's got Martian blood in his veins he'll arrange that for you, especially if he knows you're a combat vet from the Gap."

"I'll do that," Jeff said.

"Of course, you'll still have a hell of a time getting your half of the belongings from this apartment. You'll have to wait until the divorce is actually final for that."

Jeff shrugged. "She can have everything in this fuckin' place," he said. "I don't want none of it."

"Yeah?" Zogan asked slyly. "How about the contraband?"

"Huh?"

"Well, let me clear this with my sergeant, who will probably have to clear it with the lieutenant, but when we catch a hoarder all we have to do is verify the contents of a few containers for the court case and then get a photo of the amount. The actual shit ends up being shipped to a city warehouse where it's taken into custody by the interim government and re-distributed as they see fit. Most of it ends up going to MPG units."

"That must be where they got the beer they gave us tonight," Jeff said.

"Exactly. So how about we just skip the middle man tonight and send the shit directly where it's needed? Are the combat units having a party somewhere tonight?"

"The Troop Club just outside the base," Jeff said. "But..."

"Like I said," Zogan told him. "Let me clear it with the higher ups, but I don't see any reason why we can't get a delivery truck over here and a few cops to act as muscle and carry all this shit downstairs and take it to the Troop Club. You guys deserve it."

"Well fuck my ass," Jeff said in wonder.

The Troop Club did indeed have some beer and smokes for the combat troops, but not enough to satisfy the thirst and nicotine cravings of all who entered its doors. The contributions from Belinda and from the supplies of three other hoarder/profiteers who were busted that night throughout Eden added enough party supplies to guarantee everyone a good time.

Jeff stayed until well after midnight. He drank two bottles of Fruity and six bottles of beer. He smoked four bonghits of potent Agricorp greenbud and more than a pack of cigarettes. He forgot all about Belinda his wife and Belinda his competition for Xenia. He forgot all about the death he had witnessed out in the field, the fear, the horror, the misery, the blinding fatigue and weariness. He listened to music and even tried his hand at dancing when one of the women invited him out onto the floor.

Alas, the male to female ratio was somewhere in the vicinity of six to one, even with the waitresses and bartenders thrown in. Though he was a combat veteran and worthy of the attention of any single female, so was every other male in the place since only those who had been out on the line were allowed into the club on this night. The only offer of sexual congress extended to him was from Xenia, who found him around 2300 when he was working on his last Fruity and his last bonghit.

She was, if anything, even more intoxicated than he. "How's the resolve?" she asked him, looking at him greedily.

"It's been hit with eighties, sixties, and twenties and has crumbled considerably," he replied, getting an erection just looking at her.

"Really?" she asked, reaching out to stroke his arm.

He sighed. "But its still holding," he said. "You won't take it down."

She pouted and said, "we'll see."

They saw. Just over an hour later they left the club and rode the MarsTrans to her apartment. His resolve was protected by the fact that he passed out on her couch before she had a chance to make her move. She cursed a few times in frustration and then sat in the recliner next to him to plot her next move. While she was doing so she passed out as well.

Lon, Lisa, and the rest of the special forces squad spent the bulk of the next day right back on the hills they'd first climbed during the first day of the WestHem landings. For more than eight hours they watched the final loading of the remaining APCs and tanks and artillery pieces and anti-air vehicles. They watched engineers and MPs and other troops walking around in the open, facilitating the process of all this loading. They watched thousands of combat troops — the battered survivors of the bloody campaign — sitting in groups of ten and twenty, prime targets for mortar attack or for sniper attack. But there were no mortars to call down, no snipers to send their lethal bullets flying. There was only Lon and his team on this hill, a few other teams on a few other hills, and their mission was to observe only.

"Well, we observed the shit out of them, didn't we?" Lon asked angrily as the last soldier entered the last landing craft and the last door was sealed shut. The landscape was now empty of all human activity.

"Orders are orders, Lon," Lisa told him, her M-24 curled unfired against her shoulder, her anti-tank laser sitting next to her. "I'm sure General Jackson has a reason for calling a cease-fire."

"I'm sure he does too," Lon said. "I just think it's a stupid reason. You'd think a military genius would know that you never let up on an enemy until they surrender. Those assholes didn't surrender. They're just pulling back to regroup. We could have knocked off another couple thousand of them on their march back. We could have knocked out another hundred APCs. Now we're going to face all that armor again in a couple of weeks."

"Unless we decide not to come back out here," said Horishito, who was nearly as bitter about Jackson's decision as Lon was.

Lisa looked over at him in alarm. "What the fuck are you talking about, Hoary?" she asked him. "You ain't thinking about quitting, are you?"

Horishito shrugged. "I did my part out here," he said. "I hear that a lot of the combat troops are calling it a war now that we've been hamstrung in how we fight it."

This was indeed a prevalent rumor back at the base. The word was the many of the ACR troops and the special forces soldiers — those who had borne the brunt of the recent battles, who had seen the deaths and mayhem that war caused firsthand — had decided they had risked their lives quite enough in this endeavor, that they had done their part. Since there was no such thing as a period of enlistment in the MPG they were free to quit at any time. And, since most of them had been pulled off the line in response to the recent pullback of WestHem troops, the word was that many were taking that option, especially in light of General Jackson's increasingly unpopular cease-fire order.

"You can't quit now," Lisa told him. "We beat those fuckers back! Mars is still free because of us. If everyone gives up now just because of the losses than it will all be for nothing!"

"You don't need to yell, Lisa," Lon said sourly.

"Somebody needs to fucking yell," she said. "Do you hear what Hoary is talking about here? Do you just want to let them come walking into Eden when they land the next time?"

"We should've been allowed to hit them all the way back," Horishito said. "Jackson broke the faith with us! He let them escape in numbers that can overwhelm us if they concentrate on a single city. He's the one that let our people die for nothing."

"They didn't die for nothing!" Lisa cried. "They died so we can be sitting here on this hill watching them blast off into space with their fucking tails between their legs!"

"But they're coming back, Wong," Horishito said. "Don't you understand that? We haven't won anything! They're gonna come back and take Eden, or New Pittsburgh, or maybe Proctor, but they're gonna come back and they're gonna throw everything they got at our forces!"

"All the more reason why we need to stay and fight them," she said. "We've gone too far to quit now!"

"I'm not saying everyone should quit," Horishito said. "Just me. I've done my part. If someone else wants to get in on this fight for Queen Laura, then let them have it. I'll personally hand them my SAW."

"Lon," Lisa pleaded, "say something here. You're our sergeant. What are you gonna do? Are you quitting too?"

There was silence on the net for the longest time. No one disturbed it. Finally, Lon spoke.

"I'm staying for now," he said.

"You'll be killed for nothing then," Horishito told him.

"No," he said. "I won't. I disagree with General Jackson's decision with every sperm cell in my sacred sack. I think he made a horrible mistake, a mistake that may very well cost us this war, but I'm holding judgement on that for the time being."

"What the fuck you mean holding judgement?" Horishito asked. "We'll be sent out to the slaughter!"

"I won't lead my people out to a slaughter," Lon said. "I will absolutely refuse to do that. The MPG code demands that I refuse any order that will get my people needlessly killed."

"You're contradicting yourself," Horishito accused.

"No," he said. "I'm not. I swore an oath to uphold my orders if they make sense, if they don't recklessly endanger the troops under my command. When the WestHems come back down I'll evaluate the information we have. If there's too many of them, if there's not enough of us to make a difference, then I'll refuse to take you guys out to battle them. That's all there is to it. Until we get to that point, however, I'm staying. Hoary, you want to quit, I'll process your resignation without any ill feelings, but I'm staying."

Horishito didn't answer this, either in the affirmative or the negative. Neither did anyone else. But all absorbed Lon's vow and took comfort from it.

For the next two hours they stayed there, watching the landing craft sit on the Martian surface, growing bored, restless, and longing for the safety of their base and the promised beer, cigarette, alcohol, and bonghit party they'd been promised. Their conversation was sparse and that which did occur remained confined to non-controversial subjects. Finally, the moment they had been waiting for occurred.

"There's heat showing from the thrusters on the landing craft," Lisa reported as engine after engine lit up blue in the infrared.

"Yep," Lon said. "They're getting ready to launch. Jeffy, be sure to get video of it. Command wants to put the shots on MarsGroup."

"Right," Jefferson said.

It took nearly another hour before the first ship lifted off. It was at the front of the formation, one of the armor carriers. The blue of the engine outlets flared bright white. Smoke and dust billowed up from underneath. A dull roar reached their ears, becoming louder as the craft rose awkwardly into the sky. When it reached two thousand meters above ground level it turned, orienting itself to a westerly heading — a heading that kept it away from Eden. It's main engine in the rear lit up and the craft streaked upward. Before it even had a chance to disappear from sight, the next landing craft — the one that had been directly behind it, rose into the air to start its own launch sequence.

In all it took forty-five minutes to launch all of the landing craft. They streaked upward one by one and disappeared, leaving nothing but a few smashed pieces of armor and patches of fused Martian sand to mark where they'd been.

The ground combat troops were not the only ones to benefit from the benevolence of the Eden Police Department and the fledgling Martian government in regards to alcohol and tobacco. The flight crews and all the maintenance technicians who worked on the aircraft they flew had been gifted with a bounty of thirty-six cases of beer, nineteen cases of Fruity, and sixty-three cartons of cigarettes to supply their after-action party. It took place in the aircraft maintenance hanger just adjacent to the airlocks. By order of Major Frank Jorgenson, every member of the attack squadron was ordered to stand down all tasks for the next twenty-four hours. No planes would be worked on or flown, not even to change a tire or to check fluid levels.

"Party hard, people," he'd ordered as he'd taken the first ceremonial sip from a Fruity bottle and followed it up with a huge bonghit from an electric injector bong. "You've all earned it."

They took his orders to heart. By sunset that night every last member of the squadron was intoxicated to some degree and the mood — while a bit darkened by General Jackson's unpopular order and by the knowledge that the WestHems would be back — was quite jovial. MarsGroup was playing on all the video screens, including the huge main screen in the center of the room that was usually reserved for flight status and maintenance status of the individual aircraft and their respective crew and current flight assignments. When the first shots came in of the WestHem landing craft blasting off the Martian surface, heading back up into orbit, the cheer that erupted was deafening.

"That is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life," Brian Haggerty proclaimed as he saw the shot replayed for the third time. "It's better than eighteen year old pussy!"

"Fuckin' aye," replied Matt Mendez, who was sitting next to him and swilling down his seventh beer of the night. "And we helped send those motherfuckers back up there. You and me and that fuckin' AT cannon on the belly of number 06-423."

"I'll smoke to that!" Brian said, giving his sis a quick high five and then sucking up the better part of two bonghits at once.

They were sitting near the center of the room, splayed across the forks of an electric bomb-carrying cart that was currently empty of bombs. Both of them had women sitting next to them — Brian a systems operator for one of his fellow pilots and Matt a fuel transfer technician who worked in the sector responsible for their aircraft. Both were thinking that their prospects for some intimate companionship after the party were looking pretty good, although Matt was feeling a bit self-conscious since the woman he was with was six years older than him and had never been vermin or been with vermin. Still, she seemed receptive to every advance he'd thrown so far and was looking at him in a way that was damn close to worshipful.

"General Jackson and Governor Whiting," proclaimed the MarsGroup reporter narrating the story, "are both viewing the departure of the WestHem landing groups as a triumph of Martian military might and ingenuity over a superior power, as a battle won in this struggle for independence. And indeed that is what it seems on the surface. Still, many Martians — particularly those in the MPG who helped facilitate this victory — are having grave reservations over the cease-fire order issued by General Jackson. It is felt, almost to a person, that this failure to carry home the attacks so brilliantly fomented since the WestHem landings may have some rankin' consequences if and when the marines return to the surface."

There followed a serious of interviews with New Pittsburgh area troops — most from the 3rd and 6th ACR — regarding their feelings about the cease-fire. Most of the interviewees expressed a deep admiration for General Jackson but puzzlement, even anger, over what was considered a grave mistake.

"It's like victory was in our grasp and shit," said one young tank driver. "And now he's like choking at the vital moment."

"It's like he thinks it's over and shit," said another ACR member, this one an AT gunner. "Them motherfuckers is gonna come back at us."

"It's seditious for them to air this shit," said Brian, shaking his head in consternation. "I mean, what they're saying is true, but they shouldn't be putting it out for everyone to see. We're at war here! They're giving aid to the fuckin' enemy!"

"I must disagree," said Matt's prospect for the night. Her name, interestingly enough, was Surrender.

"What?" he asked, glaring at her.

"With all due respect," she told him. "They're only reporting in the manner that a truly free press should report. Whitewashing over the facts and distorting the stories to make your side seem the sure victor is what the WestHems are doing. It's part of what led to their defeat in the first place."

"Huh?" Brian and Matt said together.

"Where you getting this shit from?" Brian demanded.

"I have a masters degree in human history from UME," she said, blushing a little. "I try to keep that to myself most of the time but when someone says things like what you just said... well, I just can't help myself."

"A fuckin' masters degree?" Matt asked incredulously, his intimidation factor suddenly increasing by a factor of ten or so.

"Sorry," she said, her blush flaring a little brighter in the red spectrum. "I hope that doesn't bother you or nothing."

"No," he said. "Not at all. I've bagged many a masters degree bitch. A few PH-fuckin'-d's too."

She patted his leg affectionately and then turned back to Brian. "Look," she said. "You may think they're demoralizing the troops by reporting the truth, but what is actually going on here is unprecedented in human history. MarsGroup is not simply taking a side and disregarding everything that doesn't agree with the position they've decided to represent. They're actually sticking to the truth. The pure truth for the most part. People are upset by General Jackson's orders. People are worried about what the ramifications of this decision might be. People are worried about what's going to happen when the WestHems come back down for round two. They're not embellishing any of that, are they?"

"Well... no," Brian admitted.

"But they're also telling the good to go with the bad," Surrender said. "They're showing the WestHems blasting back into orbit. They're showing the elation we all feel at having beat those prudes off of this planet. They're being honest, Brian, telling everyone what is really going on instead of using innuendo and disinformation to tell a story that will entertain the masses."

Brian's jaw was hanging nearly to the floor. Matt's was down there with it.

"Sorry," she said, blushing a little. "I don't usually go on like that, but..." she hefted her beer bottle. "You know?"

"Yeah," Brian said respectfully. "I know."

"And look," she said, pointing at the screen. "They're telling the other side now. The side the WestHems are telling."

They all looked and saw that she was right. The MarsGroup reporter was now explaining that they'd downloaded some clips taken from the Big Three — whose broadcasts could still be caught on any home video screen or PC for those who wished to view them.

"This is a press conference given a few hours ago by WestHem Executive Councilperson Loretta Williams," the MarsGroup reporter said. "As you know, Ms. Williams is the representative for the planet Mars on the council and it is she who has acted as executive spokesperson on all Martian matters since Governor Whiting's inauguration day speech. Here she is explaining the removal of General Wrath from command of the Martian task force, his subsequent arrest, and the resulting pullback to space. As you'll see, their version is a bit different from ours."

The screen changed over to a visibly aged Loretta Williams standing behind an executive podium. The shot was mid-conference, having skipped over all of the preliminaries. "... that General Wrath has been engaged in unprecedented levels of corruption, incompetence, and falsification of reports ever since the task force left Earth for Mars. These crimes against WestHem have grown even worse and more deadly to the troops that placed their trust in this fiend since the landings themselves. It has come to light that General Wrath has cut corners on maintenance and oversight of the armored vehicles under his command to the point that hundreds of them in each theater of operation became disabled by breakdowns and accidents. This has left many of the troops that relied on these armored vehicles for transportation to the battle area and support during battle, exposed to terrorist suicide attacks and artillery fire. This caused many casualties, the true numbers of which General Wrath was then under-reporting in his daily briefings. We are also told that he ordered the marines to attack each greenie defensive area they encountered instead of simply bypassing them and heading directly for the edges of the cities where they could have broken through with ease and left the terrorist forces behind them. While his intentions could perhaps be called admirable — he wanted to kill or capture every single greenie terrorist manning every single position — it was an untenable goal militarily and it cost many good men their lives. It is in the Jutfield Gap outside of Eden and in the Formica Gap outside Proctor that this ill advised and horrible plan took the worst toll. Though the General reported casualties of ninety marines in these two battles investigation has revealed that we actually lost more than two hundred. And since then another ninety-seven have fallen."

There was a collective gasp from the reporters assembled for the briefing.

"Madam Councilwoman," asked one of them. "Are you saying that more than three hundred marines have been killed on Mars to this point?"

"Sadly, the count is three hundred and six killed, two hundred wounded," she replied, seeming near tears at the admission. "That is more than twice the expected casualty rate for the entire conflict and we still aren't standing in those Martian cities."

"Three hundred and six?" Matt scoffed. "Do their people really believe that shit? I killed more than that myself!"

"Me too," said Brian's prospect for the night. "There's twelve to an APC and I've got forty-nine confirmed kills caught on camera."

"You didn't kill them," Brian told her. "Those were the ones that broke down because General Wrath cut corners on maintenance."

"Of course," she said, smiling.

"This is exactly what I was talking about," Surrender told them. "The WestHem press is not free, it's corporate owned and the corporations own the government. They report only what they're told. Even bad news like a humiliating defeat is twisted and distorted and blamed on a single person. There's no way they could ever release the actual casualty figures or tell what really happened out there because the WestHem public would be horrified and demand an immediate end to the war."

"But how long can they keep something like that under wraps?" Brian asked. "They've lost thousands of soldiers out here, literally thousands. All of those soldiers have families who will have to be told they're dead."

"And each one of those families," Surrender said, "will assume that their son or husband or father was simply one of the four hundred their press is admitting to. Without any information to the contrary, without any official list of all casualties printed somewhere, how would the families know any different?"

"Wow," Matt said, overwhelmed by the level of deception WestHem was capable of.

"Wow is right," Surrender said. "Listen to this part. She's going to explain why they had to go back to orbit. This should be rich."

It was indeed rich. Loretta Williams told the WestHem public — with a perfectly straight face — that the WestHem marines were fearful of causing too many civilian casualties and destruction and of losing any more of their soldiers by continuing with the horrible plan that General Wrath — the incompetent traitor — had come up with.

"In light of the human shield tactics the greenie terrorists are utilizing and in light of the flawed and costly head-on attacks that General Wrath ordered the marines to use, it was thought by General Browning — the new commander of the Martian taskforce — that it would be prudent to pull everyone back up to the Panamas and regroup. This will give them a chance to replace expended munitions, go over every armored vehicle in detail, and, most importantly to draw up a new plan for the marines to foment the liberation of that planet."

"How long will it be before the marines make new landings?" asked one of the reporters.

"No more than two weeks," Williams promised. "General Browning and his staff are already hard at work on the new liberation plan. I expect a preliminary draft on my desk in twenty-four hours."

The preliminary draft of which she spoke was currently sitting on General Browning's desk — what used to be General Wrath's desk. Browning — now dressed in the Martian red camouflage scheme to impress the viewing audience when he was caught on camera — was going over it in detail with it's author, Major Wilde.

"As you can see, General," Wilde was telling him, "the whole thing starts with an extensive air and space campaign designed to cripple Martian communications, supply efforts, and troop transport abilities. Space fighters will begin fanning out throughout high and low Martian orbit, destroying every satellite they can aim their lasers at. That should start in less than forty-eight hours as it will take the better part of a week to get them all."

"Won't that completely eliminate our ability to use GPS as well?" Browning asked.

"Yes," Wilde admitted, "but we don't have that ability now and it appears the hackers in our intelligence unit are not going to be able to ferret out the encryption codes any time soon. We, however, have learned to operate down there without GPS data. The Martians, on the other hand, have been relying upon their ability to accurately know their position. It's how they put their mortars and their artillery on target with such uncanny accuracy. It's how they are able to call in Mosquitoes and get their special forces teams right where they're needed. If we take communications and navigation away from them, they will be helpless out there."

Browning nodded. "I see," he said. "And then we start strategic surface bombing?"

"We start that simultaneous with the anti-satellite campaign," Wilde said. "The first thing that needs to go is the Alexander Industries ammunition plant outside New Pittsburgh. That is where the Martians are getting all of their bullets, mortars, and artillery shells. We need to send no less than six flights after that target and flatten it. It shouldn't be too hard to do. One good hit in the right spot and the plant will blow itself up."

"I don't want any civilian casualties from this," Browning said. "That doesn't look good on my record. The press is on our side but one thing they love to report on is civilian deaths."

"Civilian casualties would be limited to those who actually work in the plant. The building is located outside the city proper, far enough away that even a catastrophic explosion would not hurt civilian infrastructure."

"Very good," Browning said, nodding. He looked back down at the briefing material. "You have a considerable target list here. Is all of this really necessary?"

"It is absolutely necessary," Wilde said. "Most of these targets, as you can see, are to their rail network that runs between their cities. We hit every bridge, every tunnel, every portion that passes over or under something. This keeps them from making easy repairs and getting the system back in operation in a day or two. If these targets are hit successfully — and there's no reason to think they won't be — Eden will be completely isolated from the other cities by rail. The Martians won't be able to move troops or equipment there. Reinforcement would be impossible and the Martians in Eden would have defend against our entire task force and all of its armor with only the troops they have stationed in that city."

"I like it," Browning said, already envisioning his triumphant march to the Agricorp Building, which he planned to make his headquarters.

"It's simple and direct," Wilde said. "Once the bombing campaign has achieved its goals the landing craft go back down. They land another fifty kilometers out in this wider plain here to the west. It's larger and flatter which would make it more difficult for any Martian special forces teams to operate and would put it at the very extreme range of the Martian Hummingbirds and Mosquitoes. From there, we assemble and rush in at best possible speed to set up a refuel point. We don't stop to engage snipers or other Martians who attack us. We absorb the Mosquito attacks when they come. Less than seventy-two hours after landing, we'll be at the Jutfield Gap in nearly full strength and we'll hit the Martian positions in regimental strength, sweeping them right the hell out of there. We should be able to get through the gap in a matter of hours. Once that happens, we push hard to the main line of defense and slam into them with everything we got. Our advantage should be at least seven to one, maybe closer to eight to one. They'll fall within hours."

"And then we simply occupy Eden and hold onto it?"

"Exactly," Wilde confirmed. "Once we're in those buildings, on those streets, we can probably expect some guerrilla warfare but they won't be able to dislodge us. Not in a million years."

"Okay," Browning said. "You've convinced me. Start getting the flight crews ready for full deployment. I'll look this over in detail and then get it off to the Executive Council."

"Yes, sir," Wilde said. "Oh... there's one more thing."

"What's that?"

"This has to remain top secret if it's going to work. That means we can't brief the reporters on what is going on."

Browning rolled his eyes at him. "I'm not an idiot, Wilde," he said. "I have no intention of briefing reporters on what my attack plan is."

"I'm sure you don't, sir," Wilde said. "It's just that General Wrath used to release operational details before they happened because the press insisted on it. I think a lot of our problems might be because of that."

"I'm not Wrath," Browning said forcefully. "Now go brief in the flight commanders. I want to get this campaign rolling on schedule."

"Yes sir," Wilde said, saluting.

Chapter 20

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

September 5, 2146

Rear Admiral Mitchell Spears was the commander of all of the task force's F-22 space fighters. Each of the California Class superdreadnoughts housed a wing of ninety-six of these saucer-shaped craft for a total of 192 of them — or at least that was what they'd left Earth with, they were currently down to 147.

Like most of the command rank officers involved in the conflict, Spears was somewhat upset and disillusioned by the losses and defeats his forces had taken in what had been promised a slam-dunk conflict. His spacecraft had not had to perform their primary mission of fleet defense since the Martians had not been so dumb as to attack the armada with their A-12s based in Triad but even so he had lost more than forty spacecraft and twenty crews, most of them escorting AA-71s on useless photo-recon missions of which only three had been successful since establishing orbit. The reason for this was twofold. The first was that the Martian pilots had turned out to be much better at their jobs than even the most pessimistic pre-war reports had given them credit for. The second was the fact that political and economic concerns had not allowed him to take the most basic precautions of any orbital space campaign — that of removing the enemy's ability to detect outgoing launches and sorties.

But now Spears was finally starting to sense a turnaround in the conflict — something that would put orbital space superiority back in his hands where it belonged. Two days ago he'd been asked by General Browning's aide — Major Wilde of the marines — to formulate a plan to destroy the Martian's navigation, communications, and, most importantly, their space reconnaissance satellites, a mission his F-22s had been specifically designed to undertake, that his crews regularly trained in as it was a vital part of EastHem vs. WestHem doctrine. This was the plan he was now presenting in detail to the good major by means of a holograph generated in his main pilot briefing room. The holograph showed a two-meter globe of Mars with the cities showing on the surface and each and every known satellite in both geosynchronous and low-Mars orbit represented by constantly moving red dots. The positions of each of these satellites could be updated in real-time, shown in past time, or projected forward into future time.

"Basically, the plan is this," Spears explained to Wilde, who had a digital notebook open on his laps and was making constant notations. He used a laser pointer to show the location of the armada. "We start with the geo-sats first, hitting the recon birds that are closest to our own position and then moving outward from there. The rationale behind this, obviously, is to eliminate their closest assets first which will cripple or destroy their ability to detect our spacecraft launches and flight paths on subsequent missions."

Wilde nodded. "Space operations are not exactly my specialty," he said. "But my understanding is that our losses so far on the recon missions have because we have not been allowed to hit these satellites?"

Spears looked at him carefully. The rumor at the top was that this man — a mere major — was actually much more than just an aide to former General Wrath and current General Browning. It was said he was actually a brilliant military tactician who had been trying to keep this war steered on the path it was supposed to have been on the entire time, only to have most of his advice disregarded again and again by political concerns. It was said that he now had pretty much a free hand in planning the next phase of Operation Martian Hammer and that his "suggestions" to General Browning had already been approved. That was the rumor anyway. But this was the WestHem military after all so it was possible the rumors were wrong and Wilde was actually nothing more than a sneaking, back-stabbing, two-faced weasel like most aides to command rank officers (including Spears' own aide) and he was only trying to get Spears to spout off something negative about the war to date so he could report it and use it as the basis for finger-pointing in upcoming reports on the losses.

"Look, Admiral," Wilde said, seeming to pick up on his thoughts. "I'm not here to start finding blame or to pin the responsibility for past mistakes on anyone. I'm not composing any reports on what went wrong or why we lost what. I'm simply trying to put together a cohesive and logical plan to achieve the objective of capturing the city of Eden with the least amount of friendly casualties as possible. Now I know your forces took some significant losses on those recon missions they escorted. Logic and common sense tells me it was because of the real-time recon those satellites provided the Martians as you launched and headed for the IP. I just want to know if this is true or not."

Spears nodded, his respect level for this man climbing upward a few notches. "Yes," he said. "Basic doctrine for orbital space warfare around an enemy planet or moon is to take out the enemy's satellites first and foremost. Since we weren't allowed to do this in the initial phases, everything my ships do is transmitted immediately and in real-time to Martian Space Command at Triad. No matter how many spacecraft I sent to escort a recon mission, they knew about it the moment they leave the bays and send more."

"So once we take out the nearest satellites?"

"We'll be able to hit the rest with near impunity," Spears confirmed. "Not only that, but our bombing missions — when they go — will also be able to launch and enter the atmosphere unseen and unchallenged, therefore almost insuring their success in their missions. It's the same thing the EastHems did to this very planet during the Jupiter War."

Wilde smiled. "That's exactly what General Browning wants to hear, sir. Please proceed with your briefing."

He proceeded, explaining the order of attack, times of attack, and methods of attack one by one. He was only halfway through, however, when Wilde's PC began to buzz, indicating an urgent communication request from Browning.

"Excuse me for a minute, Admiral," Wilde said, pulling the PC from his waist and flipping it open. As expected, Browning's face was on the screen. It looked a bit nervous and upset. "Yes, General?" Wilde asked.

"I need you to drop whatever you're doing and come to my office right away," Browning told him.

"Uh... well, sir, I'm receiving a briefing on the upcoming anti-sat campaign from Admiral Spears at the moment. Can it wait until I'm done?"

"No," Browning said without hesitation. "Tell the admiral you'll hear the rest of the briefing later."

Wilde suppressed a sigh. "Yes, sir," he said. "I'll be there in five minutes."

Browning didn't acknowledge him. He simply ended the communication, his face disappearing from the screen to be replaced by the Marine Corps emblem. Wilde flipped his PC closed and looked up at Spears. "My apologies, Admiral," he said, "but could we finish the briefing later? General Browning needs me for an urgent matter."

"Of course," Spears said. "I think you've got the basic feel for the plan anyway, don't you?"

"I do," Wilde agreed. "As you said, the important part is to hit the nearer satellites quickly and simultaneously in a coordinated initial strike. After that, it will be nothing but mop-up."

"You've got the feel for it all right. Assuming that General Browning approves this attack plan my flight crews can be ready to launch that initial strike in forty-eight hours."

"I think you can be assured the general will approve the plan," Wilde told him, meaning, of course, that if Wilde recommended approval it was as good as done.

"Excellent," Spears said. "Now all that's left to do is come up with a suitable starting time for the first launch and a catchy name for the operation itself. You know how the media eats up stuff like that."

Wilde wanted to shake his head and roll his eyes. He didn't. "I'm sure whatever you come up with in that regard will be fine, sir," he said. He braced and gave a smart salute. Spears returned it and dismissed him.

Wilde walked quickly through the halls of the Nebraska, making his way from the naval operations section to the main operations deck, wondering just what Browning — who was almost completely incapable of tying his own shoes without assistance — thought was so urgent. He passed effortlessly through the layers of dense security and directly into General Browning's office.

"Major Wilde, reporting as ordered, sir," he proclaimed, giving a half-assed salute.

Browning returned it in half-assed fashion and motioned for him to sit down. He looked at his aide a little guiltily, as if he didn't quite want to share the news he had to share. Finally he just blurted it out. "I need you to prepare a press briefing for me on the upcoming second stage of Operation Martian Hammer."

Wilde's eyes widened. "A press briefing?" he asked. "Begging your pardon, sir, but you don't mean a... a press briefing, do you? Sharing details of our war plans with the media?"

"I'm afraid so," Browning said. "I've been exchanging communications with the Executive Council and the joint chiefs of staff all morning and they have ordered me to provide the big three representatives with a summary of our plans."

Wilde was aghast. "Sir... that's... I mean... that could destroy our entire plan! Why would they order such a thing?"

"Apparently lobby groups for the big three and their CEOs have been hounding them ever since the pull-back for us to release details to them. The public back home is demanding to know what happens next and the big three are afraid that if they don't keep them apprised of the current situation that ratings will start to slip on the primary news channels. If that happens the other corporations will not be willing to pay as much for advertising and product placement spots."

"Advertising?" Wilde said. "They want us to compromise operational security for advertising revenues?"

"The big three are recording record advertising revenue since the start of Martian Hammer," Browning said, in all seriousness. "It's understandable that they would want to protect those profits."

"But, sir," Wilde pleaded, "the very success of this plan depends on the Martians not knowing what we're going to do until we do it. If they know we're going to start hitting their satellites, they'll double or triple their combat space patrol. If they know what city we're going to launch at they'll reinforce it with troops from the other cities before we have a chance to put their rail network out of commission. This could turn into an even worse disaster than phase one!"

"I'm not an idiot, Major," Browning said, irritated. "And neither are the council members. We all realize that secrecy is paramount in this operation and the council has taken steps to insure it is maintained. The big three have all promised to release the information to the public only as it occurs. They just want advance notice of our intentions so they can have their assets in place and get rough drafts of their stories composed."

"The big three hold on to information?" Wilde said doubtfully. "Do you really think they would honor such an agreement?"

"Of course they will," Browning almost shouted. "The council has given me their word on this."

Great, Wilde thought. A bunch of lying, cheating, backstabbing politicians have given their word. "Listen, General," he said. "What if we gave them misinformation instead?"

"Misinformation?" Browning said, appalled. "You mean lie to the media?"

"We've been lying to the media the entire time," Wilde reminded. "They still think we've only lost a thousand soldiers in this conflict. They still think Martian suicide crews killed our Panamas. Why don't we just tell them we're going to be attacking New Pittsburgh or Libby instead?"

"That's a different kind of lie," Browning said. "The suicide attacks and the casualty figures are official lies designed to help protect the public from a truth they would not be able to handle. You're suggesting we be deliberately deceitful."

"There is historical precedent for it," Wilde said. He was about to start citing examples — the most famous of which being the Persian Gulf War of 1991 in which the media had been told the ground attack would start with an amphibious invasion instead of the overland campaign intended all along — but Browning wanted to hear nothing about it.

"The media would crucify all of us if we did something like that," he said. "If we told them we were attacking Libby and then attacked Eden they would smear me, you, Admiral Jules, and the entire Executive Council. We would all end up as vermin at best, in prison doing hard labor at worst."

"But what if told them we changed our mind at the last minute? What if we..."

Browning was shaking his head. "It would never work," he said. "Besides, the Executive Council is having the Joint Chiefs draw up their own briefing papers so ours needs to match theirs."

Wilde was fuming. "Sir," he said. "I must protest this in the most stern manner possible. There has to be a certain degree of military secrecy here or all may be lost."

"Lose to the greenies?" Brown scoffed. "Impossible. Not with an eight to one advantage. You drew up a good plan, Wilde. You should be proud of yourself. I hardly see how giving the media advance notice of the stages of it will have any effect on the outcome. Like I told you, they are not going to release any information until the plan is already underway."

"Sir," he said. He had to try one more time. "I find it hard to believe that the media, once they get hold of this information, will keep it quiet."

"I'm not asking your opinion of what we should do, Wilde," Browning told him. "I'm ordering you to prepare a press briefing. Now are you going to do it or are you going to be relieved of your position and sent down to the surface to command a company?"

Wilde shook his head. "I'll have something for you in two hours, sir," he said.

"Very good," Browning said. "You're dismissed."

The briefing documents were prepared and distributed, both to the big three representatives accompanying the task force and to the representatives back on Earth. The documents were a truthful and comprehensive summary of the plan, outlining each step of the process including target order and preference, what facilities were being marked for destruction on the surface, and which railheads, bridges, and tunnels would be struck. The document was marked Top Secret and every representative that received a copy was required to put his or her fingerprint to a secrecy document that threatened prosecution under the WestHem code and prison time if the information was released prior to official authorization. As such it took almost six hours before the first reports of the document were aired to the public on one of the big three channels.

It was an InfoServe station in Denver that broke first. They published a copy of the document on their website and reported its existence on their main news channel claiming an "anonymous source within the military complex" had provided it to them. Within an hour of this the other two of the big three were reporting the same thing. Within twelve hours of the document's release, nearly everyone in WestHem and everyone on Mars knew what the plan was.

"I knew this would happen!" Wilde told Browning in the latter's office. He was yelling at his commanding officer and didn't even care. "The goddamn Martians know what we're going to do now! They have a complete and detailed copy of our war plan for the next phase!"

"Surely you don't think one of the media representatives went back on their word, do you?" Browning asked him. "It had to have been one of the staff members of the joint chiefs or perhaps some lowly secretary in an Executive Council office."

"It doesn't matter who leaked," Wilde hissed, resisting the urge to slap the man across the face. "Don't you understand that? It doesn't matter! The information is now out there and the Martians are going to start responding to it. We need to begin initiating the plan immediately, before they have a chance to take steps to counter us."

"But it's not scheduled to start for another twenty-seven hours," Browning said. "It begins at midnight with the coordinated anti-satellite missions. The media need to have time to set up their cameras and microphones in the F-22 bays so they can get shots of the fighters heading out on their missions."

"General," Wilde said, "if we wait until the scheduled start time the Martians will be waiting for us out there with their own F-22s. We have to launch within six hours if we want to avoid a slaughter of our pilots and the destruction of the bulk of our ships."

"Do you really think its that bad?" Browning asked him. "I mean, even if they do have advanced notice, they're still greenies who only fly part-time. We should still be able to plow right through them."

Wilde clenched his fists and then his teeth. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. "General, listen to me," he finally said. "If we don't launch our anti-sat missions in the next six hours, we might as well not launch at all. They'll kill us!"

Browning sighed. "All right, Wilde," he said. "If you really think things are that bad. Let me get online with Admiral Spears and we'll see if his crews can start launching in six hours."

"Very good, sir," Wilde said, relieved. "And as soon as we get the nearer satellites taken out — that should be about twenty-four hours — we need to get those bombers moving on the rail targets before General Jackson starts shifting his forces to Eden."

WestHem Capital Building, Denver

September 6, 2146

1430 hours.

The entire WestHem Executive Council — all nine of them — were assembled in their private briefing room atop the capital building. It was Labor Week, technically a seven-day period off from their official duties, but an urgent communication had been sent to each of their private numbers demanding that they assemble for this meeting. Although they liked to think of themselves as the most powerful people in the solar system, all knew that they really weren't. When important sponsors — their most important after Agricorp and the other agricultural CEOs — called and told them to jump, they only asked how high.

The sponsors in question entered the room precisely on time. They were Roger Warling, CEO of InfoServe; Richard Jones, CEO of Internet Communications Systems, or ICS; and Daniel Rupert III, CEO of WestHem Internet Visualizations, or WIV. It could perhaps be argued that these three men really were the most powerful people in WestHem since, between the three of them, they controlled all of the media, television, publishing, Internet sites, filmmaking, private communications, and news reporting on their half of the Earth, the Jupiter colonies, and, until the revolution anyway, Mars (with the exception, of course, of that perpetual thorn in their side — MarsGroup).

Still, protocol needed to be maintained and they feigned subservience to the nine elected members — all of whom one or the other of them controlled in some fashion — bowing respectfully and awaiting permission to be seated.

"Thank you," said Warling, who, as the CEO of the largest of the big three, had been appointed spokesman for this particular meeting.

They went through the standard round of preliminaries. This took the better part of twenty minutes as each CEO asked about the families and current pursuits of each councilmember and as each councilmember did the same for each CEO. Then they talked about the weather and whether or not the early snow that was predicted would actually materialize. Finally the small talk petered out and Warling was able to move onto the business at hand.

"As you are aware," he said, "we've received briefing documents from the military regarding the plans for the next phase of Operation Martian Hammer."

"Yes," said John Calvato, Chief Executive Councilperson, judiciously not mentioning that those briefing documents were not supposed to have been made public. "Is there a problem with the plans?"

"We do have some concerns with the plans," Warling said. "Nothing major, however, and nothing that I'm sure we won't be able to work out. You see, we notice that your military leaders have called for the destruction of all of the communications and navigation satellites in Mars orbit as the preliminary phase to the attack."

"They have," Calvato agreed. "The reasoning behind this is that it will hinder Martian communications both during the space attack phase of the plan and during ground operations. One of the reasons for the uh... problems encountered on the surface during the first phase of the operation was that the greenies were able to accurately navigate and maintain communications with each other out in the field while we were not."

"Yes, we can certainly appreciate that," Warling said. "But surely you can appreciate the fact that between the three of us, we own every last one of those communications satellites and we co-own, with the military and intelligence complex, all of the navigation and reconnaissance satellites since most of them are dual purpose."

"We do understand that," Calvato said. "And it is regretful that these assets must be destroyed in order to carry out the plan, but my military advisers all tell me it is absolutely necessary."

"Ah yes, your military advisers," Warling said. "Those would be the same men who assured you of that the greenies would surrender in the face of the armada you sent after them? The men who, when that failed to happen, assured you that the campaign would be quick and painless, over in a matter of days with our victory and with light casualties?"

"Well... yes," Calvato said, "but one of the reasons they've cited for their... uh... problems with the first phase of the campaign is the ability of the greenies to utilize those satellites, both to navigate on the surface and to detect the launch of our reconnaissance assets from space."

"We've been reporting that General Wrath's failures as a commanding general are the reason for the lack of immediate victory on Mars, remember?" Warling asked.

"Well... yes," Calvato said. "And that is certainly the case, but the fact of the matter is..."

"Isn't General Browning guaranteeing you a quick victory in his campaign to capture and hold Eden?" Warling asked. "We've been reporting that as well."

"Yes, General Browning will capture Eden as reported," Calvato said. "But you see, part of the plan to foment that capture involves the destruction of those satellites."

"We have our own military advisers on our staffs, sir," Warling said. "All of them assure us that General Browning's plan is a sound one and will succeed in its goal of taking and holding Eden with or without the destruction of these very expensive assets in Martian orbit. Do you know that Jupiter is now approaching maxima from Earth."

"Uh... yes, I believe I was advised of that," Calvato said. "But what does that have to do with anything?"

"I would think it would be obvious to a man of your education, sir," Warling replied. "When Jupiter reaches maxima the sun will be between it and the Earth, therefore blocking all direct communications. When that occurs our software automatically routes communications to satellites in Martian orbit for relay. If we have lost all of our com-sats on Mars and Jupiter is at maxima that would mean there would be no far space communications of any kind available to anyone in WestHem, including the military. This is simply unfeasible."

It didn't occur to Calvato — or anyone else on the council for that matter — that even if the satellites weren't destroyed they would still lose all communications with far space if the Martians remained in control of their planet. "That is something we didn't consider," he admitted.

"We simply cannot tolerate a break-down of our communication chain such as what is being suggested," Warling said. "Nor can we be expected to simply absorb the cost of replacing all of those expensive satellites you propose to carelessly destroy simply because your General Browning is trying to be a bit dramatic in his new task."

"Well, we can certainly understand your concerns," Calvato said. "But this plan has already been approved and I'm told that General Browning is going to be pushing for its immediate implementation."

"You need to stop him from carrying out the anti-satellite portion," Warling said forcefully. "You need to stop him immediately! We must insist that not a single orbiting asset around that planet be harmed in any way."

"Mr. Warling," Calvato said, "I don't think you understand. This is a military decision that has been deemed vital for achieving the objective. We agreed to provide you folks with briefing material on the upcoming operations even though General Browning asked us quite forcefully not to. Now you're asking us to modify what is purported to be an integral part of the plan. I understand and appreciate all of the assistance you've given me and the other members of this council over the years, but I'm afraid we can't accommodate you in this instance. The launching of the spacecraft against the first of those satellites is less than five hours away now."

Warling's eyes became steely, unfriendly for the first time during the discussion. "Mr. Calvato, and all of you other politicians sitting around this table. I don't think you're quite understanding what we three CEOs are doing here. We didn't come here to ask you not to destroy our satellites, we came here to tell you that you will not destroy them. It seems that maybe you are letting your positions go to your heads to some degree. We are the media in this nation and we are responsible for putting each and every one of you in the position you are now in. We can remove that support as easily as we gave it. With a word to our staff members we can begin reporting the real story from Mars. Don't think we don't know what it is. We know about the horrid losses, the destruction of the armor, the thousands of wounded piling up in the hospital ships. We've been keeping that story suppressed in the interests of national unity but if you cross us, we won't hesitate to release it, nor will we hesitate to begin reporting on every unfavorable aspect of each of your lives, real and imagined."

Calvato was looking pale. So were the rest of the council.

"I don't believe we're being unreasonable here," Warling said. "You are threatening to destroy a vital part of our assets — unnecessarily we are told — and we are simply preventing that. You give the order to stand down the anti-satellite campaign and everything remains status quo without any hard feelings. Is that understood?"

It was understood.

"Good," Warling said. "Then I suggest you take your vote or do whatever it is you do here and then get that order sent off to Mars before it is too late."

They didn't bother to vote. The order was sent off ten minutes after Warling and the other two left the room.

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

September 7, 2146

It was close to midnight and they had been locked in the briefing room for the past six hours. Major Wilde was with Rear Admiral Spears of fighter command and Rear Admiral Haybecker of attack command along with the captains that controlled each respective wing of spacecraft. They were trying to hash together a new plan to take out the Martian rail network around Eden without first taking out the satellites in the vicinity that would alert the Martians to their launch.

"This is just asinine," complained Captain Biggers, the commander of Nebraska's AA-71 wing. "I complained about this when they asked us to do recon and I'm complaining about it now. If the greenies are able to see us launch they swarm us before we can even approach the atmospheric entry point. If we can blind them to our launches, we could hit any strategic target on that shithole of a planet with impunity. Once we make atmospheric entry they have nothing that can touch us. Nothing!"

"I know," sighed Wilde. "I was as appalled as anyone by General Browning's sudden reversal of orders. I begged and pleaded with him to allow us to at least hit the nearer satellites but it was like talking to a brick wall. The order came directly from the Executive Council. The big three don't want to lose their satellites so they applied political pressure to achieve their goals."

"They're letting a bunch of fucking accountants make military decisions for them!" yelled Captain Powell, commander of Nebraska's F-22s. "It's the same shit they did back in the Jupiter War and look what happened there."

"I know," Wilde said, trying to be soothing but actually coming across in the bitter spectrum instead. "But the situation is what the situation is. Our orders are to come up with an attack plan to level the Alexander Industries plant and to isolate Eden by rail to prevent re-supply and reinforcement. We need to start launching these sorties as soon as possible. So my question to you, gentlemen, is do we have the basics of a plan here or don't we?"

"We have the basics of a plan," said Admiral Spears. "We launch two major alpha strikes — one at New Pittsburgh, one at Eden. The New Pittsburgh strike will consist of twenty AA-71s escorted by the entire fleet of F-22s. Our only target at NP will be the Alexander Industries plant. Assuming that even half of the spacecraft make it through to fire their lasers from attack altitude, that plant will be leveled several times over."

"You got that right," said Admiral Haybecker, "If you get us safely to atmospheric entry my pilots will knock that place out. It's a sitting duck out there — a nice big target surrounded by wastelands and filled with high explosives."

"We'll get you there," Spears promised. "The strike against Eden is a little more complex, however. We're being tasked with taking down an entire rail network and isolating a major city. We need to hit the two major freight loading facilities on the edge of the city and take out no less than twenty bridges and tunnels out in the wastelands on the approaches to the city. The targets are much smaller and the margin for error is much finer. We plan to send everything we have against Eden — ninety-three AA-71s escorted by the entire inventory of F-22s. Even so, there's a better than fifty percent chance we won't hit every target on one strike and we'll have to go back."

"I think the real problem here," said Haybecker, "is the losses we're going to suffer. The F-22s are going to get pounded by the Martians on the approach and the AA-71s are going to get hit as they climb back out after their strikes." He shook his head angrily. "All of this could be avoided if they'd just let us hit those fucking satellites!"

Wilde ignored this last. They'd already been over what could have been avoided twenty or thirty times. "So you're saying that the possibility of significant fighter and bomber losses on each of these strikes is more than significant?" he asked.

"Yes, man!" Spears yelled. "Haven't you been listening to us?"

"I have," Wilde said. "And I sympathize, gentlemen, really I do. But my concern is that losses might be so heavy with one strike — particularly with the fighters — that we won't be able to launch a subsequent strike. Can the Martians cause such attrition on one mission that a second won't be adequately protected?"

Spears, Haybecker, and all of the captains nodded as one.

"Yes," Haybecker said. "If the Martians send everything they have after us they may very well cause greater than fifty percent losses in fighters."

"Fifty percent?" Wilde asked. "Is that an exaggeration?"

"Not in the least," Spears assured him. "The Martians have a wing of 184 F-22s at Triad and, as we've found, their pilots and gunners are pretty damn good. Now they've lost a few in the skirmishes we've had with them but not as many as we've lost. If we send every fighter we have to escort my bombers and the Martians send everything they have to try to stop them, it will result in a full-blown, knock-down, drag-out space battle of epic proportions between two forces that are pretty much evenly matched. Fifty percent losses for such a battle is very possible."

"And with less than fifty percent strength in fighters," Haybecker added, "we would have a difficult time defending the armada if the Martians decided to send their own alpha strike against us. We would beat them off with the close-in defenses, of course — one of the big lessons of the Jupiter War is that small craft cannot stand up to fixed defenses on large space platforms — but with adequate fighter cover enough of them might get in close enough to score some hits, maybe enough to destroy a few ships. And you know they'd go after the Californias if they tried such a thing."

Wilde shook his head, his frustration wanting to boil over. No matter which option they looked at, no matter which way they sorted through the scenarios available to them, they were going to take heavy losses and face a degradation of vital fleet protection. The only option that would accomplish their goals painlessly and effectively was the one option that had been nixed by men in suits two hundred million kilometers away. "Okay," he said. "That at least lets us set the targeting priority. Since there is a significant possibility that we may only have enough assets to pull off one major alpha strike against the Martian surface, we'd better do the important one first."

"The strike against the Eden rail network?" they both asked.

"Exactly," Wilde said. "Taking out the ammunition factory in New Pittsburgh is important — don't get me wrong on that. That factory is supplying the Martians with all of their bullets and artillery shells and even with the rail network disabled, they would still be able to ship these things to wherever the fighting is taking place by putting them in orbital lifters and flying them there. However, they cannot do that same thing with tanks or APCs at all and, though they could conceivably transport soldiers in this manner, they couldn't in the numbers that would be needed — especially with all the equipment a soldier requires. That means the destruction of the Eden rail network is the paramount concern and will be the first mission launched. We must isolate our primary target from reinforcement, especially now that the big three are telling the whole damn solar system that Eden is the primary target."

"Your reasoning is sound," Spears said. "And who knows? Maybe the Martians won't want to risk so many of their spacecraft countering the strike — especially if they see the results of it are inevitable. If that's the case we'll have plenty left to escort the New Pittsburgh strike."

"We can always hope," Wilde said bitterly. Hope was not something a military commander was supposed to rely on. If you were down to hoping, something had gone wrong somewhere. "Can we launch the Eden strike in the next twelve hours?"

Spears and Haybecker both frowned. "That's pushing it a little," Spears said. "But I think we can."

"Good. The sooner the better. It's entirely possible the Martians are loading up tanks, armor, ammo, and men from Libby, Proctor, and New Pittsburgh onto their trains as we speak and sending them to Eden. If we give them much more than twelve hours some of those reinforcements and re-supply could start arriving in Eden."

"We'll get the final targeting assignments hashed out and then start briefing the pilots," Spears said.

"Very well. While you're doing that I'll go brief General Browning on the plan."

"Right," Haybecker said. "And maybe you could ask him one last time about hitting those satellites first? At least the nearer ones?"

"I'll be sure to mention it," Wilde said, and he would too, but he already knew what the answer would be. When the suits in Denver talked, the generals always listened.

The forty-eight hour pass was now expired and the members of the 17th Armored Cavalry Regiment were back in their biosuits in the Jutfield Gap. They carried no arms or ammunition with them on this trip. Instead, they carried shovels, sledge hammers, chisels, jack hammers, bags of specially designed cement capable of being utilized in the atmosphere of the planet, and fresh ninety kilogram sandbags filled with fresh industrial shavings. Their task was to repair the defensive positions that had been damaged in the first phase of the conflict in preparation for the second phase.

Jeff, Hicks, and Drogan were atop Hill 611, in the central portion of the gap. It was only half a kilometer away from the hill they'd occupied in the first battle and it had fared about as well. Most of the original sandbags had been blown apart, some completely destroyed. The cement barrier beneath had taken an intensive pounding as well. They had been out here for eight hours now and were only about a quarter of the way through the first stage of the repair job — that of removing the old debris so it could be replaced.

"Take ten, guys," Sergeant Walker said to his squad. "Everyone grab a seat, catch your breath, shit if you need to."

Jeff put down the electric chisel he'd been using to pry loose damaged sandbags. Hicks put down the jackhammer he'd been using to break loose damaged concrete from the under-barrier. Drogan simply sat down the broken sandbag she'd been about to heave over the side of the barrier and down the hill. At this point in the process they weren't too worried about littering the landscape.

"Anyone got a smoke?" Hicks asked, eliciting a dutiful chuckle from the rest of the people on the channel.

"I got some back in my locker," Drogan told him. "Damned if I didn't forget to bring them out here."

This got a chuckle that was a little bigger.

Jeff, tired of being in the trench — it brought back some unpleasant memories — decided he needed to get out of it for awhile. He climbed through the large opening they'd created with their removal duties and sat on a heap of discarded sandbags that had collected just below. After a moment Hicks and Drogan decided to join him. They made a few hand gestures and then switched over to a short-range channel so they could talk without the rest of the squad having to listen to them.

"Look at those poor slobs down there," said Drogan, pointing downward to where several platoons from the 2nd Infantry were collecting all of the dead WestHem marines that had been left behind — which meant all of them that had fallen out here since the marines had not had any place to store their dead during their retreat — and carrying them one by one to a flatbed, tracked agricultural truck that had been driven out for this purpose.

"Yeah," said Jeff. "I won't complain about this job. I'd rather be doing this than that."

Hicks only shrugged. "It serves 'em right," he said. "Those assholes down there never got their cherries popped at all. They sat in their trenches while we put the fuckin' hurt on the marines and drove 'em back. They never even had a goddamn arty shell land on them. They should have to come out here and grab all the dead ones we in the ACR fuckin' killed."

"It wasn't like they stayed out of battle on purpose," Drogan told him. "Cut 'em a little slack. They were prepared to fight, just like we were."

"Yeah," Hicks said grudgingly. "I suppose."

"What are they gonna do with 'em?" Jeff asked.

"I was talking to one of their guys on the way out here," Drogan said. "They're supposed to scan all of them so General Jackson can send their info back to Earth. Then they load 'em on the truck and drive 'em back to Eden and stick 'em in a freezer somewhere. When the war is over we'll send their bodies back home so their families can burn 'em with honor and all that shit."

"Well that's awfully fuckin' nice of us," Hicks said bitterly. "I say have a fuckin' bulldozer just plow them under. Why should we give a shit about those assholes or their families?"

"It's part of the rules of warfare, Hicks," Drogan said. "You collect and account for enemy dead when practical and feasible."

"You mean like the way they accounted for Sanchez?" he asked.

Sanchez's body had been found on the way out — fortunately not by those who had known him but by an infantry platoon on their way to collect marine bodies. Though the tracks of the tank that had run him down had long since been obliterated by the Martian dust that blew through the air, and though Sanchez's body had been nearly completely covered itself, there had been no mistaking what had happened to him. With the speed of a wildfire the story of the smashed MPG tank commander named Sanchez had spread through the net in minutes, fomenting sadness, outrage, and blind anger by all that heard it.

"Yeah," said Drogan. "You make a good point there."

"Yep," said Jeff. "Now we know what Valentine's not talking about. It must have been fuckin' awful to watch that."

"Anyway," said Hicks, "the WestHems still ain't never gonna know how many of their fuckin' marines we killed. Most of them are in those APCs and tanks out there and we ain't counting their asses, are we?"

"That would be considered impractical and unfeasible," Drogan said, looking out towards the armor in question. There were literally hundreds of dead WestHem tanks and APCs out there, all of them containing at least two dead marines, some containing as many as twelve. The engineer battalions from both the 17th ACR and the 2nd infantry were down there hooking each one up to a towing tank or wrestling it onto a tracked flatbed carrier. But, as Hicks pointed out, they weren't bothering with trying to collect the dead inside or even scan them since most were smashed and exploded by the lasers that had felled them. They were only moving them out of the way, dragging them to the north or the south portion of the valley and just dumping them there for all eternity so they wouldn't serve the second wave of WestHem marines as cover for their un-smashed armor or their un-shot infantry.

"They're already all accounted for," said Jeff. "We only killed a thousand or so planetwide, remember? That's what the big three are reporting anyway."

"Sure," Drogan said. "And they wouldn't lie, would they?"

"Fuck no," said Hicks. "They're the goddamn bastions of truth."

They all had a laugh at that — a slightly bitter one. Hicks was the first to mention what was really on their minds.

"They ain't lying about them coming for Eden though, are they?" he asked.

"No," Jeff said. "I don't think they are. Every military plan they announced to this point has been true."

"Sure has," Drogan agreed. "That's why General Jackson has us out here repairing all the positions in the Gap. He knows this is where they're coming."

"Almost four hundred fucking thousand of them," Hicks said. "And all their armor, all their hovers, all their artillery. We ain't gonna be able to stop them on our own."

"No," Jeff said. "Not a fuckin' chance in hell of that. Jackson needs to send us reinforcements."

"A lot of fuckin' reinforcements," Hicks said. "We need every MPG unit from every fuckin' city to fight that off. If they don't get here soon, it'll be a slaughter."

"No it won't," said Drogan. "Because if we don't get reinforcements, I'm not coming back out here. Neither are most of the others."

Jeff nodded. "I'm down with you there, Drogan. I signed up for the long haul here and I knew I was laying my ass on the line, but I ain't puttin' it in front of no fuckin' firing squad. Jackson needs to even these odds or he can count my ass out."

Hicks seemed relieved by their discussion. "I thought I was the only one thinking that way," he said. "I was keeping it to myself."

"No need to do that," Drogan said. "This is a voluntary war. Laura Whiting and General Jackson been saying that shit the whole time. No one's gonna throw their ass away against eight to one odds, me included."

"So when the fuck is he gonna start movin' those troops over?" Hicks asked. "The big three been saying that they're gonna bomb the train tracks around Eden, cut us off from supplies and reinforcement. They're probably getting ready to do that right now as we're having this conversation. So why ain't anything moving this way?"

Drogan and Jeff both shook their heads. They knew what Hicks was saying was true — MarsGroup was reporting that no reinforcements had been loaded or had even started the process for loading — but neither understood it.

"I don't know," Drogan said. "Sometimes I worry that Jackson's fuckin' lost it, that he's choking at the final moment here."

"I think maybe he bit off more than we can chew," Hicks said. "I mean, he was a smart motherfucker getting us to this point — I won't take that away from the man — but maybe WestHem was right all along. They're gonna jack this place back from us no matter what and maybe Jackson realizes that and just don't know what to do about it."

Neither of them had an answer for him. Neither wanted to admit that what he'd suggested might be the truth but neither could think of any other explanation either.

"Oh well," Hicks said, stretching his sore shoulders a little. "Enough of this depressing talk. I'm gonna go back inside and take myself a nice shit."

"Why don't you just do it out here?" Drogan asked. "We've all seen you squat and grunt a hundred fuckin' times."

"I know you like watchin' me, Drogan," he said. "And I'd love to accommodate you, but I also hear they got a new kind of food gel for us, something that's supposed to taste like cherry pie." He looked at her slyly. "You've eaten your share of cherry pie, ain't you, Drogan?"

She pushed him playfully, almost causing him to tumble off his perch. "Get the fuck out of here, asshole," she said.

He laughed and then got the fuck out of there.

Drogan and Jeff both looked at their communications status screens once he'd walked away. When they saw he'd turned his set off of the private frequency they looked at each other.

"Well," Drogan said, "go ahead. You know you wanna ask me."

"Ask you what?" Jeff said, although he knew exactly what she was talking about and knew that she knew.

"You're wondering about me and Belinda Maxely," she said. "You're wondering if I made her fall so deeply in love with me that she's forgotten all about your good friend Xenia and her supple, suckable boobs, aren't you?"

"Well... I wouldn't exactly have put it that way," he said. "But since you brought it up... ?"

She laughed, a laugh that was full of pity. "Belinda and I are just fuck buddies," she told him. "It'll never go any further than that."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said with a nod. "She's fuckin' premo in the sack, I'm here to tell you. She's on my top ten list of female pussy eaters and I made her scream when I returned the favor the first time." She sighed. "But you know what?"

"What?"

"When she screamed it was Xenia's name she screamed out."

"Really?" Jeff said, dejected and a little shocked. In Martian culture that was considered one of the ultimate faux pas, right up there with coming before your partner had a chance to.

She nodded. "That bitch is so in love with Xenia I'm surprised she even let me munch her muff out. If you were hopin' she'd fall for me and leave you in the clear with the X-girl, you can just put that thought right out of your horny little head."

Jeff didn't even bother denying that was what he was hoping. "Xenia never said she was that good in the sack," he said.

"Oh?" Drogan said, raising her eyebrows a bit. "They've done it before?"

Jeff clenched his teeth, knowing he'd just revealed more than he was really supposed to. "Keep that to yourself?" he pleaded.

She chuckled. "You know it, Jeffy," she told him. "You and Hicks saved my ass out here in the Gap, remember? I'd do anything for you, for either one of you. Why the fuck do you think I snatched Belinda away from Xenia in the first place? I was trying to open a corridor for your advance."

Jeff was surprised. "You mean... you mean you took Belinda away on purpose?"

"Fuckin' aye," she said. "She's not really my type anyway. I like... well... Xenia's type to tell you the truth. But I saw you was trying to get your weenie wet with her and thought I'd give you a hand. Turned out Belinda was a better fuck than I thought she'd be and I turned down what was probably a premo opportunity to lick a little X myself, you know what I mean, but I did it." She looked sharply at him. "You were supposed to take advantage of the opportunity and nail the bitch while I had her softer interest occupied."

"Well... yeah. I appreciate all that you did, really I do, but there are some complications."

"You mean that stupid-ass vow you made not to fuck her until she says she loves you?"

"Belinda told you about that?" he asked with a sigh, embarrassed.

"Yeah, she told me," Drogan said. "She told me she vowed the same thing." She shook her head in wonder. "I think both of you are out of your damn minds. Not fucking someone that you want to fuck and that wants to fuck you is a very un-Martian way to behave. I mean, for the love of Christ, what do you think we're out here fighting for if not our way of life, man?"

Jeff wasn't sure if she was joking or not but he got her point. She, however, wasn't getting his. "I'm not doing it just to be mean or to try and blackmail her and shit," he said. "I'm doing it because..." a sigh "... because I really love her. I've never felt anything like this for someone before. I didn't think I could feel something like this. I mean, look at me. I was a gang member in the worst neighborhood on the fuckin' planet. I used to sell dust and I've killed other gang members — just shot them right the fuck down in cold blood. I used to think I was the toughest motherfucker there was, someone my dad would be real proud of, and here I am now falling in love like some motherfucker in one of them stupid-ass daytime shows on the MarsGroup. Do you see what I'm getting at here, Drogan?"

"Not really," she admitted.

"I love her," he said. "I have a hard time thinking about anything but her. When those fuckin' marines were lobbing tank shells at us and hitting us with mortars, even when they were climbing those fuckin' hills to take us out, I was still thinking about her, worrying about her. That's what love is, man. You understand?"

"I think so," she said, smiling, pondering what he was saying.

"I just think that fucking her like she was just another bitch I made a connection with... well... I think that wouldn't be all that fun, that it would take away from what sex with Xenia is supposed to be like for me. I think maybe that sex between people in love is better than just the normal sex we all have and I don't want to fuck that up by doing it too soon."

"Wow," Drogan said, beaming now. "That's some romantic-ass shit you're spouting there."

"So you see where I'm coming from now?"

She nodded. "I do. And you know what?"

"What?"

"I think I kind of like the idea."

Mars Capitol Building, New Pittsburgh

As soon as Laura Whiting entered her outer office Cyndee — her secretary — glared at her in a most unfriendly way. It was understandable. She had been worried about her, just like always.

"Where have you been, Governor?" Cyndee demanded. "You were gone for three hours!"

"Sorry, Cyndee," she said, actually feeling bad. "I had some business to take care of. Everything is under control."

"You left your security detail behind!" Cyndee said. "Governor, this is the fourth time in the past week you've done this. We were all frantic!"

"I apologize for disconcerting everyone but I'm back now. No harm no foul. How's the planet been holding up while I was gone?"

"General Jackson is requesting to talk to you immediately," she said. "He's called six times."

"Oh really?" she said. "Did my so-called secret service rat me out to him again?"

"Well... you ran off without telling anyone where you were going, Governor. What did you expect them to do? It's their job!"

She nodded amicably. "Yes, it is, and I'll never come down on anyone for doing his or her job. Anything else I need to know about?"

"Jack Strough called twice just after you left," she told her. "He said something about you needn't bother trying to interfere this time. His people are committed."

"Uh huh," she said, smiling in amusement. Jack Strough was the head of the cargo handlers union — a virulent, anti-revolutionary, self-interested asshole who had been a thorn in her side ever since her inauguration day speech. "I've already taken care of that particular problem. That is, in fact, where I was all morning. Anything else?"

"Nothing terribly pressing," she said. "You're getting the usual emails from the citizenry who are concerned about the upcoming bombing raids and why General Jackson is not moving reinforcements towards Eden yet. There are also several com requests from the various plant managers who are concerned about the same thing. David Reed over at the Alexander Industries plant is the most prominent of them."

"Ah yes, Mr. Reed," she said. "He and I had a most interesting conversation once. I can certainly see the source of his concern since the WestHems are intending to wipe his plant off the map. Did he leave a detailed message?"

"He did," she said. "He wants to evacuate his plant immediately. He says he's sorry about the loss of production this would entail but that he refuses to risk his employees' lives in the event of a WestHem bomber strike. He has given you five hours to reply with a coherent plan for strike forewarning or he will shut the plant down and move all of his workers to safety. And that was two hours ago, Governor."

"That's about what I would expect from him," Laura said. "He's proving to be much more of a Martian than his background would dictate."

"His background?" Cyndee asked.

"Never mind," Laura said. "I'll talk with General Jackson and then have a little chat with Mr. Reed when I'm done. Hopefully I'll be able to ease his mind and keep that plant in operation as long as possible."

"Very good, Governor," she said. Her face softened. "And, Governor?"

"Yes, Cyndee?"

"I'm glad you're safe. I was worried sick about you being out there all by yourself. Anything could happen to you out there. You've made a lot of enemies."

"I know," she said. "I appreciate your concern, Cyndee but I'm a big girl. I know what I'm doing."

"Yes, Governor."

Laura turned and entered her office, letting the door slide shut behind her. She sat down at her desk and leaned back for a minute, looking at the ceiling. Finally she pulled out a pack of Earth cigarettes — one of the workers at the train yards had laid them on her after the speech she'd given them today — and pulled one out. She sparked up, taking a deep drag and slowly exhaling the smoke into the room.

"Heaven," she said as she savored the rush of nicotine to her head. This was the first smoke she'd had in days.

She turned and looked at her computer screen, which was showing a screen savor that consisted of various views of Mars, Phobos, Demos, and the skylines of each Martian city. "Computer," she said. "Com General Jackson."

"Comming General Jackson," it dutifully replied.

He answered less than five seconds later. "Where in the name of ass-fucking and clit licking have you been?" he demanded.

"That would be ass-fucking and muff-munching," she replied dryly. "Let's not start using offensive terms in our communications now. Remember, all of this is being recorded for posterity."

He was not amused. "Laura, haven't I asked you, begged you not to sneak out without your security detail? This is the fourth time you've done this! It's an ass-tapping miracle that some disgruntled Earthling or Martian hasn't shot you on the MarsTrans just to say they did it!"

"I can take care of myself," she said, giving her standard answer to such ass-chewings.

"Why are you doing this to me, Laura?" he asked. "You used to take the entire security detail with you wherever you went. You used to realize how vulnerable you were and how much we need you. What the hell happened?"

"Back then there was a very real possibility that WestHem agents would try to assassinate me," she said. "And back then, if they would have succeeded in killing me, the revolution would have fallen apart before it could get started. Things have changed now. We've gone too far to stop now and the revolution would go forward with or without me at this point."

"That's no reason to invite death," he said. "I agreed to let your security detail wither down to only two men — very much against my will I might add — but now you're shunning even that. You can't simply go walking around outside like you're a normal person!"

"I am a normal person," she said. "That's one of the reasons I do it. I'm safe and sound in my office now, General, so why don't we drop the subject? Let's talk about more pressing matters."

He sighed, obviously wanting to say more on the subject but he didn't. "Fine," he said. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Let's start with Jack Strough, shall we? I just came from the rail yards and a meeting with the cargo handlers. Strough had them whipped into a frenzy about this WestHem bombing of their facilities. I mean, the WestHems aren't even planning to bomb the NP yards and he had them ready to walk off the job. You can imagine how upset the Eden cargo handlers were."

"Yes, I've been receiving reports about that," Jackson said. "Strough has them riled up all right. They're threatening to strike if we don't do something about the bombing threat — as if there was anything I could do. What did you say to him?"

"I didn't say anything to Strough — not directly anyway. I did address the New Pittsburgh cargo handlers personally in their union hall and had my speech to them beamed to all of the other cargo handlers union halls throughout the planet, including Eden. I thanked them for their loyal service to this point and told them the war will be lost without their assistance. I then gave them my personal guarantee that the moment we detect a flight of bombers leaving the WestHem armada we will immediately inform all vulnerable targets so they can evacuate. Since it takes forty-five minutes from the time an AA-71 launches to the time it can make its attack, this seemed a reasonable promise."

Jackson nodded. "Indeed it is," he said. "I already have standing orders for such a thing drawn up. Triad Space Command has direct links to all potentially targeted installations."

"I figured you had something like that in the works," she said. "And I also told them that if WestHem did actually attack and neutralize the recon satellites that are detecting these launches, they could evacuate at that time, mission be damned."

"I agree with that as well," he told her. "Mostly because I know the WestHems are too dumb to actually do that. It took less than twenty-four hours from the release of their attack plan to having the anti-satellite strikes scrubbed. They are behaving exactly as we both predicted."

"Yes," she said, "but I'm still worried. Nor am I the only one. I've got MarsGroup reporters crawling up my ass demanding to know why you haven't started shifting troops and equipment to Eden. I've got thousands of emails from citizens demanding to know the same thing. So tell me, Kevin — when are you going to start shifting those troops? I was just watching a big three station on the MarsTrans and they had a camera crew inside the AA-71 bay up on the Nebraska. They were showing the maintenance crews getting those bombers ready for the strike. They were even saying that the Eden rail network will be the primary target. Don't you think it's a good time to start shifting forces?"

"No," he said. "Not yet."

"But if they launch those strikes any time in the next twelve hours and they are successful in their mission, you won't have the ability to reinforce us any further."

"I'm aware of that," he said. "And I'm not trying to be secretive, I'm not choking, and I'm not caving under the pressure or any of the other reasons people have assigned for why I'm still holding those units in place. The simple fact of the matter is, I don't think the plan they're announcing right now is the plan they're eventually going to initiate."

"You don't think they're going to attack Eden?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," he said. "Eden may still be the subject of the attack but..." He shook his head a little, having trouble articulating what he was trying to say. "Look, I know it sounds crazy and I know it sounds like I'm putting everything at risk, but I'm really not. The plan they came up with was a good one, a damn good one. If they had carried it out as it was written they would have taken Eden without firing a shot. I would've been forced to surrender our most important city to them under our own doctrine and under my own common sense and we would have had a bitch of a time taking it back from them."

"But they didn't carry it off as it was written," she said.

"No, they didn't," he said. "Their first mistake, maybe the most significant mistake, was releasing details of what they planned to do, of allowing it to leak to the WestHem press. Not only did that give us forewarning of what they are planning, it allowed their powers-that-be — namely the corporations — to start doing what they're doing now."

"Picking the plan apart?"

"Exactly," he said. "We've both known all along, ever since those first days after the Jupiter War when we first concocted this crazy scheme, that if the WestHems fought this war like it was a real war, like it was a conflict with EastHem, we would lose and lose bad. There is no way we can stand up to their military might when they use it as its supposed to be used."

"Agreed. And we were both right. They underestimated us from the beginning and that was how your plan allowed us to get where we are now. But are they still underestimating us?"

"Their military commanders certainly aren't," Jackson said. "But their corporate leaders and their politicians... now that's another matter. Within twenty-four hours of them releasing their attack plan the big three — nothing but a collection of powerful corporations — got them to change what was one of the most important parts of the plan. If they can't attack our recon satellites they can't launch their strikes undetected and therefore they're putting all of their spacecraft at risk of destruction and risking the very success of their mission."

"I understand all that," Laura said. "But what does that have to do with moving the troops?"

"I don't think they're done screwing around with that plan yet," he said. "The other corporations haven't had a chance to say their two dollars worth yet and to start putting their own pressure on the Executive Council. I don't want to start shifting my forces around until I see them making some real moves."

"You don't call getting the AA-71s ready to launch a real move?"

"That's the military apparatus doing what they do," Jackson said. "They've received orders and they're preparing to carry them out. If I'm wrong... well, then I'm wrong. They'll bomb the rail network and maybe our ammunition plant and we won't be able to reinforce Eden. Eden will fall and it will be my fault."

"So you're gambling?"

He nodded. "I'm gambling that my instinct is correct," he agreed. "We just need to wait a little longer."

She took a thoughtful drag of her cigarette and then snuffed it out in the ashtray. She blew the smoke out of her nose and then looked at her commanding general. "I've trusted you this far," she said, "and you've carried us this far. I have no reason to question your judgement or your instincts now. You do what you think you need to do."

"Thank you," he said. "Hopefully your faith in me is not misplaced."

The AA-71 pilots were actually in their final briefing, less than two hours from launch, when Major Wilde's PC began to buzz with the priority ring. Wilde was in the back of the room, watching as the targeting assignments were being handed out. He almost groaned, knowing it could not possibly be good news at this point in the game.

"Yes, General," he whispered to the screen, keeping his face expressionless.

"I need to see you right away," Browning said. "There's been a slight change in plans."

He looked out at the briefing room helplessly and then back at his boss's image. "Yes, General," he said. "I'll be there in ten minutes."

He was actually there in seven minutes, his worry causing his pace to unconsciously increase. He walked through the security layers and into Browning's office, finding him sitting behind his desk, sipping on his third or fourth rum and coke of the day and smoking nervously.

Wilde didn't bother saluting, not even the phony, jerk-off salute he normally offered. He simply sat down and lit a cigarette of his own. "A change in plans, General?" he asked.

"It's nothing major," Browning told him. "Just a shift in targets."

"A shift in targets?"

Browning nodded. "What do you think about attacking New Pittsburgh instead?"

Wilde licked his lips, sure he wasn't hearing correctly. "New Pittsburgh?" he asked. "What do you mean? The strike is lining up to hit the Eden rail network. Are you saying you want to take out the Alexander Industries plant first? I thought we'd agreed that..."

"No, you don't understand," Browning said. "We're going to occupy New Pittsburgh with our ground forces. Eden has been scrubbed. NP is the new priority."

Wilde was quite literally speechless. What in the hell was this madman talking about? Occupy New Pittsburgh instead of Eden? Why in the hell would they do that? Especially at this late stage of the game?

"Are you okay, Wilde?" Browning asked, concerned. "You look a little pale."

"I'm sorry, sir," he said, feeling like he was in a dream. "But did you just say that we are attacking New Pittsburgh instead of Eden? That our entire occupation zone is being changed?"

"Yes, that's correct," Browning said. "Is that a problem?"

"Is it... is it..." He shook his head and took a few deep breaths. "This is your idea of 'nothing major'?"

"It's just another city on the surface," Browning said. "We'll just need to reprogram our targeting and entry coordinates and update the marching orders. New Pittsburgh is almost as big a rail hub as Eden and it's also the capitol, where Laura Whiting and that terrorist puke Jackson live. The Executive Council feels that if we are only able to take one city that it should be their capitol where we can capture their leadership. They think that maybe that might foment the surrender of the other cities without requiring further task forces to travel here."

"Sir," Wilde said, "you'll forgive me if I say that's the most asinine thing I've ever heard. We've got pilots in their final briefing right now. They're being assigned targets in the Eden area so they can isolate that city for our invasion. They're within two hours of launching on the biggest space strike since the Jupiter War!"

Browning simply shrugged. "As I said, the target has now shifted. We'll have them stand down and we'll send them out in eight hours against New Pittsburgh. That way we can hit their ammunition plant and take out their rail network all in one strike. And it will be a smaller strike too, won't it? It won't be as difficult to isolate New Pittsburgh since there are less rail junctions to worry about."

"Sir," Wilde said, trying one last time, "you're talking about a complete change in flight missions. It will take much more than eight hours to plan out the sort of strike you're talking about."

"Eight hours, twelve hours, hell... we can go eighteen if we need to. The important thing is that we need to shift our priorities immediately. It's the Executive Council's orders."

"Jesus," Wilde muttered, feeling a flare of his own ulcer now. "Who is behind this? I know the Executive Council isn't suddenly trying to think rationally. I smell corporate lobbyists behind this decision."

"Well... now that you mention it," Browning said, "Ms. Williams did mention to me that Standard Steel and Corrigan Industries were a bit upset that New Pittsburgh — which is where their very operations are based — was going to be left in Martian hands for the indeterminate future. You see, they want their city liberated so they can resume operations as quickly as possible and start supplying the tanks and steel needed for the liberation of the rest of the planet."

"But what about Eden?" Wilde said. "It's the central rail hub and the center of the entire agricultural region! We can paralyze transportation on that planet if we take that city! We can cut the Martian food production in half. We can't let a bunch of corporate heads make our military decisions for us!"

"They didn't make the decision," Browning said coldly. "They suggested it to me and I made the decision. I resent the implication that I would bow to corporate pressure in my military planning."

Wilde clenched his fists in rage for a second and then slowly released them. He took a few breaths, closed his eyes, and tried to remain calm. After a moment or two of this an idea occurred to him. "Okay," he said. "I think this can work and that maybe we can even turn it to our advantage."

"Now that's the spirit," Browning said.

"The important part is that we keep this from the media."

"What?" Browning said.

"We let them think the main target is still Eden. We hit New Pittsburgh with the AA-71s in one massive strike at this time tomorrow and then we send down the landing ships forty-eight hours later. That way we'll catch the Martians off-guard."

Browning was already shaking his head. "You know my thoughts on lying to the press," he said. "We can't keep them in the dark about this major change in plans."

"I thought it was a minor change in plans," Wilde said.

"Don't play word games with me, Major," Browning said angrily. "I brought you up here so you could put together a new briefing for the big three reps onboard. I want our updated plans released to them within three hours."

"Sir... that's madness!" he protested.

"It's also an order," Browning said. "Get that briefing drawn up and on my desk within two hours. I want preliminary times, dates, numbers, and targets of the space strikes. I want an outline of the defenses we'll be up against and how we plan to smash through them. I'll call Admiral Spears and tell him to get a new plan together. You can coordinate with him as needed."

"But, sir..." Wilde said.

"That's an order, Major. Get to it."

Wilde sighed, feeling the war slipping through his fingers once again. "Yes, sir," he said. "I'll get right on it."

General Jackson was sound asleep in his usual place these days — the couch in his office. He was still wearing his MPG shorts and T-shirt and had a two-day growth of beard on his face. He was awakened by Major Tim Sprinkle, the head of MPG Intelligence, shaking him.

"Yeah, Tim," he said with a yawn when his head had cleared enough for coherent speech. "What is it? The space strike?"

"No, General," he said. "They've called it off."

"Called it off?"

Sprinkle nodded, smiling. "I think your gamble might have paid off. I think you should turn on InfoServe, sir. They're carrying a briefing live."

He rolled out of his bed and then looked up at the ceiling. "Computer," he said. "Show InfoServe primary."

"InfoServe primary coming on line," the computer replied.

The screen flared to life, showing a podium where General Browning was standing in his camouflage fatigues and addressing the WestHem press. The caption at the bottom read "Live from WSS Nebraska".

"So it is felt," said Browning, "that since New Pittsburgh is both more strategically located and easier to isolate, and, that since it is the source of most of the weaponry these Martian terrorists are using to attack our brave troops in the field, and, most importantly, it is the focus of much of the insurgent activity on Mars and home to the leaders of this insurgency — namely Laura Whiting and Kevin Jackson — that it should be the target of the coming operations."

"New Pittsburgh?" Jackson asked, surprised. "They're going after NP now?"

"That's what they're saying, General," Sprinkle confirmed. "Listen."

He listened.

"Our plans are to re-direct the strike we were planning against Eden to New Pittsburgh, isolating that city from reinforcement and taking out it's armament capabilities all in one stroke." Browning pointed at a graphic map of the New Pittsburgh area on the screen behind him. "This is the Alexander Industries ammunition plant which has been taken over by Martian insurgents and is supplying them with bullets, bombs, and booby-trap material. As before, the number one priority is to put this plant out of operation. At the same time, however, we will also be able to hit the main loading platforms of the Martian rail system and then destroy a number of bridges and tunnels on this rail system, effectively isolating the city. Our information is that the Martians have somewhere in the vicinity of twenty thousand poorly trained and equipped separatist terrorists holding the city. We will land all four hundred thousand of our marines outside this city and march inward, plowing through their meager defenses and taking the city under occupation. We will capture Laura Whiting, Kevin Jackson, and as many of the other high-ranking insurgents that are controlling this occupation of Mars' capitol and we will send them back to Earth for trial and conviction. It is felt that once this task has been accomplished the rest of the insurgency will simply collapse under its own weight and Mars will be returned to WestHem control by default."

A question and answer period began after this but neither man listened to it.

"Well what do you know about that?" Jackson asked, smiling. "It's a good thing I didn't shift all my troops to Eden now, isn't it?"

Sprinkle was smiling as well, this despite the fact that he'd been one of the strongest voices for moving the troops as soon as Eden was announced as the target. "You called it, sir," he said. "Standard Steel influence?"

"Undoubtedly," Jackson said. "They've probably been hounding the Executive Council for the last twenty-four hours. Standard Steel is one of the most powerful non-agricultural or non-media related corporations in existence. It's really not my psychic abilities that allowed me to predict this, it's simply common sense. I know how that system operates. I witnessed it in the Jupiter War." He shook his head. "Hell, I even participated in it to some degree. Remind me to tell you the story about that some day."

"Yes, General," Sprinkle said. "What now? Should we start moving our troops and armor towards New Pittsburgh?"

"No," Jackson said without hesitation. "Not yet."

"No?" Sprinkle asked. "But they just said NP is the new target."

"That was a decision made by accountants in suits back in Denver," Jackson said. "Those accountants are our greatest allies in this conflict."

"Yes, sir... but..."

"Everyone holds in place for now," Jackson said. "I know its not a popular decision and I know its making my own troops antsy, but I don't think those accountants in Denver are done making stupid decisions for us just yet."

"Yes, General," Sprinkle said. "We'll hold everything in place for now."

Chapter 21

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

September 11, 2146

Major Wilde was once again observing the final flight briefing less than two hours from the scheduled launch time. Admiral Haybecker was explaining to the AA-71 pilots and gunners for the tenth time that no matter what else they blew up in or around New Pittsburgh on the coming strike they were not to touch so much as a hair on the head of the Alexander Industries ammunition plant.

"That plant is a vital part of the WestHem military supply apparatus and its destruction or damage would be catastrophic for us after we liberate this planet."

None of the flight crews questioned this reversal of their previous orders. They hadn't questioned it even when they'd been advised for the first time that the plant was now off limits. They were too used to abrupt and contradictory changes in their orders by this point. Most, in fact, were starting to wonder if they were ever going to go anywhere or blow anything up.

The scrubbing of the Alexander Industries plant from the frag list had come six hours before, this time not as an order from the Executive Council (although they had not opposed the order) but as an order from Admiral Wesley Brooke, supreme commander of the WestHem navy and, by default, supreme commander of the WestHem marines as well since the marines were technically part of the navy. The official reason for the scrub was the bullshit Haybecker had just spouted about the plant being vital to the military supply apparatus. Though the plant was important it was certainly not vital since there were other Alexander Industries plants on Earth that were capable of picking up the slack — those other plants had, in fact, supplied all of the shells and bullets for Operation Martian Hammer to this point since, of course, their Martian plant was now in Martian hands. No, the real reason had to be more political interference from lobbyists, accountants, and, undoubtedly, Robert Allen Trump II, Alexander Industries' CEO. Though he wasn't powerful enough to directly threaten the Executive Council as the other CEOs had, he did hold most of the joint chiefs of staff and WestHem's top military commanders in his pocket since his corporation was the only one capable of supplying all of the bullets, bombs, and shells the army, navy, and marines required in the numbers that they required. And Trump would want his New Pittsburgh plant to be still standing and operational once the marines liberated that city. If it were operational then it could produce the ordinance needed for the liberation of the rest of Mars without having to worry about shipping it across the solar system. Another military decision made in the name of politics and profit margins.

I should just go join the damn greenies, Wilde thought sourly as Haybecker told his crews that two of the New Pittsburgh rail junctions had been scrubbed as well. This, though he didn't mention it, was because they were within ten kilometers of the Alexander Industries plant and he didn't want to risk that a stray laser shot would accidentally hit it.

Wilde's PC began to buzz. He sighed, completely unsurprised. Neither, apparently, were the pilots or their commanders. The briefing came to a halt as they saw him pull it out and flip it open. Everyone in the room stared in his direction.

"Yes, General?" Wilde said. "Has there been another change in plans?"

"Why yes," Browning replied. "How did you know?"

"It just came to me," Wilde said.

"I see," Browning said, looking a little confused. He seemed to shrug it off after a moment. "Anyway, there has been another minor adjustment to the attack plan. Come to my office right away so I can brief you on it and you can start preparing a new press release for me."

"Are we standing down the space launches again?" Wilde asked.

"I would rather discuss that in person, Major. We'll go over it when you get to my office."

"Sir, I've got more than two hundred flight crews in here receiving their final briefing. Should Admiral Haybecker continue this briefing or will the crews need to stand down for a new frag list again?"

Browning pouted a little but answered the question. "They'll be stood down," he said. "The target list will need to be modified again."

The groan of disgust started near Wilde, by those flight crewmen who could hear his conversation. Within a few seconds it spread throughout the entire room, occasionally interspersed with some rather colorful profanity. Wilde simply muttered a "yes sir" and flipped his PC shut.

"We're standing down?" Haybecker asked him.

"Yes, sir," Wilde told him. "I'll go see what's been modified this time."

"What's been fucked up you mean," one of the nearer crewmen said.

"Yeah," Wilde agreed. "That about sums it up."

He left the briefing room a moment later, mumbling to himself about joining the fucking greenies again. At least they let their military leaders make the goddamn military decisions.

"Okay," he said when he entered Browning's office. "What kind of atrocity did the suits in Denver lay on us this time?"

Browning was not amused. "You're getting awfully mouthy with me lately, Wilde," he said. "I'll thank you to remember some semblance of military courtesy when addressing me. I am your commanding general after all."

"Forgive me, sir," Wilde said without the slightest trace of sincerity. "So tell me, sir, what are the good folks back in Denver requesting we modify now?"

Browning continued to glare at him for a few moments and then mellowed. "Well," he said, "it seems that Steve Carlson, CEO of AgriCorp, was a bit upset when we changed our targeted city from Eden to New Pittsburgh."

"Oh no," Wilde said, shaking his head and looking up at the ceiling.

"Well you can certainly understand his position, can't you?" Browning asked. "More than thirty percent of AgriCorp's crops are grown in Eden and more than forty percent of their prepared food products are manufactured and packaged in Eden. The price of AgriCorp stock has fallen by more than a third since the greenies seized Mars and there are people going hungry in WestHem because AgriCorp can't get their food there anymore. It's vital that we get those assets and that production and shipping capability back in Carlson's hands. It's for the good of all WestHem."

"Of course it is," Wilde said. "So we're shifting the focus of our attack back to Eden then?"

"Well... yes and no."

Wilde chewed his upper lip a few times. "What exactly does that mean, General?"

"The Standard Steel and Corrigan Industries point of view is quite valid as well. The ability to re-take a large portion of our mining and manufacturing base — as well as capturing the terrorist leaders — is deemed to be too important to disregard."

"So which city are we going to take?" Wilde asked.

"Both," Browning said with a smirk.

Wilde had thought they couldn't screw up his plan any further than they'd already screwed it. He was wrong about that it seemed. "Both?" he asked. "You mean divide up our forces and make two separate landings?"

"Yes," Browning said. "It's a stroke of genius really. I'm surprised you didn't think of this initially."

Wilde knew that the decision was already made, that his pleas and angry outbursts would not change anything. But he had to try! "General," he said, "that is not a brilliant idea. It's a very unwise idea."

"What's wrong with it? I suggested this compromise myself and the Executive Council heartily agreed with it."

"Well... instead of an eight to one advantage against a single city we'll have two four to one advantages. That negates the overwhelming numerical superiority that made my initial plan a sure success."

"So?" Browning said with a shrug. "It's still a four to one advantage on each front. Have you forgotten that it only takes a three to one advantage to overtake a position?"

"That's not an absolute, sir. It's only a guideline and it only applies to equally matched and equipped forces with all things being equal. Just because you have a three to one advantage or a four to one advantage doesn't mean you will take your objective. We started out with an almost four to one advantage on the first stage at all fronts, remember? And look what happened there."

"That was because of that incompetent boob Wrath," Browning scoffed. "Now those four to one ratios will be under my command and you can bet that little leaf on your shoulder I will plan this campaign to win and we will sweep into those cities quickly and painlessly."

Jesus, thought Wilde, he's spouting off to me like he's talking to the press. He really believes that just because he says it it's true. God help us. "Sir," he said, "the only way we're going to sweep into anything down there is by maintaining the highest attack to defender ratio as possible. The Martians have air superiority and have denied us the use of our artillery guns. Our companies, platoons, and squads are disjointed from the first phase, with poor morale, inexperienced leaders, and lots of green troops who used to be cooks and maintenance men and computer programmers — guys who haven't held a gun since basic training. The Martians we'll be facing are now battle-hardened veterans with high morale and a lot to fight for. With the situation as it is the only way we're sure to take our objective is with that eight to one ratio. With four to one... well... things aren't all that certain anymore. There's a good chance we could be repelled again on one or both fronts."

"Look, Wilde," Browning said condescendingly, "I know it's your job to try to anticipate the worse that can happen and to be conservative in your military recommendations but I think you're carrying that a bit too far here — almost to the point of being overdramatic. Give us some credit here. We know the mistakes that were made by General Wrath. We know how the greenies fight now. Between the two of us we should be able to come up with a lightening-fast landing ship to city campaign that will take the targets with minimal casualties."

"We can come up with a plan, yes," Wilde said, "but as for a plan that guarantees success in our objectives..." He shook his head. "No, we can't do that. Not with the numbers we have against an enemy as well-trained, disciplined, and, most of all, motivated as the Martians."

"Guarantee?" Browning scoffed. "Who can guarantee anything in this life? Now why don't you go let Admiral Spears and Admiral Haybecker know that they'll need to start planning to isolate New Pittsburgh and Eden by rail now. That will mean two separate alpha strikes, I'm sure, so I'll give them another eighteen hours to develop a plan and get the crew to launch."

"They're not going to like that, sir," Wilde said. "It they can't take out the Martian recon-sats it's possible they won't have enough spacecraft to pull off two missions."

"They're not paid to like their orders," Browning said. "They're paid to carry them out and you're paid to deliver them. Once you get done with that you can compose this latest press release. After that, get to my office and we'll start planning our two campaigns."

Wilde sighed. "Yes, sir," he said.

Six hours later the big three were still going on about this latest modification of the Martian attack plan. All three were of the opinion that it was a bold endeavor, showing the aggressive nature of General Browning in his task.

"At the completion of this two-pronged strike," said one of the more popular military analysts on InfoServe, "WestHem forces will hold the two most important cities on the surface. After that, the terrorist insurgency will most likely collapse for lack of leadership, therefore allowing the Martian populace being held hostage in the other cities to simply resume rudimentary control from the state of lawlessness and despair that currently exists. Though a second force of marines will still have to be sent out to Mars — it is quite obvious, after all, that the Martian people need a stabilizing force to oversee them — it is quite possible these marines will not have to do much other than occupation duties and restoration of basic infrastructure."

Wilde wasn't amused by the analyst's statement. He wished Browning, who was working at another desk across the room, would just shut the damn screen off so he could concentrate on formulating this fabled "two-pronged attack" in a manner that would allow success on both fronts. This was something that could be done, he instinctively knew. And he suspected that if it were done right it could even be done without horrible losses. The trick would be to examine the failures of the first attempt with a realistic eye, learn from them, and try to correct them. He looked at what he had put on his screen so far, reviewing it, hoping for some sort of inspiration.

Problem 1 — LZ's are too far out from target. This gives enemy special forces units, mortar teams, and, most significantly, air crews, far too much time to cause attrition of our armor and men which, in turn, causes degradation of morale, breakdown of command/control at small unit level due to deliberate targeting of officers and NCOs. Solution: Land closer in?? This does violate doctrine but why twice the distance of nearest artillery range? Why not just outside nearest artillery range? True, this puts units in range of enemy tanks if they choose to advance on the LZ but the Martians don't have that many tanks, certainly not enough to challenge a well-defended LZ as long as we get our own tanks out as quick as possible and stationed on the perimeter.

Problem 2 — Martian special forces units attempt to draw us outside our LZ perimeter so they can engage us, slowing us down further, causing further attrition and further degradation of morale. Solution: tight perimeter manned primarily by tanks dug into hull-down positions. Keep these positions within 500 meters of the landing ships, keep exposed troops to a minimum. Do NOT go beyond this perimeter no matter what the provocation.

Problem 3 — Martian air superiority. Solution: None. Not in this conflict. Hovers cannot stand up to fast-moving fixed wing aircraft with the ability to hug the ground and pop out at will. Any attacks made by hovers must be fast, short, and able to withdraw back to the perimeter before Martian aircraft can respond.

Wilde stared at this last paragraph for a few minutes, feeling like there was something significant there but not quite able to grasp what it was. "Fast, short, and able to withdraw..." he said to himself. "Hmmm."

His eyes flitted back up to Problem 1, to the line that read, Solution: Land closer in?? He then looked down at the bottom of the screen, to Problem 4, which read: Martian heavy guns have the ability to neutralize our 150mm mobile guns, therefore eliminating our ability to support ground forces with artillery — a staple of any ground campaign. Solution: Must find a way to take out these Martian fixed 250s. They are too small of targets for AA-71s to hit with accuracy and accuracy is mandatory to destroy large guns in thick, concrete bunkers. Hovers are the ideal attack platform for this task as they can close and make a direct shot with their high intensity lasers but the Martian air superiority precludes this.

"Or does it?" he whispered, looking back up to the solution for Problem 1. Land closer in?? The Martians had ripped through their hovers as they'd tried to move them up to the forward refuel point so they could undertake the mission against the heavy guns. But what if there were no forward refuel point?

He quickly opened another window in the planning software, this one a map of the Eden vicinity. He began to look at the terrain, his eyes searching for the perfect place. It wasn't long until he found it. He made a few notations and then looked up at Browning, who was reviewing something on is own computer screen.

"General," he called, "would you mind coming over here for a minute?"

Browning frowned but trudged his way over. "Yes? Did you come up with something?"

"I think I have," Wilde said. "I think maybe I've found a way to negate some of the problems we encountered in phase one."

"Good," Browning said. "Write them up and we'll go with them."

"Uh... but, sir," he said carefully. "Don't you want a preliminary review?"

"I'm sure whatever you come up with is fine," he said. "We have the numerical advantage after all. There is one other minor thing that has just cropped up."

Wilde winced at these words — he'd heard them far too many times now. "And what might that be?"

Browning told him. Wilde shouldn't have been surprised at this point, but he was. "Sir... Jesus. In light of this... minor change, we're going to need to get our people down on the surface as soon as possible if this is going to work."

"How soon are we talking?" Browning asked.

"Yesterday if we could," Wilde said, still trying to come to grips with what he'd just been told. "It's imperative we get our landing ships down before the Martians have a chance to start reinforcing."

"But you don't even have a plan for deployment yet."

"I know," Wilde groaned in frustration. "I was counting on at least a week after the space strikes isolated those cities, but now..." He shook his head. "Jesus Christ, sir. I need to get to work and go into hyperdrive. If I stay up all night I might be able to have preliminary landing and targeting areas complete. That will at least give us a starting point."

"I like the way you think, Major. You're showing some good old-fashioned WestHem gumption."

"Thank you, sir. Now I'd better get cracking on this thing."

"Of course," Browning said. "Right after you prepare a press briefing for me on this latest development."

"Press briefing? Sir, time is of the essence here. Can you get one of the other staff aides to put together the briefing?"

"Nobody does them as well as you do, Major," Browning told him. "You have a certain flair for that sort of thing. You know how to put military terminology into terms the ignorant civilians can understand. Besides, what's another couple of hours anyway?"

Wilde sighed, said his "yes, sir" and then went to work on the press briefing. As soon as it was complete General Browning delivered the "good news" to the big three.

General Jackson and Major Sprinkle watched General Browning's briefing live on the main terminal in Jackson's office. Like Major Wilde both men were simply beyond astonishment at the stupidity of the decisions being made by their adversaries and by the fact that they were announcing them in advance. This one, however, was quite possibly the stupidest of them all. They had just stood down the space strikes indefinitely.

"And so it is felt," Browning's image explained, "that since the liberation and occupation of both Eden and New Pittsburgh are now imminent, there is little point in destroying the vital rail linkages that provide access and commerce to those two cities. These rail lines, after all, are what will allow us to move our own troops and equipment to other Martian cities and to quickly resume commerce and transportation as soon as they are secure. In particular we will need to move military supplies, steel, and manufactured products from New Pittsburgh to Eden and we will need to move food and other agricultural products from Eden to New Pittsburgh. These intact rail lines will also help alleviate the starvation and famine that has been rampant on Mars since the terrorist elements seized control of it four months ago."

"So what do you think?" Sprinkle asked. "Trans-Continental behind this one?" Trans-Continental Railways was the largest rail conglomerate in WestHem with an incredible forty-four percent market share of all passengers and freight that traveled by train. They were also the parent company of MarsTrans, the company who held an absolute monopoly on all Martian rail travel, be it passengers or freight, intra-city or inter-city. MarsTrans was, in fact, Trans-Continental's most profitable division — or at least it had been until the Martians had seized it.

"Undoubtedly," Jackson replied. "The same story as the rest of the corporations. They don't want their property destroyed in the name of liberating the planet — some other corporation's property is fine, but not ours."

"It's what you said would defeat them," Sprinkle said, sorry for all the bad-mouthing he'd done of Jackson since his decision not to engage retreating troops and his decision to hold all MPG units in place despite the threat of concentrated attack on Eden. "You called it, General. You called it just like it is."

"I used my common sense," Jackson said. "And now it's telling me that our WestHem friends can't possibly screw up their plan anymore than they already have. It's time to start shifting forces around. We'll move all combat units from Libby to New Pittsburgh and all combat units from Proctor to Eden. All space units up on Triad can stand down from general alert for now but they must remain on the base. Let's see if we can arrange for some booze and smokes up there for them — although it will have to be in shifts — they deserve it."

"That sounds good, General," Sprinkle said. He hesitated a few seconds and then said, "What happens if the information the WestHems are putting out on the big three is merely disinformation? Suppose they land outside Libby or Proctor instead? Or suppose they send everything after Eden or NP as they originally intended?"

"Then we would lose whatever city they went after," he said simply. "There is no way around that. I don't believe, however, that what Mr. Browning is spouting up there is disinformation. They're not really capable of deception on that level."

"We hope," Sprinkle said.

"We hope," Jackson agreed. "I know it's not militarily wise to rely on hope in a campaign, but it's gotten us this far, hasn't it? We'll just have to hope a little longer and if we succeed, we'll make sure we never have to hope again."

Sprinkle nodded. "Well put," he said.

"I'm going to the war room to issue the movement orders," Jackson said. "Why don't you start working your sources and trying to figure out if the WestHems are planning any surprises for us?"

"Yes, sir," Sprinkle said. And though it wasn't customary in the MPG, he gave Jackson a smart salute before he left the room.

Jack Strough of the cargo handler's union gave his usual dose of trouble when the order came down. He called Jackson personally and complained that "his people" at Libby and Proctor were being forced to unload several trains filled with agricultural supplies and food products and to move in dozens upon dozens of flatcars in order to make way for the stream of tanks, APCs, and soldiers that would be coming in the next morning.

"They're going to have to work all night long in order to get everything ready," Strough's image told Jackson. "We have strict union regulations against forcing employees to work before 0700 or after 1700. I'm telling you, my people may very well refuse to do it."

"Your people are operating under emergency wartime conditions," Jackson said. "Under the existing planetary constitution a state of planetary emergency allows certain union regulations — particularly of the transportation industry — to be disregarded. One such regulation is the work hours your people are subject to."

"That allows their employer to order them to work extra hours and night shifts," Strough said. "And it simply suspends the grievance process if they refuse. Their employer is MarsTrans and I hardly think MarsTrans wants them to stay up all night loading your military equipment."

"Strough, you know as well as I do that under wartime regulations control of the Martian transportation system is handed over to the MPG and the Martian government. That would made myself and Governor Whiting the employer and I'm using that authority to order all available cargo handlers to work for the duration of this transfer of forces. I want your people working twelve-hour shifts with twelve off in between. Those train yards will run day and night until this move is complete. Any employee refusing to work without good cause will be fired."

"There are those who would say that since this is technically an illegal seizure of the planet under strict rule of law, that you do not, in fact, have the authority to assume control of the rail system and that MarsTrans remains the true employer. Therefore our union regulations are still fully in place and enforceable."

Jackson clenched and unclenched his fists a few times. He was very tired and had many more pressing things to worry about right now. He needed this shit like he needed a leak in his water bong. "Look," he said, "I'm not going to argue semantics and legalities with you. I believe Governor Whiting has already been over this ground with you and your people several times. Those train yards need to run until this move has been made. Workers refusing to do their jobs will be fired. That is final."

"It's also unenforceable," Strough said. "Even if my workers do agree to show up for these shifts you order, there's no guarantee that a work slow-down of some sort would not occur. In fact, I would think something like that would be very likely."

Jackson really hated this man but he kept his face neutral. "All right, Strough," he said. "A strike or a work slow-down at the rail yards would be a very bad thing right now. We need that armor loaded up as quickly as possible and sent to Eden and New Pittsburgh or we're going to lose those two cities to the WestHems. So how about we cut through all the bullshit here and you just tell me what you're after?"

"Well," said Strough, "it's not like my people want to hinder your shift of troops. Though it is the union's position that you and Governor Whiting have undertaken an illegal severance of political ties to WestHem and that Martian independence, even if it were legal, is untenable, many of the workers do seem to support what is going on here. They are concerned, however, about the amount of monetary compensation they would be receiving for this coming assignment."

"Money," Jackson grunted. "I kind of figured that's what this was about. So how much do you want, Strough?"

"There are many things my people are dealing with here, General," Strough said. "They're working in a hazardous area under threat of bombardment, they'll be working to unload things they've already loaded, they'll be working with dangerous military equipment and explosives, they'll be working during non-traditional hours, they'll..."

"I get the idea," Jackson said. "How much?"

"We think that three and a half times their base hourly rate would be reasonable compensation during this state of emergency."

"Triple time and a half?" Jackson said, raising his eyebrows.

"That's for normal working hours, of course," Strough said. "After hours would continue to compensated by an additional half of the base total after the three and half has been factored in. And, naturally, anything over forty hours per week would continue to be compensated at an additional half of the higher rate as well."

"Naturally," Jackson said, shaking his head. "So what you're saying is that some of your people, working at night and over forty hours, would be making somewhere in the vicinity of six times their normal hourly rate?"

"Yes," Strough said with a straight face. "It does work out to be something like that. Remember, they are performing a vital function for you."

"Yeah," Jackson said, "and since the amount of union dues your organization takes in is a straight percentage of each member's gross pay for the period, they're performing a vital function for you as well, aren't they?"

"I'm shocked you would even suggest that I'm doing this for financial gain," Strough said. "I don't even believe in the validity of those so-called credits you're paying my people in. My concern is and always will be for the health and well-being of the workers who belong to this union."

"Of course," Jackson said. "In any case, I agree to your demands. Your union members will be compensated as requested for the duration of this crisis."

Strough seemed a little shocked. "Really?" he asked.

"Really," Jackson said. "You're profiteering quite shamelessly here and pleading the welfare of your workers to justify it but I need those forces moved as quickly and efficiently as possible and I've got a lot of other things I should be doing besides spending all afternoon arguing with you. As long as you stay within two hours of the time schedule estimates for loading and unloading period, I agree to your terms. Write all this up on a document with the salary upgrades plainly spelled out. Make it clear that this is for the duration of this crisis only, that you must maintain the timeline, and don't try to slip something funny in. I'll be sending it to Governor Whiting for approval and she's a lawyer. She'll catch it and she'll be rankin' pissed off if you try to screw us in some way."

"I would never do such a thing," Strough said huffily. "I'm offended that you would even think that of me."

"Uh huh," Jackson said. "I'll be expecting that document within the hour, Strough."

"What if Whiting disapproves it?"

"She won't," he said. "In the meantime, please make sure your people are working as hard as they can. The future of this planet kind of depends on them."

Proctor, Mars

September 13, 2146, 0600 hours

The 12th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Martian Planetary Guard — one of the two ACRs that had stopped the WestHem marines cold at the first line of defense during the first phase of the battle — were the first slated for movement to Eden. Their infantry soldiers put on their biosuits and took their weapons and climbed into their armored personnel carriers at the Proctor MPG base, which, like all MPG bases, had been deliberately built in close proximity to the main rail yard just for such occasions. The APCs left the staging area outside the base and drove overland for two and a half kilometers, arriving at the south side of the yard.

The Proctor primary rail yard was not the largest on the planet — that distinction belonged to the Eden primary facility — but it was still a pretty big place. It was not artificially gravitated and it was not pressurized or oxygenated so all who worked on loading or unloading freight had to wear biosuits in order to do his or her job. The facility was surrounded by a one hundred meter concrete wall and had a ceiling of plexiglass reinforced with steel support beams above. This was to keep out the wind and the Martian dust — the two of which occasionally combined in such a way that blinding, planetwide dust storms sometimes developed. The inside of this large building contained more that ten square kilometers of ground, most of which was covered with a system of magna-tracks where trains were assembled, loaded, unloaded, and maintained, where spare boxcars and flatcars and fuel carrying cars were stored. In all there was more than three hundred kilometers of track in the facility stretching out like an intricate spider's web and then narrowing down to the two elevated tracks that left from the north end and then split into two, either curving west toward Eden or continuing north toward Ore City. Cranes and cargo lifters were attached to the ceiling supports and traveled on their own overhead tracks to where they were needed. The facility employed two thousand people during peacetime and had hired six hundred more since the revolt.

The first 180 APCs of the 12th ACR entered the facility through a door on the south side that had been installed there long ago just for this purpose but that had never been used (it, in fact, had taken a maintenance team almost two hours just to get it open). Biosuited cargo handlers directed them one by one toward a section of tracking on the east side of the yard where three separate trains — each to carry sixty APCs — were being assembled. In each of the three assembly and loading areas a massive freight locomotive was attached to the first of twenty-one flatcars. The other twenty flatcars were off on adjacent sections of tracking.

Most of the men and women working in the facility (some of whom were getting paid an incredible thirty-five credits per hour thanks to Jack Strough) had loaded and unloaded armored vehicles before. After all, the vehicles arrived in the facility all the time from New Pittsburgh, where they were manufactured, and had to be shipped back on occasion for major repairs. Special equipment had even been developed by the MPG to facilitate this process. However they had never been asked to load up armor on the scale they were now being asked to. Though plans had been formulated for the mass movement of equipment and personnel ever since the inception of the MPG, and though these plans were complete with timetables and specific instructions on how to accomplish it, they had never been rehearsed before. General Jackson had often asked and even begged for a few dress rehearsals of the process over the last fifteen years but had been consistently shot down by MarsTrans management on the grounds that they couldn't suspend normal operations for the two to three day period required.

Still, the cargo handlers did their best to work with efficiency. Most were patriotic Martians despite the self-interest of their union and all knew that if they lagged too far beyond the timetable that had been established they would lose the lucrative hazard and overtime pay and be reverted back to normal hourly rate. A loader — as it was called — had been mated to the first of the flatcars. The loader was a steel structure that was basically a ramp that allowed an APC or a tank to drive up onto the flatcar while it was on the track without running over the track itself. The first APC pulled up and crawled on its treads up the ramp portion, which curved to the right onto the back of the flatcar. A cargo handler directed it forward, to the very front, and then had the driver stop at a pre-determined point. The second APC followed and then the third. Once all were aboard, the loader's ramp portion folded up hydraulically and was moved backward, out of the way. The loader was disengaged from the flatcar and the entire thing was picked up by one of the cranes and moved backwards. The next flatcar was then moved into place by a yard locomotive that connected to it from behind and pushed it along the tracking until it was coupled. While the loader went about the process of being attached to the second flatcar six cargo handlers threaded steel straps through ports on the three already loaded APCs and cinched them down to the side of the car. By this time, the flatcar behind was ready to receive the next three APCs.

This process continued at all three train assembly sites, on average taking about twenty minutes per flatcar. When they reached the eleventh flatcar two mobile surface-to-air laser vehicles were loaded instead of the APCs. This was MPG doctrine. The two SALs would have their passive systems operating, their active systems on stand-by, and their lasers charged for the entire trip, ready to shoot down any enemy hovers that tried to attack their train. Though there were currently no enemy forces on the ground this was expected to change at any time.

By the end of the process of loading the first train the time per flatcar had been cut down to only twelve minutes by sheer repetition. When the last flatcar was loaded and the last APC secured, the loader and the cranes all withdrew allowing another huge locomotive to move in and couple with the last car. Thus this first train was complete.

The magna-track itself was basically a huge electro-magnet, charged positively by means of power supplied by two fusion plants in the Proctor industrial section. The trains were charged positively as well on the bottom by fusion reactors within the locomotives. The powerful repelling nature of the two charges allowed the locomotives and all of the cars attached to them to float half a meter above the track, able to move with minimal propulsion because the only friction they had to overcome was from the air resistance and the slight drag caused by the magnets themselves. The propulsion was provided by alternating positive and negative fluctuations generated by the locomotive engines acting against the magnetized rail of the track.

Clearance for departure was granted and the traffic control computer made sure that the path before the train was clear. The commander of the train — a member of the MarsTrans Transportation Engineer's union whose leader had negotiated them a hefty hazard pay rate of four and three quarters standard hourly rate — pushed his throttle level forward slightly and the two locomotives began to pull from the front and push from behind. Slowly the massive train began to move forward. It crept through a serious of switches and junctions until it was on one of the outgoing tracks, moving at a soft, sedate ten kilometers per hour. At the end of the yard an access door had already been opened. The train passed through it to the unguarded outside and sped up a bit to forty kilometers per hour. When it passed the last switch and turned west, towards Eden, the commander upped the speed to maximum, a blistering 124 kilometers per hour. The train moved along the elevated tracks, passing between two sets of greenhouse complexes, moving over a few bridges, through a tunnel, and finally, after clearing the last of the greenhouses, into the Casa de Gatos mountain range. Inside the APCs the infantry soldiers sat in their cramped conditions, already bored with the trip, already fearing what was to come. The other two trains bulled out ten and twenty minutes behind the first.

It was 1168 kilometers to Eden, a trip that would take a little over nine hours to complete. Before they'd even cleared the greenhouses the next three trains were already being assembled. After they were done, the tanks, ammunition carriers, fuel carriers, and the rest of the support vehicles would be loaded up — their personnel riding in them as well. And after that, they would begin moving the equipment from the 4th Infantry Division over as well. In all, nearly twenty-eight thousand troops and everything needed to support them would make the trip. It would take more than forty-eight hours of non-stop work to accomplish this. But before the first three trains even entered the mountains the WestHem Panamas up in orbit began to launch their landing ships for their own trip to the battle area.

General Jackson was going over status reports on the troop movements when Major Sprinkle called. "It's on," he told him. "Recon birds are showing multiple landing ship separations."

Jackson looked at the time display on his monitor. "They're earlier than I thought," he said. "Much earlier."

"Yeah," said Sprinkle. "At least we can be pretty much assured that they weren't laying disinformation on us about the landing sites. Most of the troops are still in Libby and Proctor, aren't they?"

"Most of them," Jackson said. "The first trains just left, although the bulk of the 12th and the 16th's APCs are on them. There's not really a way to turn a train around in transit unless it stops and backs up all the way, which would cut the speed down to an eighth or so."

"What if they're going after Ore City," Sprinkle said, "or maybe Viscal?"

"Those are secondary cities, only connected by rail to one other city. Though they'd be easy pickings there's not much value in taking them. They're too isolated from the other cities and all we'd have to do to keep them pinned there indefinitely is to cut our own rail line. That's why we never stationed any significant MPG units there. The four principal cities and Triad are what we've always had to worry about."

"I suppose that makes sense," Sprinkle said.

"What I'm more worried about is that they're not really going to attack Eden and New Pittsburgh, that they're just going to pick one or the other. If they were distributing disinformation for the purpose of rooking us that would have been the best ploy. They get us to divide up their forces and then they slam us on a single target."

"Doesn't their early departure somewhat preclude that option as well?" Sprinkle asked. "As you've pointed out, the bulk of the troops being shifted are still in their home cities."

"It does tend to preclude it," Jackson agreed. "But then nothing is absolute in warfare, is it? I'll feel a lot better when I see that those landing ships are going exactly where we expect them."

This took another hour to determine. The ships formed up into two distinct lines and then, one by one, they moved off into a departure corridor and began their deceleration burns. Once the first four were on their way down it was fairly easy to plot their destination. Half were on a path that would take them in over Eden, the other half were on a path for New Pittsburgh.

"Okay then," Jackson said, relieved. "I'll call Strough and tell him to keep the movement going full throttle ahead. Is MarsGroup still down their photographing the loading process?"

"They are," Sprinkle confirmed. "And they've promised not to broadcast any information about the movements until either the landing ships are all on the ground or the movement is completed. So far they're keeping their word."

"Good for them," Jackson said.

"Although it doesn't really matter that much," Sprinkle said. "You do realize that don't you?"

"Yes, of course," Jackson said. "I'm aware that Mars is rife with WestHem spies and that WestHem marine intelligence has probably been informed about the troop and equipment movements already. But at least we're not actually broadcasting the information and making it official. There's always a little bit of doubt with information from spies."

"That is true," Sprinkle agreed.

"Now that we know where they're going, I need to start mobilizing the ACRs and the artillery forces. I also need to get Colonel Bright's special forces teams ready to launch out there as soon as they touch down. Keep me updated on developments. I want to know exactly when and where they touch down."

"Fuckin' aye, General."

Jackson raised his eyebrows a little at this last statement.

Sprinkle flushed a little bit. "Sorry," he said. "I've been talking to a lot of the new recruits lately and I guess their sayings are starting to brush off on me."

"No worries," Jackson said. "I actually kind of like the way that sounds."

They ended the call and Jackson immediately began contacting the various commanders in each city under threat, ordering them to initiate their plans. "Remember," he told Bright, "if they keep in our range, I want it done just like before. I want your forces on the ground within an hour of them touching down and I want mortars falling on any exposed troops an hour after that. Let's remind them that they are not welcome here."

"My teams are already assembling, General," Bright said. "They'll be in the air as soon as we get information on the landing site."

"You'll get it as soon as I have it," Jackson promised.

Another hour ticked by. Jackson spent much of it reviewing maps and satellite views of the Eden and New Pittsburgh area and checking on the status of the loading of his reinforcements. Finally Sprinkle called him back. He looked worried.

"What is it?" Jackson asked him.

"Both landing forces are approaching the optimum zones according to their doctrine. Both are still over ten thousand meters above the ground, moving fast."

"They're coming in closer?" Jackson said. Browning's initial briefing on the second phase had said they were going to land further out. Though Browning hadn't explained himself to Jackson it was clear that he'd wanted to put his forces beyond the range of the Hummingbirds and Mosquitoes, thus allowing them to secure their area and assemble in peace.

"That's what it looks like, General," Sprinkle said. "If they keep to their current rate of descent they're going to come down awfully close to the range of the 250s, not to mention our tanks."

"They couldn't possibly be that stupid, could they?" Jackson asked. "If they land in gun range those 250s will take their landing ships apart piece by piece."

It turned out they weren't that stupid. The ships began to make their landings, one by one. At the Eden site they touched down directly in the middle of Knoxville Bed — a large, flat area that had once been a shallow lake back in the days when Mars had featured surface water. Located only seventy-five kilometers west of the Jutfield Gap, it was only about twenty kilometers out of range of the MPG heavy guns. At New Pittsburgh they began to land in another large, flat area — this one a wide valley surrounded by tall mountains. Again, they were less than twenty kilometers out of range of the 250s.

"Get this information to special forces command and to air command at both cities," Jackson said. "They have my orders to start planning their deployments as soon as they get it."

"Shipping it now," Sprinkle said. "What do you think they're planning? It's completely against their doctrine to land that close."

"Give me a second to look this over," Jackson said as he flipped back to his map page. It had now been updated with the red dots that indicated confirmed landings. As he watched, two more appeared as two more landing craft settled in. He nodded his head in surprised respect. "Someone up there is doing some thinking," he told Sprinkle.

"How's that, General?"

"Look at these areas they landed in. They're as flat as anything on the surface of Mars and have no hills for our special forces teams to use to get in close. One's a former river valley and one's a former lake. They landed right in the middle of each of them."

"So our special forces teams won't be able to land?"

"They will," Jackson said. "It will just have to be a little further out, maybe fifteen klicks or so. And they won't be able to get as close in either." He sighed. "I hope they don't actually have someone up there who knows what he's doing. That could really complicate things."

"Keep spread out," Lon told his squad. "Stick close to the boulders when you can and for God's sake, keep your eyes peeled for hovers. We have no idea what they're doing at that LZ."

No one answered him but everyone took his words to heart and kept trudging onward.

They were on the Knoxville Bed, less than two kilometers from where the Hummingbird had dropped them off with more than eight kilometers left to march, all of it through disconcertingly flat terrain in which the only cover was the boulders and rocks that had settled into this area millions of years before. Ahead, they could make out the outlines of the landing ships poking up above the surface and could see the bright flare to the west of two more — the last two they were told — coming in for their own landings. They were the first recon unit scheduled to get a look at what was going on with the WestHems. Though the recon satellites had tracked the ships all the way down to the surface, they lacked the sophistication to see what was happening now that they were on the ground.

"What's the word on them sending some of our tanks out here?" Lisa asked, shifting her anti-aircraft laser from one shoulder to the next. When told that the WestHems were landing just outside the city that was the first rumor that has started flying around — the Martian armor — with its ability to suck oxygen in from the atmosphere — had an un-refueled range that put it well within range of driving out here. If armored forces could arrive in time and in great enough numbers they could easily pin the WestHem armor inside of their landing ships forever. That was exactly why extraterrestrial invasion doctrine dictated that forces landed so far out.

"That's part of what we're coming out here to find out," Lon said. "If they haven't unloaded any tanks yet and if they haven't even started to, General Jackson might give the order. He'd be an idiot not to." Lon shrugged. "Of course I'm not convinced yet that he's not an idiot."

"You have to admit," Horishito said, lugging the SAW across his back, "he was right about holding back on the shift of forces. He waited until WestHem committed to hitting Eden and New Pittsburgh and then he started moving them. If he hadn't done that one or the other of us would have been virtually defenseless."

"True," said Lon, who was willing to admit when a position he'd held in the past had been proven wrong. "I still say he fucked up big with that not firing on retreating forces bullshit. If he hadn't done that there'd be a fuck of a lot less of them fight out here."

The conversation petered out — partially because of a lack of new topics, partially because they were getting closer to the WestHem positions and they didn't want to take the chance that a patrol had been sent out that could pick up on their radio emissions. Forty minutes went by and the landing ships grew nearer — near enough that they could now make out details of what was going on.

Lon motioned them to spread out further and take cover. Spreading out was easy enough but taking cover was a little more difficult. The rock cover was pretty sparse out here.

"Switch transmission power down to half," Lon whispered. "I know the ships are still out of range but we're looking at direct line of sight here. You don't get better transmission conditions than this."

Everyone did as was asked.

Lon hunkered behind the largest boulder he could find, which was only about a meter and a half in diameter. The others all did the same, stretching in a line across fifty meters.

"You know something, sarge," said Jefferson, "if they send troops out here in APCs looking for us, there's really nowhere to hide. Effective camouflage range might be cut all the way down to two hundred meters or so."

"I know, Jeffy," Lon said, adjusting his combat goggles. "Whoever is making the decisions for these pukes these days is either really smart or really stupid, depending on what their tanks are doing."

He trained his goggle-enhanced eyes out toward the landing ships. He sighed as he saw what was going on over there. "It looks like maybe we're dealing with really smart," he announced.

There were no exposed troops visible around any of the landing ships. There was, however, at least a battalion worth of main battle tanks, two dozen armored bulldozers, and more than fifty APCs moving around. The tanks were taking up positions on the perimeter, pulling into hull-down positions that had been dug by the bulldozers. The APCs mission was a mystery at first but as they watched them it became hideously clear what they were doing. They would travel over to one of the landing ships — one that they identified as a personnel carrier — and park just under the egress ramp. Ten biosuited soldiers would then quickly emerge, go down the ramp (with a few stumbling and tumbling their way down) and then climb into the APC. The APC would then drive half a kilometer across the open ground and disgorge the soldiers next to the personnel entrance to one of the armor carrying ships.

"They're shuttling," Lon said. "The APCs are taking the tank crews from the personnel ship to the armor ship so they won't be exposed to mortar fire."

"They've learned from the first time," Lisa said, looking through her own combat goggles at the same sight.

"Yeah," Lon said. "I think we might not be as effective here as we were in the first LZ."

"So attacking them with our tanks is out?" Horishito asked.

"Yes," Lon said. "At the rate they're deploying their armor they'll have a couple of battalions dug in on their perimeter in two hours. It will take almost three hours to get our armor out here and they'll be facing prepared positions." He shook his head. "Nope, I think we're going to have to go traditional here."

"Damn," Horishito said. "I was hoping their stupidity was perpetual."

"No such luck," Lon said. "Jeffy, get this out to command and get some pictures if you can. We need to let them know to abandon the tank attack and start preparing for a traditional military engagement. Let them know that special forces attacks, sniper attacks, and mortar attacks are all going to be of minimal or negative effectiveness while they're still at the LZ. Air attacks on the armor might be possible but they're dug in and the range will be at the extreme end of effectiveness."

"Sending it out," Jefferson said.

"All air units moving in on the Eden LZ," the voice spoke in Matt Mendez's ear. "Pull out to staging pre-arranged staging positions and circle. Await further instructions there. Return when fuel levels dictate."

"You hear that, boss?" Matt said with a sigh.

"Yeah," Brian told him. "I hear it. You got a plot for me?"

"Gimmee a minute to come up with one. Shouldn't be too hard."

Brian gave him a minute, continuing to scream low through the mountains to the west of Eden. They had not been given any specific target destination when they'd left but had been assured that special forces teams were approaching the LZ from three sides and would be able to provide them with some kind of targets by the time they got there. Well... apparently that was not the case. Such was war.

"Course is laid in," Matt told him. "Continue forward to the next mountain and then turn right to three-five-four. We'll wind through there for six minutes and then come out in a the Carcinas Valley."

"Got it," Brian said.

As they and their wingman made their way in that direction, more information came in on Matt's side-net.

"No targets at the LZ right now," he told Brian. "They have tanks digging in and bulldozers digging trenches for the tanks. There are a few APCs but they're shuttling tank crews from one ship to the other. Range is outside of eleven klicks from the nearest hillside. No hovers have been launched."

Brian nodded, letting loose a frustrated sigh. "Could it be they're getting smart?" he asked. "I was hoping they'd do something stupid like not put any tanks out. Our tanks could have killed them."

"We'll get ours," Matt said. "We've kicked some serious ass so far."

"Yeah," Brian said. "And how many of those tanks and APCs they're using are ones we would have killed if Jackson had let us during the retreat?"

Matt said nothing, concentrating instead on the course on his screen and the calling out of course changes. After about ten minutes of flight they emerged into another flat valley — known as the Carcinas Valley on maps. Brian put them into a slow, lazy, fuel-efficient circle, six hundred meters above the ground.

They circled in silence for about ten minutes, Brian keeping an eye on his instruments and watching the terrain, Matt taking the opportunity to re-calibrate a few of his mapping software screens and update known enemy positions. Soon boredom began to set in.

"Hey, boss," Matt asked a little timidly, checking to make sure the radio link was not being broadcast to their wing.

"Yeah?"

"How come you ain't never gotten married again?"

Haggerty tensed up a little. His personal life — especially when it related to what had happened to his pregnant wife at the hands of vermin — had always been something that had been silently yet mutually agreed to be a forbidden topic between them. "Why do you ask?"

"Well... I'm not tryin' to offend you or no shit like that," Matt said. "I mean, I heard what happened to your wife and all. But I been with you for a couple months now and I know you get your share of bitches back at the Troop Club. You ever thought about... you know... making it official with one of 'em?"

"No," Brian said tersely. "I never have."

This was a clear signal to Matt that he should drop the conversation. He wasn't quite ready to let it go just yet. In the time he'd been with Brian he'd come to respect him very much — almost worship him — which was remarkable considering the man was a cop. "Like I said, boss, I ain't tryin' to offend you. I just wanted your advice on something. If you don't wanna talk about it, that's static."

Brian sighed. Though he didn't often show it, he too had developed considerable respect for his crewmate, this despite the fact that he was — had been — vermin and a gang member — the very sort of person that had killed his wife. "What kind of advice are you talking about?"

"It's like this," Matt said. "In the ghetto, when you're vermin, you're kind of conditioned to marry early, you know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean," he said. "I've been to a thousand domestic argument calls for eighteen year olds who just got married to someone they couldn't stand so they could get their own apartment. I think that was half of what was wrong with our fucking planet under the WestHems."

"Exactly," Matt said. "And I know that you guys that were not vermin — you know, people with jobs and shit — you weren't quite as bad as us, but that you still seemed to get married pretty early too."

"Yeah," he agreed. "Most of us do. Mandy and I were kind of the exception. I was twenty-nine and she was twenty-seven."

"That's pretty fuckin' old all right," Matt said. "Was it because you waited until you found the one bitch you really loved?"

"No," Brian said reluctantly. "That's not really the reason at all." He looked around, checking his instruments again and then making a minor adjustment to his circle. "Look, kid," he said. "If you tell anyone else what I'm about to tell you, I'll personally twist your head off and shove it up your ass."

"Hey, Thrusters honor," Matt said, tapping the portion of the arm of his biosuit that covered his tattoo.

"Jesus Christ," Brian said, shaking his head. "Anyway, when Mandy and I met and started banging each other it was nothing but infatuation. I thought she was a pretentious little nerd — she'd been to college and was a fuckin' teacher. She thought I was a macho asshole who liked to beat up on vermin. There wasn't no click or anything with us but... well... she was... she was really hot, you know. She was the hottest bitch I'd ever been with. I'd never gotten married earlier because I used to just fuck anything I could get my dick into and then never call them the next day. That's the Martian way, isn't it?"

"Fuckin' aye," Matt agreed.

"The problem was, I enjoyed the Martian way so much I never really wanted to settle down with anyone, I'd never felt the urge. But there's all this pressure on us to get married and pump out that kid. My parents were always nagging at me, my co-workers were always wondering if maybe I was just a rump-ranger trying to compensate who was afraid to admit it."

"They thought that about you?" Matt asked. "What the hell? Who gives a shit if someone likes to slide into some ass? This ain't fuckin' Earth."

"I know," Brian said. "It sounds strange but there are some strange points of view in the police department. We're law enforcement officers, after all, and being a rump ranger is technically against the law — although I'm here to tell you there are a lot of rump rangers on the force."

"No shit?"

"No shit," Brian said. "They keep low-pro but we all know who they are. My friends were starting to figure I was just in the closet because I was afraid of the ramifications." He shook his head. "I didn't really care about all that. To tell you the truth, I've actually tried the whole rump-ranging thing back in my high school and vocational training days. I've sucked a few schlongs, even let some hairy motherfucker stick his boner up my ass. I didn't care for it much so I never tried it again. I mean, that's the Martian way too, right?"

"Right," Matt agreed. Although he'd never actually tried it himself he certainly didn't begrudge Brian for having given it a shot.

"So it wasn't the rump-ranger rumors that got to me," Brian said. "What was mostly bothering me was the fact that people were thinking that something was wrong with me because I wasn't married because everyone gets married before twenty-five unless there is something wrong with them, right? That's just the way people think."

"Exactly," Matt said. "Except in the ghetto they start thinking that about you at around nineteen. That's what I wanted to talk to you about."

"I see," Brian said. "Well, to make a long, probably best-untold story short, Mandy was kind of the same way. She liked diving into some muff every once in a while but mostly she just liked to get it on." He smiled a little. "She was really good at it too, better even than most Martians — and that's saying something. She'd never felt the urge to settle down with one person either. But her family and her co-workers and everyone else around her was starting to wonder the same things about her. So when we met and when we both figured out we were both as obsessed about sex as the other, that made us commiserate with each other in just the right way. So we stayed together."

"Just because you liked to fuck each other?" Matt asked.

"That was virtually the only thing we had in common with each other," Brian confirmed. "After about three or four months of boffing each other in every way three times a day, people started to see us as a couple. After awhile, we started to feel like a couple. And before you know it... well, we were standing in the marriage chapel saying those vows." He shrugged. "It made our families very happy and stopped all the rumors."

"So it wasn't a happy marriage?" Matt asked, surprised considering the hatred the man had of the vermin as a result of what happened.

"It was a marriage based on sex so, in a way, it wasn't all that bad. We learned to tolerate each other and we even became something like friends after a few months, although we still fought like EastHems and WestHems. But every time we fought, no matter what we fought about or how serious it was, we could always make it better with sex. It was that kind of a marriage."

"And is that the kind of marriage you would recommend?" Matt asked.

"No," he said immediately. "We had our reproductive blocks turned off right away because that's another thing we're expected to do in this society. She got knocked up within two weeks. If she hadn't of been killed... well... I'm honest enough with myself to realize that we wouldn't have lasted five years. A marriage based on sexual infatuation can't last forever."

"Wow," Matt said, in awe, as if these were the wisest words ever muttered since Jesus Christ had spoken at the Temple on the Mount. "That's fuckin' deep, boss."

"It's common sense, kid," Brian said. "Common fucking sense. And that's what we're out here fighting for, isn't it? So I've told you my sad story. I've all but admitted that the hatred I feel for the people who did this to me is because they took away a static sex toy and put me back in the situation of people wondering why I'm not getting married again. So what's your question? You wondering if you should find some bitch you can tolerate just so you can say you're married and stop having people think you're different?"

"How'd you know that?" Matt asked, wide-eyed.

"It was apparent for the past three weeks. I see the way you act around that loader you've been banging. She's what — twenty-two? Never been married? She starting to put the old pressure on?"

"A little bit," Matt said. "And... like... you know... I kind of like Surrender and she's hot in bed and all and she's fuckin' educated. I mean, I ain't never had me no bitch that's even graduated high school before and she's got a fuckin' masters degree and she's kind of hinted that she might be interested in putting her finger on the pad with me. She's never been married because she's spent all of her life workin' on her education."

"So you're flattered by her attentions and impressed by her accomplishments?"

"Well... yeah," Matt said. "And she's really good at sex too. I ain't never done some of the shit she showed me before. I didn't even think people really did that shit."

"Oh yeah?" Brian asked. "Like what?"

Matt actually found himself blushing. "She gave me a rim job," he said. "And then she had me do the same thing to her. And then... well... she did this thing with her feet."

"I get the point," Brian said.

"But she's also goin' on and on about how much she wants to have her kid and start raising it. And she talks about how nice it would be to have a two-bedroom apartment."

"Do you love her?" Brian asked.

"Well... I'm not sure," he said. "We've only known each other for..."

"If you're not sure, you don't love her," Brian told him. "I've never been in love myself, but I've talked to enough people who really were to know that's the God-fucking truth, kid. If you don't know for sure, you don't love her. And if you don't love her, you don't want to marry her."

"But what if I never find anyone I love?"

Brian shrugged. "I learned from my first experience," he said. "I'm not going to get married again until I know I'm in love and I know she's in love with me. If that never happens then it never happens. I'll just go on fucking everything with a pussy that will let me in and I'll still die happy. Fuck what other people think about that. I mean, what do I care?"

Matt thought that over for a few seconds. "Damn," he said. "That's really fuckin' radical, boss."

"Ain't it though?"

They'd been watching for almost an hour now. APCs continued to shuttle tank crewmen from one landing ship to another and tanks continued to come down the ramp where they would drive to a staging position and await assignment to a prepared position on the perimeter. Meanwhile the bulldozers continued to work like mad, preparing those hull-down positions.

"No way in hell anything is gonna get in that perimeter," Lisa observed. "We could throw every tank in Eden at them and they'd throw them all back in ten minutes."

"Yep," agreed Lon. "And there's too many of them for us to start sniping with our own ATs. We'd hit three or four of them — maybe — and then they'd rake us with eighty-millimeter fire. There's not enough cover or even concealment out here to protect us and the nearest place we can bring down a Hummingbird without having it plastered is six klicks back."

"We'll have to pound them on the march," Horishito said.

"But we won't have as much time to do it in," Jefferson pointed out. "They're only a hundred and twenty klicks from the city and only seventy-five from the gap."

"We're gonna have to work twice as hard," Lisa said. "So will the Mosquito crews."

"You got that shit right," Lon said. "If we don't slow them down somehow they're gonna get to the gap before our reinforcements get there. If the gap falls without the ACRs inflicting heavy casualties on them the 2nd Infantry might not be able to hold — especially if the reinforcements aren't there yet either."

They all pondered that thought worriedly, none liking this sudden debut of what appeared to be sensible thinking on the part of the WestHems.

"Our whole doctrine depends on slowing them down," Jefferson said. "There has to be a way to do it."

"Nothing that we're gonna be able to do," Lon said. "We're stuck out here observing and reporting. And what we're observing and reporting is bad news."

The news became worse a few minutes later. It was Lisa — whose sector of responsibility included the middle portion of the landing zone — who spotted it first. She saw flares of heat from one of the ships. Her trained eyes grew wide as she saw that the ship in question was a hover-carrier and that the flares of heat were caused by excess interior atmosphere being vented out due to the opening of many doors on the side of the ship.

"Shit on me," she said. "Sarge, take a look at ship two-seven — the hover carrier. They just opened every goddamn door on the side."

"The launch doors?" Lon asked, alarmed. He quickly reduced the zoom on his goggles and began panning in the direction where the ship designated as twenty-seven was located.

"The launch doors," Lisa confirmed. "And now I'm getting heat flare from inside almost all of them. They're sending hovers out! An assload of them."

The discipline instilled in the special forces members prevented the rest of the team from abandoning their areas of observational responsibility to take a look at what Lisa was reporting. For this reason Corporal Spunkmaster — one of the recent replacements for the two casualties from phase one — was the next to make an observation.

"I'm getting the same thing from landing ship one-eight," he said. "That's the other hover-carrier. Multiple doors opening and heat flare of engines from inside."

"Jesus Christ, sarge," Jefferson said. "You think they picked up a transmission from us or from one of the other teams?"

"If they know where we're at we're fuckin' toast," said Horishito, a hint of fear in his voice. "There ain't nowhere for us to hide out here!"

"Everyone chill," Lon said as he finally managed to zoom in and see what Lisa had reported. "If they knew we were out here they'd hit us with their arty first. This looks like... like an air strike."

"An air strike?" Horishito said. "But they haven't set up a forward refuel point. How are they gonna... oh shit," he said, as the ramifications of his words suddenly struck him.

"Holy shit," Lon said. "Now we know why they landed so far forward. They won't need a fucking forward refuel point from here. Eden is within their range!"

"The 250s," Lisa said. "That has to be what they're going after! The 250s and maybe the air launch facilities for the Mosquitoes and the Hummingbirds!"

"Shit," Lon said. "Why the fuck didn't someone think of this?"

The hovers began to emerge from their ship, easing out on flares of bright heat and then rising into the air and drifting outward. In only twenty seconds more than thirty of them had launched from each ship. They began to form up some two hundred meters above their ships.

"Jefferson," Lon said, "send off a priority report about this. Hovers assembling above the LZ in large numbers. Prepare for air strike. Will report more when they move out."

"Right, sarge," he said, turning on his communications gear and quickly setting up the message. Before he was even done transcribing it the entire compliment of hovers had launched and assembled.

"What's our count?" Lon asked.

"Sixty-three of them," Horishito said.

"That's my count too," Lisa confirmed. "All of them attack hovers."

As a unit, the formation of hovers turned and began to move to the east, accelerating as they went, but descending and staying less than one hundred meters above the ground. Before they were out of sight it was clear that they'd accelerated to their top Martian speed of one hundred and seventy kilometers per hour.

"Send the next message," Lon told Jefferson. "Six-three attack hovers moving east from the LZ at one-seven-zero, altitude one-zero-zero."

"Sending it," Jefferson reported. "I hope there's someone up there to hit them."

There was someone up there — three different flights of Mosquitoes circling and awaiting further instructions — but all of them were running low on fuel. Brian and Matt's flight of two were the closest and they'd just sent off an encrypted message to flight command letting them know they would need to head in for refuel in the next ten minutes. They had been awaiting their reply when the emergency action message came over the radio frequency.

"Fuck me," Matt said as he listened to the message. "Boss, did you hear that shit?"

"I caught some of it," Brian said. "Repeat it."

"Six-three attack hovers have just launched from the Eden LZ. They're heading east at one-zero-zero meters AGL, moving maximum speed. All units move to intercept if possible."

"Sixty-three of them?" Brian said. "Shit. I was hoping I'd heard wrong." He looked down at his fuel gauge and clicked his lips a few times.

"They gotta be going after the 250s," Matt said. "If they get through they'll kill them!"

"Get us an intercept course right now!" Brian told him. "We need to drop as many as we can!"

"Boss, we got the fuel to do that? If we go turnin' and burnin' while we're on low we might not make it back to the base."

"We need to try," Brian said. "If we have to ditch before we get back then we have to ditch. Now get me that fucking course and then open up a channel to our wing."

Matt didn't hesitate for an instant. "Right, boss," he said, flipping over to the navigation screen. "Plotting it now."

"If we find them fast, hit hard, and identify their path for the rest of the Mosquitoes we should be able to pull back and make it to base." He shook his head a little. "Should be."

"Right," Matt said, his fingers flying over his screen, trying to intersect their current position with an imaginary line where sixty-three hovers moving one hundred and seventy klicks an hour would be at the time they got in the vicinity. "Broad fuckin' daylight," he said. "It'll be harder to pin them down from a distance. And if we get too high they'll be able to engage us."

"We need to find them," Brian said. "That's the most important thing. Get me some kind of a course so I can get moving!"

Matt's course plotting was far from complete but he knew at least the basics. "Turn to one-seven-two. Prelim look has an intersection of them and us in about six minutes."

"Doing it," Brian said. "And get the wing on the line. Fuck radio silence. This is an emergency."

That was a simple flip of a switch. "You're hot," Matt told him and then bent over his plot again, barely noticing the sharp turn of the aircraft to the right.

Their wing had already followed them through the turn and accelerated to maximum right alongside them. Brian keyed his mic and told them what they were doing.

"Brian, the fuel's gonna be awfully fuckin' tight here," said Collins, one of the recently trained pilots.

"No shit," Brian told him. "You head back to base if you don't wanna risk it. You're well within doctrine and I won't think any less of you. But I'm going after those fuckers and if we have to ditch on the way back that's the breaks."

There was a slight hesitation and then Collins said, "I'm with you. Lead the way."

"My sis is working on it now," Brian told him.

They flew on in silence for another fifty-two seconds. Finally Matt came up with an official estimated plot. He found it wasn't all that different than his instinctive guess. "Turn left to one-seven-four," he said. "If they follow their course and speed from the LZ as reported and if the time is right that will put us out over the valley right in front of them."

"Got it," Brian said, making the adjustment. "And ship it to the wing and to air command."

"Already done, boss," Matt said. "They're reporting all of the other flights are moving in as well. Their positions and courses are coming up on our screen now."

"Fuckin' aye," Brian said. "Get those cannons charged up. I want us to hit fast when we find them. Hit any of them you can."

"Right," Matt said.

They reached the intercept point exactly on time. The two aircraft shot out over the valley and then turned sharply to the west. They saw nothing but emptiness below them.

"Where the fuck are they?" Brian asked, his enhanced eyes looking for something, anything that resembled heat in the infrared spectrum.

"They're not exactly here," Matt said. "They're either in front of us or behind us. So they're either going faster or slower than we thought."

"Which is it though?" Brian asked. "Are they in front of us or behind?"

"How about we split up?" Matt suggested. "We go east and Collins goes west? That way one of us should come up on them."

"With only half the firepower," Brian said. "And they might be winding their way through the mountains instead of following the valley. If they're doing that neither one of us will find them."

"So what do we do?" Matt asked.

"We don't have much time. We need to climb and look down from above."

"Climb? Are you crazy, boss? If we go up high and they spot us they'll pot us out of the sky!"

"I want to do it," Brian said. "I think it's important enough to risk our asses for. If you object, tell me now and we'll keep searching low."

"Fuck," Matt muttered. "You're determined to kill my ass, ain't you?"

Brian grinned. "You want to live forever or something?"

"Naw," Matt said. "It would be boring. Let's do it."

"I knew I liked you for a reason," Brian said. He flipped over to the wing channel again. "Collins," he said. "We're going high and we're gonna find these fuckers. Circle right here and we'll vector you in."

"Brian, you can't do that!" Collins shot back. "They'll shoot you down if you're caught up high!"

"We'll spot and drop," Brian said. "We made our decision in here. You just do what you're told."

"Brian, this is against standing orders!" Collins said. "You know that!"

"I must've been absent the day they told us that order," Brian said. "Start circling and get ready to move in."

"Brian..." Collins started.

"Do it!" Brian said. "We're going up." He pushed forward on his throttle and pulled back on the stick. The aircraft began to climb, streaking into the pink Martian sky, the hillsides and the valleys dwindling quickly below them, the altimeter blurring with altitude it rarely showed.

"Nothing yet," Matt said, terrified as he watched them pass through a thousand meters and continue upward. Even if they did manage to not get shot down they had just burned up a good portion of their precious fuel climbing up here. The chances of making it back to the base were looking slimmer and slimmer.

"They're out there somewhere," Brian said. "The instant you see them, get a position and we're diving back down."

"Right, boss," Matt said, looking out in all directions, his head swiveling like a radar dish.

It was when they got to thirty-two hundred meters above the ground that he spotted something. "I got a heat blur!" he said. "Moving fast. Now two, now three! It's them! The rear elements of the strike. They're in the mountains north of the valley. Locking position now."

"Hurry it up!" Brian said, leveling off and preparing to dive. "If we can see them they can see us. Out of sixty-three of them one of them must be looking!"

Matt quickly marked the position on the map, got their speed and course, and then told the computer to coordinate it and give him a longitude and latitude. This only took three seconds to accomplish. It took another two for him to broadcast the position of the hovers to command so it could be forwarded to every other unit in the field. It was only five seconds but it was too much.

They never saw it coming. Eight of the hover gunners below had spotted their heat signature and six of them locked on and fired their anti-aircraft lasers. Five of them hit right on the hottest spot — just forward of the rocket outlets. The laser energy burned into their engine, searing through the hydrogen and oxygen delivery system and the main combustion chamber. A tremendous explosion resulted, blowing the aircraft into pieces. The computer controlled ejection system sensed the fatal injury to the aircraft the instant the first laser hit and automatically ejected the two crew members in less than a tenth of a second but even this was not quite fast enough. The aircraft had not been designed to absorb so much damage at one time.

For Matt it all happened in an instant. There was a bright flash, a loud noise, and he felt himself jolted harshly and spun backwards through flame and smoke. He felt a sharp, agonizing pain lance into his backside, right where his buttocks rested against his seat. There was a brief loss of consciousness and then he was looking at the ground far below and feeling a thrum of rocket power from beneath. Ahead of him he saw their aircraft falling to the ground in pieces, falling faster than he was. It took him a moment to realize where he was and what had happened. It was the pain that brought him back, the pain in his left ass cheek. It felt like he was on fire.

"Fuck!" he yelled, wanting to reach down and touch his injured portion, not quite daring. As he realized he'd been ejected from the aircraft he reverted to his training and tucked his arms against his chest.

Somewhere off to the right of him he saw the flare of another rocket engine slowly descending at about the same altitude as he. That would be Brian, his fuzzy brain told him. He had been kicked out as well, at least in good enough shape that his ejection seat was operating.

Another flare streaked below him, though how far below he was unable to judge. It was the flare of a semi-rocket engine on full thrust. After squinting his eyes a little Matt was able to make out the distinctive flying wing shape of a Mosquito. That would be Collins and Taylor, their wing, streaking after the formation of hovers but also checking to make sure he and Brian had ejected safely. As if to confirm this Collins flashed the landing lights three times and then waggled his wings. An instant later the aircraft disappeared into a pass in the mountains.

"Matt, you there?" Brian's voice suddenly spoke in his ear.

Oh yes, his still reeling brain remembered. Upon ejection the two crewmembers' suit radios were automatically tuned to a tactical channel with each other. The selection of this channel was part of the pre-flight checklist. Well now he knew why.

"Matt?" Brian repeated. "Talk to me, kid. Tell me you're okay."

"Sorry, boss," Matt said. "I got a little rattled when they hit us. Are you okay?"

"I got a little whiplash from the ejection but I'll live. How about you?"

"I got hit with something," he told him. "It hurts."

"Where?" Brian asked, alarmed.

"Right in my fuckin' ass cheek," he said.

"How bad is it?"

"Don't know, it just hurts like a motherfucker. I guess I'll find out when we get down."

"Stay put after we set down," Brian told him. "Don't even un-strap from your chair unless it falls over or looks like it's about to blow up. I'll come over and check you out."

"Right," Matt replied.

The ejection seat sat him down just as it was supposed to, easing him to a soft landing on the flattest piece of ground below. A large dust cloud was blown outward as the rocket beneath him blasted the surface. When the rocket cut off he was sitting neatly on the surface like a man in a lawn chair. About half a kilometer in front of him he could see the remains of two WestHem APCs from the first phase of the battle. The sight warmed him. It was entirely possible that he and Brian might have been the ones to kill those two.

"I'm down, boss," he said. "Sitting upright and feeling like someone's burning my left cheek off with a cutting laser."

"I'm down too," Brian said. "I got my GPS up. You're two hundred and twelve meters west of me. I'm on my way. Just sit tight."

"Where are we at?" Matt asked him.

"We're in the plains about thirty klicks from the Jutfield Gap. Now shut up until I get there and we can switch down to a lower range channel."

"Right," Matt said.

He didn't spot Brian coming toward him until he was about sixty meters away. He was, after all, wearing a model 459 biosuit and it was broad daylight in the equatorial plain. When he did see him he had to suppress a laugh when he saw his pilot stumble and fall down not just once but twice, both times muttering coarse expletives. Finally he reached him and signaled with his hand that they should switch to channel five. Matt reached down to his suit computer and made the adjustment.

"Someone reach out and trip you?" Matt asked him.

"Very funny, asshole," Brian said sourly. "Wait until you try walking out here. Now I know why the WestHem marines have such a hard time of it." He looked at him carefully. "Will you be able to walk?"

"Don't know," Matt said. "I haven't tried yet."

"Fair enough," Brian said. "I made contact with emergency command back at the base. I let them know we're down and alive but you're injured. They have our position and they'll launch a Hummingbird to come get us as soon as the air strike is resolved."

"Static," Matt said. "You think they'll get through?"

Brian shook his head. "I don't know," he said. "They caught us with our pants down, that's for damn sure. Hopefully we spotted them in time."

"I'd hate to have gone through all this for nothing."

"Let's take a look at how bad you are," Brian said, setting down the large emergency supply pack that was part of his ejection seat. He opened it up and removed a first aid kit. Inside of it was a medical scanner. "Any warning lights on your suit?" he asked.

"I got a diagnostic that its been penetrated in the posterior mid section but I already fuckin' know that. I'm not losing pressure so it must've sealed."

"That's encouraging," Brian said. He went around behind Matt and kneeled down on the ground, craning his head down to look at the back of the seat. "Jesus," he said.

"What?"

"A bunch of shrapnel went right through the bottom of your seat. It punched through the steel plate. If it would've hit just five centimeters to the right and a little further up it would've got the oxygen supply line for your rocket."

Matt felt a shudder go through him at this news. He tried to shake it off. "Well, I would've got down a lot sooner if that would've happened, wouldn't I?"

"Yeah," Brian said. "Let me see what we got here." He ran the scanner over Matt's lower back and then looked at the reading. "Your spine is intact at least down to the curve of the seat. No kidney damage, no internal bleeding."

"So far so good," Matt said. "Can I get off of this thing now?"

"Yeah, let's give it a try. Release the harness and then move forward, onto your stomach. I'll be able to scan your backside that way."

Matt chuckled despite the pain and the knowledge that he'd almost died. "You always did wanna scan my ass, didn't you?" he asked.

Brian chuckled back. "You're funny. Now get the damn harness off and lay down. I know there's no enemy reported in the area but we really need to get under some cover."

Matt did as he was told, blowing the harness release button and stepping carefully forward. He immediately found that his balance was off. He was used to being in reduced gravity but that was only while strapped into an aircraft. He had never had to walk or move around in it in his life. He pushed himself forward too hard and found himself falling forward, but at a very slow speed. He hit the ground and bounced upward, sending a little puff of Martian dust into the air. He bounced one more time and then settled.

"That was graceful," Brian remarked, turning on the scanner and aiming it at its target. The scan took only a few seconds and the results were quite favorable. "You're a lucky motherfucker."

"Yeah?" Matt said.

"Something ripped through your suit, took a big chunk out of your left ass cheek and then exited out the other side. Nothing vital hit. No penetration past the bottom layer of flesh, no vessels hit, both holes sealed up normally, and you're no longer actively bleeding because of the pressure from the suit."

"No shit?" Matt asked. "I'm gonna be okay?"

"You're already okay," Brian said. "I'm sure it hurts like hell but you should be able to walk normally."

"Static," Matt said. He tried to get to his feet. It wasn't an easy task to accomplish. Twice he stumbled and fell, the second time right onto his injured ass cheek, sending a bright flash of pain up and down his body.

"Not all that easy, is it?" Brian said, extending a hand to help him.

"No, I guess it ain't," he agreed, taking the hand.

When they were both standing Matt walked to his ejection seat and removed his own survival pack. They each dug in their own and removed cases which contained broken down M-24 rifles and three magazines of ammunition. They quickly assembled them, loaded them, and mated them to their combat goggles.

"Let's head for that rise over there," Brian said, pointing to a shallow hill two hundred meters to their east.

"Sounds good," Matt agreed.

They headed off, both stumbling and falling again before they learned to walk very slowly.

"I'm sorry about all this," Brian said. "I know it was against orders but I thought that spotting those hovers was more important than orders. I got us shot down and got you injured. I'll take full responsibility when we get back to the base."

Matt simply shrugged. "I agreed to go up with you, remember?" he said. "I'm just as much responsible as you are."

"I feel bad that you got injured," Brian said. "I feel horrible about that."

"Hey," Matt told him. "It ain't no thing. It's just a little skin off my ass, that's all."

And while Matt was getting some skin taken off his ass, the hovers continued on their course, their pilots and gunners elated that they had actually shot down a Martian aircraft — the first such accomplishment of the conflict by a hover. They had borrowed the Martian tactic of hiding in the hills and staying low, hoping to keep concealed until they made their final target run. Their primary targets were — as speculated by Lon and his team and by Brian and Matt — the Martian heavy guns. There were twenty emplacements to be struck, the weapon of choice the high-intensity laser mounted at the front of each hover. In order to conserve fuel none of the eighty-millimeter shells for their main cannons had been loaded.

Collins and Taylor, armed with the position report sent by Brian and Matt, were the first to make contact with the force. They came in from behind them, screaming low and at full throttle, moving so fast they damn near collided with the rearmost hover when they finally rounded a hill and overtook them. Taylor dropped two of them in less than four seconds, sending them spinning into the gully below, only one of the crews safely ejecting. By the time his cannons recharged they were over the front of the formation. He dropped two more and then Collins spun them off into the side hills, getting them out of range. They circled around one more time and shot out perpendicular to the hover formation, cutting it in two and dropping one more hover to the ground. They then egressed back out over the valley right over the Jutfield Gap positions and headed for base, their fuel warning light flashing steadily. Their engine flamed out when they were still ten kilometers from the base. Collins brought them to a bumpy, grinding, crash landing on the surface with only minimal damage to the aircraft.

By this time, two other flights of Mosquitoes had located the hover formation. They swarmed in, lasers flashing, engines screaming. Ten more hovers fell on the first pass and then another six on the second although one of the Mosquitoes was also felled by a lucky shot from a hover gunner. The crew safely ejected but had to scramble to get away from the vengeful hover crews who had also ejected in the area.

By this point the MPG base, alerted to the incoming air strike, had managed to launch six more Mosquitoes into the air and had six more waiting to cycle through the airlocks and get airborne. These six were combined into one large flight and they found the formation twenty-one kilometers from their targets. They ripped into them without regard for their own safety, dropping another twenty-two to the ground but losing two of their own number.

This left twenty-nine intact hovers when they reached their initial point. Their lasers were charged and they rose into the air, seeking their targets. The attack plan of a hover strike at such a target is to rise up, quickly acquire and hit the target, and then drop immediately back down and egress. Unfortunately for the hover crews, the MPG air defense forces had already been alerted to their impending arrival and the fixed surface-to-air laser sites that protected the heavy guns were charged and ready. They locked on to the bright heat sources with pinpoint accuracy and fired. These lasers were fed directly from the Eden power grid and were much more powerful than those mounted on the Mosquitoes. It was, in fact, one of these lasers that had taken down the marine reinforcements back in the beginning. When they opened up, ten of the hovers exploded into oblivion in an instant, scattering debris over half a kilometer and vaporizing their crews. But before these lasers could recharge, the remaining nineteen hovers had reached their firing points. Confusion and fear was rampant among their crews at this point and several of them aimed at the same emplacement and one crew missed its target entirely. But when their lasers were done flashing fifteen of the heavy guns had been hit, the laser energy burning through their concrete housings and searing into the delicate gun mechanisms, fusing them, twisting them, rendering them completely inoperable.

The hovers turned and began heading back towards their LZ, screaming as low as possible. They didn't make it far. The recharged SALs exploded another eight before they could get out of range. The freshly launched Mosquitoes from the MPG base caught the rest before they could even make it back to the Jutfield Gap, dropping them one by one. Not a single hover survived the attack but the damage had been done. The Eden area of operation was left with only five heavy guns to stave off the WestHem artillery in the coming attack.

At New Pittsburgh the damage was not quite as severe. Because of logistical problems the New Pittsburgh strike had launched fifteen minutes after the Eden strike. New Pittsburgh had, by this point, already been alerted to the possibility that they might be attacked from the air. Fully fueled Mosquitoes had been launched in advance and were waiting for them. Though no one in New Pittsburgh had been quite brave or stupid enough to try Brian and Matt's technique of going high to locate them, one of the flights found them when they were still fifty kilometers out. They'd been whittled down and then subsequently massacred by the fixed SAL sites when they reached their target. As a result only four of the New Pittsburgh area heavy guns fell to the air strike but, like at Eden, every single one of the hovers was eventually taken down.

Chapter 22

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

September 13, 2146

1718 hours

Major Wilde sat at his desk, watching the InfoServe main news channel that was being beamed over from Earth. It was the top of the hour news summary, although, since it had taken it eighteen minutes to travel to Mars it was no longer the top of the hour. He was shaking his head in disgust and disbelief with every word the grinning newscaster spoke.

"At precisely 1300 hours, Eden and New Pittsburgh time, today, WestHem marines kicked off the second phase of Operation Martian Hammer by launching a massive air strike at military installations controlled by the rogue terrorist members of the Martian Planetary Guard that have been holding the planet hostage. This strike involved upwards of two hundred VTOL extra-terrestrial hovers armed with high-intensity lasers. The name given to this two-pronged strike was 'Operation Hammer Down' according to General Browning in his latest press release."

Wilde made a particularly sour face at the mention of the name. Yes, it was a hammer down operation all right, he thought. Only it was us who got hammered. One hundred percent losses! The worst disaster in extra-terrestrial aviation since... well, since phase one of Martian Hammer. Once again they took a foolproof plan and fucked it all up.

"As we reported earlier," the news anchor went on, "things did not look like they were getting off to a good start on the surface for this second phase. At both cities the landing ships launched from orbit were forced to land at alternate sites, closer in to their targets than doctrine dictates and than was reported yesterday to us. The reason for this was because of reports to marine intelligence that the Martian terrorists had planted powerful improvised mines in the selected landing areas."

"Mines," Wilde muttered. Does anyone really believe that crap? I mean back on Earth, in the ghettos, in the factories, in the upper-end housing buildings? Do they really?

"Now however," the anchor said brightly, "it seems that General Browning has managed to make the best of a bad situation with Operation Hammer Down. Taking advantage of the relatively short distance to target from the alternate landing sites, these two hundred hovers flew directly into the teeth of the most heavily defended Martian terrorist positions, destroying artillery sites, surface-to-air laser sites, portions of the Martian bases themselves, and many of the reinforced defensive positions that the suicide teams staged from in the first phase of the operation.

"General Browning, in a statement issued just twenty minutes ago, tells us that several of the hovers did go down during the engagement and that several pilots and gunners were forced to eject. As to whether these aircraft were shot down or brought down by friendly fire or collision is unknown. The fate of these crews are also unknown at this time although General Browning states there is a good possibility they might be recovered alive before the Martians can capture them."

They cut to a scene from Browning's press conference after the operation. "The crews that participated in this strike have only just returned to base," he told the solar system, "and we have not had a chance to debrief them just yet. We do have search and rescue hovers out at this minute heading for the areas where the aircraft went down. When we know more we'll release it immediately."

Wilde yelled at the computer to change over to a music station. He was unable to stand another second of having their own propaganda thrown back in his face. He actually felt physically ill. His illness was made worse when Major Falon, head of the personnel department for the operation, commed him and told him the real news.

"The Martians worked pretty fast this time," he told Wilde. "They sent over four lists of names. Two were the captured list from Eden and New Pittsburgh. They've captured seventy-six crewmembers from Eden, nine of whom are injured; and sixty-four from New Pittsburgh, eleven of whom are injured. The other two were lists of KIAs from the raid. They've scanned and recovered twenty-six dead in Eden and thirty-eight in New Pittsburgh. The rest of the men from each city are unaccounted for but they put in a note that multiple aircraft near each target area were completely destroyed by the fixed SAL sites and that body identification is impossible without DNA sampling. They will do that after a cease fire is in place one way or the other."

Wilde nodded. "You gotta hand it to those greenies," he said. "At least they let us know."

"Rubbing it in is more like it," Falon said bitterly. He had, after all, received a lot of lists from the Martians over the past week.

"Call it what you want," Wilde said. "Send off the numbers and the names to command like usual and they'll bury it like usual."

"They have to do that, Wilde," Falon said. "The public simply wouldn't understand if we told them how bad the losses have really been."

"Yeah," Wilde said, not bothering to argue. It would be pointless. "I'll catch you later, Falon. Hopefully we won't have to talk that much in the future."

"We won't, ' Falon said righteously. "That new plan of General Browning's is going to bring those murdering terrorists to their knees."

"I certainly hope so," Wilde said. He signed off. He then put in a call to General Browning. He was put on hold for the better part of ten minutes before Browning's image graced his screen. The general looked upset, a state he confirmed with his first words.

"Those goddamned media reps are still calling every five minutes to bitch at me," he yelled at Wilde. "I told you this would happen if you changed one iota of that plan we submitted! Several of them are even threatening to do an expose on me!"

Wilde knew exactly what he was talking about. The big three reps, both here and on Earth, were very upset that the landing ships had come down more than two hundred kilometers closer to their respective cities than had been outlined in the briefing documents they'd been given. Though it was only a minor change, one made at the last minute so the air strikes could be launched without a refuel point and so the march time to engagement would be minimized, the media didn't like things to deviate from what they had reported as "the plan". They felt it made the public lose respect for their investigative powers. They had been in full-blown outrage mode in the first hours after the landings, some going so far as to call for Browning's resignation for using them as a disinformation vehicle. It was only after Browning fed them the bullshit about the Martians laying mines in the primary landing sites that they began to ease off a bit. True, they all knew the story was bullshit but at least it gave them something plausible (if not entirely realistic) to tell the public.

"It was a necessary operational change," Wilde told Browning for perhaps the twentieth time.

"Yes, yes," Browning said. "So you say. It's what let us launch those air strikes... and by the way, they're pretty pissed off about the air strikes as well. They want to know why they weren't informed in advance and why they weren't allowed to video the hovers launching and returning."

"Sir, it was a secret air strike. That means you don't tell anyone about it. And even without them knowing about it you managed to screw it up anyway. We took one hundred percent losses on that strike, sir. One hundred percent. We have only three attack hovers left in our entire Martian inventory now. Sixty-five percent of our pilots and gunners are now either dead or captured."

"Surely you're not suggesting that is my fault," Browning said huffily. "You are the one who planned those air strikes. You told me they would decimate their targets with minimal losses."

"Sir, I planned those air strikes to be launched simultaneously the moment all of the landing ships were on the ground. You delayed the launch for more than two hours just so you could give the operation a catchy name and say that it was launched precisely at 1300."

"It is somewhat traditional to have a nice, round starting time for any major military mission," Browning said. "You know that, Wilde."

"And at what point did that start to take precedence over the element of surprise, General?" Wilde asked. "Those hovers were supposed to launch and be on their targets before the Martians even knew they were in the air. Instead, you delayed the launch until 1300. That gave the Martians enough time to get some of their special forces teams on our perimeter to report the launch."

Again Browning refused to take any sort of responsibility for this. "You said those flat areas we landed in would prevent the greenies from sending special forces teams after us."

"I said no such thing," Wilde replied, no longer caring about the insubordination. "I said the flat area would force them to drop their teams further out and prevent them from moving in too close. I never said their teams would be blinded to what we were doing. That's why I had the APCs shuttle crewmen to the tanks, remember? That's why I had the landing ships form a big perimeter of their own, so the armor could assemble in the center. We've known all along that the Martian special forces teams would get to within operation and observational range."

Browning was shaking his head sadly. "It sounds like you're backpedaling to me, Wilde," he said. "A marine is supposed to know when he's made a mistake."

Wilde actually had to bite his lip to keep from screaming out an angry, blasphemous reply to this. He drew blood but the trick worked — just barely. After a moment he was able to compose himself. "Listen, General," he said. "What's done is done. That won't be much comfort to those flight crews that are now in Martian POW holding or the families of those who were killed, but we have to put that behind us and move on to the next phase of the operation."

"Well of course," Browning said. "My feelings exactly."

"Very good," Wilde said. "Now the reason I commed is to make sure something similar doesn't happen to our ground forces. They're down there unloading their APCs and tanks and mobile guns as fast as they can. It is vital that the marches begin the moment enough armor and arty is ready to move. We have to reach the Martian first lines of defense before their reinforcements arrive in strength. As it stands now, that is going to be very close."

"How close?"

"According to intel the first trains pulled out of Proctor and Libby at 1120 and 1150 this morning. That means the first train will arrive in Eden two and a half hours from now and in New Pittsburgh four hours from now. Eden is the critical one. The Martians could conceivably have reinforcements start trickling into the Jutfield Gap positions by 2200."

"2200? We won't be in position to attack by then."

"No," Wilde agreed. "The best we can hope for is to have everything we need unloaded by 2130 and to start our march at 2200. That's if we break all speed records but, fortunately, at the pace they're going down there we might just do it."

"That's good news indeed," Browning said. "But it still puts us behind the greenie reinforcements."

"Just barely, sir," Wilde said. "And remember, that's a worst case estimate for Martian reinforcement arrival and even if its correct, they will just be trickling in little by little as they are unloaded. They won't be able to field the entire compliment that was loaded on those three trains until at least 0300 for Eden and 0530 for New Pittsburgh. I want our troops to be through the Jutfield Gap in Eden and through the Crossland Gap in New Pittsburgh before that happens. We need to take advantage of our numerical superiority while we still have it and seize the initiative."

"I understand," Browning said.

"So... with that in mind," Wilde said gingerly, "can you make sure that the march is not delayed for any reason?"

"Of course. Why would we delay it?"

"Oh... to think up catchy names for the operation, to launch precisely at on a given hour — any number of things our friends at the big three so enjoy but that hinder us militarily."

"I'll make sure," Browning promised.

"Very good, General. I'll get our units moving the second they are capable of it."

Eden Landing Zone

2200 hours

Callahan sat in he commander's seat of one of the APCs assembled in the center of the formation of landing ships. It had been almost two weeks since he had been in one of these deathtraps. In that time his back wound had healed, he had rested up, fed himself enough to put back two of the five kilos he'd lost, and had been field promoted to full captain officially in charge of Charlie Company. Despite all that he felt the same sense of apprehension and fear as the last time.

The memories of the horrors he had witnessed since arriving on this shitty red rock were still quite fresh in his mind — losing all of his friends, watching them shot down and blown up from the LZ perimeter to the final futile push to the main line of defense, seeing bullets and shrapnel zipping by his own body, missing him by centimeters, and finally, the humiliating retreat back to the landing ships, forced to leave their dead and even some of the wounded behind, the tattered survivors clinging desperately to tanks and APCs like refugees. And somehow, the most humiliating thing of all was the abject refusal of the Martians to strike at them during that retreat, as if they were saying, we kicked your asses so good its not even worth the time or the fuel or the ammo to chase after you.

For the first time in his career Callahan felt the icy hands of irrational panic tightening around his throat.

Get ahold of yourself, Callahan, the rational part of his brain tried to tell him. The odds are different this time. We're hitting their positions with better than four to one advantage and we only have a short march before contact. No refueling, no rearming, no pausing for anything. We'll knock them out of the gap in no time and take the momentum for the next battle.

Yes, the plan they'd been briefed on was a good one, or at least the best that could be hoped for after the clusterfuck of the last few days when the real plan was slowly picked apart and modified again and again. Callahan was still appalled and disgusted by that. He had watched the morale of his men change from an all time low as they were blasted back to orbit after the retreat to an all time high when the plan to overwhelm and capture Eden was first announced. The men knew an eight to one advantage over the Martians would most likely force a bloodless surrender of the city. The Martians were not dumb. They knew defeat when they saw it and they pulled back. Victory seemed assured.

That high morale, however, had started downward on a slippery, ever-increasing slope as the changes to the plan — obviously fomented by corporate minds working through their political lapdogs — were announced one by one. And now as his newly reinforced company was loaded up into their APCs and about to begin a brief three-hour march back into the Jutfield Gap — the vice of death it was called by those who had been there the first time — that morale was almost back to the level it had been at its worst. Nobody cared how much they outnumbered the Martians or how close to their targets they were this time. Nobody cared that they hadn't even been attacked from the air or from a Martian anti-tank laser in the hands of a special forces squad. None of the good that had happened today could override all of the bad that had already taken place. His experienced troops were almost superstitiously afraid of the Martians and his inexperienced troops — those maintenance men, janitors, cooks, and dishwashers that had been given M-24s and biosuits and told that a marine is a rifleman first and foremost — had naturally picked up on that fear, expanded upon it, exaggerating it until it had turned to a deep, pervasive dread somewhat akin to that felt for eternal damnation in the fires of hell.

Callahan himself was certainly not immune to such feelings as his panic attack was showing him. So many things have gone wrong, his mind insisted on telling him. And there is so much more that could go wrong. Our advantage has been cut in half from what the original plan called for. The Martians still have the use of their navigation and communications satellites. We don't know if the air strike sent out after the Martian heavy guns actually hit any of them.

This last worry was particularly worrisome. Their commanders and the media had proclaimed the surprise air strikes a rousing success, stating that all targets had been destroyed and that most of the aircrews had returned safely and triumphantly. However the rumor mill — which Callahan and most of the others knew was typically a more accurate source of information — claimed that every last one of the hovers sent out had failed to return, the fates of the crews unknown. If that was the case it was possible the strike had not hit anything at all, that the Martian 250s would once again deny the marines the use of their own artillery. Without artillery support the coming battle stood a good chance of turning into the same sort of meat grinder as the first battle.

And even if they did, through some miracle, take out those 250s and we do get arty support, we haven't trained enough to be even moderately efficient out here. If we'd only had the additional two weeks they'd promised us!

He understood why they'd been forced down to the surface and on the offensive so soon. MarsTrans didn't want its rail yards and train tracks blown up so they'd put pressure on the right people to get the attacks scrubbed. This wasn't written down anywhere or even suggested on the big three stations, but Callahan knew this was what had happened all the same. It was the way the solar system worked. Since the tracks were to remain intact and capable of carrying fully loaded freight trains from city to city they had to attack now before the Martians had a chance to fully shift their forces. Knowing why such a thing had occurred, however, didn't make the consequences of it any easier to deal with. The simple fact of the matter was he still had a bunch of green troops led by inexperienced squad and platoon leaders and they hadn't been given enough time to develop any sort of unit cohesion. He, as captain, didn't know his platoon leaders' strengths and weaknesses. The platoon leaders didn't know their squad leaders' strengths and weaknesses. The squad leaders had barely had time to learn the names of their men, let alone their strengths and weaknesses.

It's another clusterfuck in the making, his voice of doom whispered to his mind. If anything goes wrong, anything at all, it will be another wholesale slaughter whether we take the city or not. And is my luck going to run out this time? Will I be another dead marine laying out in the Jutfield Gap in four hours?

But still, when the order came to move out five minutes later he put on his commander's face, did his best to push all those fears to the side, and he passed on the order to his platoon leaders.

One by one they moved out, passing through the gaps between the landing ships and forming up into units on the other side. The second march had officially begun.

Jeff Creek, Drogan, and Hicks were back in the same trench network on the same hill looking out at the same landscape. They had been here for about ten hours now, having been rushed out at top speed with full load-out as soon as the landing ships were on the surface. They'd watched the sun sink over the horizon and the stars appear in all their brilliance. And then, just after 2200, just as the first of the APCs of their reinforcements from Proctor began to arrive somewhere to the south of them, the word had come from command: Enemy units on the way, moving east from the LZ at twenty-five klicks an hour. Multi-divisional strength, supported by up to 600 mobile artillery guns.

It was this last part that caused more fear than the sheer numbers of APCs and tanks heading for them could ever hope to. Six hundred mobile artillery guns! And now there was little hope of countering them.

All of them knew that an air strike had taken place. They had been settling into their positions when the alert had gone out to all forces in the area. They had seen the Mosquitoes chasing after the hovers come streaking over their hill, clearing it by less than a hundred meters and two of the hovers returning after the strike had been shot down right in front of them, their crews ejecting and floating down half a kilometer to the west. Jeff and Drogan had been part of the hastily assembled squad that had gone out to capture them. Three had surrendered peacefully. One — a gunner — had gone the hard way and tried to shoot it out with the M-24 from his survival pack. The gunner's rounds had hit nothing. Drogan, Mears, and Jeff himself had put their rounds directly on target, blowing the gunner's chest open and exploding the compressed air tank in his biosuit. His rather messy remains had been scanned by a medic and then left where they were. The other three were marched back to the APCs and shuttled back to Eden to be interrogated and placed in a POW holding area.

What the infantry forces had not known until about four hours ago was the damage the air strike had done. Finally, right around sunset, Sergeant Walker passed down the grim news. "We weren't told this before," he said, "not to put one over on anyone but to keep MarsGroup or any of the WestHem spies from getting the information. The marine air strike earlier today was successful in taking out fifteen of our twenty 250 millimeter guns."

The troops had been pondering this news ever since, all of them becoming more worried about it by the minute. Five guns would not be enough to neutralize the WestHem artillery, at least not as quickly and efficiently as they had done it during the first battle. They would now have to endure a constant shelling when the WestHem marines came into range and during the battle itself. This news was enough to make more than two dozen soldiers in the gap walk off the line, throwing down their guns and heading for the support APCs they knew would take them home. The rest of the troops wavered on the verge of doing the same but mass desertion was nipped in the bud when General Zoloft himself commandeered a radio link and personally assured every man and woman out there that if the heat got too hot they would be pulled back.

"I will adhere to MPG doctrine even if it means we lose Eden," he told them. "If our position becomes untenable, if the casualties start to mount, if the arty is too much to bear, you will be withdrawn from the gap. That is my promise."

His promise served as the fragile glue that held military cohesion together. At least until now, when the announcement of 600 artillery guns moving their way slowly sank in.

"What do you think, Hicks?" Jeff asked him on the short-range channel as they stared out into the empty Martian wastelands. "Ready to call it a war?"

"I was ready to call it a war two weeks ago," Hicks replied. "But I hate to leave in the middle, you know?"

"Yeah," said Drogan. "If you do that, you'll never know how it turns out."

Jeff, who had been secretly hoping that his friends would decide to leave so he could follow them swallowed audibly and nodded. "I guess I'll hang out a little longer," he said. "No way in hell I'm gonna leave while a fuckin' Thruster stays behind."

The three friends looked at each other, their eyes glowing behind their faceplates in the infrared spectrum they were using. All of them looked scared but determined.

"So," said Drogan, "Xenia decide she loves you yet?"

Jeff chuckled. "Shut the fuck up, Drogan," he said. "I'll be in her pussy some day and you know it. Maybe I'll kiss you and give you a little taste of it."

"Maybe I'll get in it first and kiss you," she countered.

They stayed. Two members of their squad did not. Across the line guarding the Jutfield Gap nearly seventy other soldiers left as well — so many of them that a line actually formed to await their turns on the support APCs that would take them back to Eden.

Eden MPG base

2235 hours

Brian was nervous. Part of it was the fact that he had been shot down and forced to eject less than ten hours ago. Part of it was that the Mosquito they'd assigned him to was not the familiar plane he'd flown exclusively for the past three years — that one was a heap of debris scattered across the wastelands west of the Jutfield Gap. Most of it, however, was the sis they'd assigned him to replace the injured Matt Mendez. His name was Xavier Goodhit and he was forty-three years old, a former security guard at the Agricorp Building who had been selected late in the process for the Mosquito systems operator position.

"So you didn't actually finish the course?" Brian asked him as they stood side by side in the locker room, putting on their biosuits in response to a hastily assembled mission.

"All we had left was the practical and the final," he said, his voice trembling just the slightest bit. "I qualified in everything but they couldn't spare any planes to complete the last portion."

"I see," Brain said, looking him up and down. He was moderately overweight and unshaven, his body exuding the odor of one who had not bathed in a few days. Brian had only met him an hour before, when Jorgenson had ordered all possible planes into the air for around the clock strikes at the advancing column of WestHem marines. Up until that order he'd been promised a support position until Mendez returned to active flight status. "So how's your gunnery?"

"I had a lot of problems with it at first," Goodhit admitted. "I was starting to get better though — at least in the sims."

"But in reality?" Brian asked.

"Well... there weren't any spare MPG units for us to practice on. You see, they weren't planning on deploying any of us so soon. We were supposed to be the next generation... you know?"

"Jesus," Brian said. "How's your navigation?"

"They weren't able to concentrate on that as much as they wanted to," he said. "Look, sir, I can see that you're a little uncomfortable with this and, to tell you the truth, I'm really scared to go out there. I mean... you got shot down today, didn't you? Five or six other planes got shot down too. They told us that the WestHems couldn't hit us out there!"

Brian opened his mouth to suggest that maybe they should go have a little talk with Jorgenson about all of this, that maybe he'd been put out a little prematurely. Before he could do so, however, a familiar figure stepped around the corner.

"Hey, fuckhead," the figure said to Goodhit. "You're in my biosuit. Take it off!"

It was Matt, looking considerably worse for wear and dressed in the same bloody shorts and T-shirt he'd been wearing when the medics had spirited him off to Saint John Paul's Hospital after the Hummingbird had landed.

"Matt," Brian said, stepping forward and grabbing his hand. He gave it an enthusiastic shake. "What the fuck are you doing here?"

"I'm here to do my fuckin' job, boss," Matt said. "That's all." He turned back to Goodhit. "Get out of that suit, fatty. You ain't getting my pilot that easy."

Goodhit was simply speechless, his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide.

"Come on!" Matt barked. "There's a mission to run, isn't there? You ain't ready to run it, I am. So give me the fuckin' suit!"

"Sir..." Goodhit started. "This is most... unusual, isn't it? I mean... I mean... we haven't got any orders to..."

Brian ignored him. "Did they fuse your ass back together, kid?" he asked.

"Yeah, they fused it," he said. "Hurt like a motherfucker too. I'm all ready for some action."

"Did they clear you for flight status?" Brian asked.

Matt grinned. "I always hated going through the official computerwork, you know what I mean? Let's just say I made my way back here so I could go back to work."

"Let me see your ass," Brian demanded.

"Hey," Matt said. "I'm not that kinda guy. I told you that shit."

Brian didn't grin. "Let's see it," he said. "Turn around and drop 'em."

Matt sighed and turned around. He pushed his shorts down, revealing his bare ass. There was a bloody bandage on the left cheek. Brian reached forward and lifted the bandage, causing Matt to wince and tense up. Underneath was a ragged pulp of bloody flesh that was still oozing blood in several places.

"They didn't fuse shit," Brian said. "They just sprayed some gel in it and put the bandage on."

"Uh... well... yeah," Matt said. "They said since the skin was actually shot off I'd just have to keep it covered until it grew back."

"You can't fly like this," Brian said.

"Sure I can," Matt said. "Just but the bandage back on. I'll be fine."

"How long did they tell you not to fly?"

Matt sighed. "Six weeks," he said. "But them motherfuckers are always worried about lawsuits and shit. It ain't that bad, boss. I can fly."

Brian shook his head. "No can do, kid," he said. "You're not on flight status."

"I'll be fine, Brian," Matt said. "I'm not gonna sit out the most critical fuckin' part of this war just because of some skin off my ass. Now you can put the bandage back on and go up with me, or I'll go find some other poor slob who got assigned one of these under-trained newbies and offer my services to him instead. Your choice. But one way or another, I'm going up there."

Brian grinned. "Well... since you put it that way," he said. He put the bandage back on, tightening it the best he could. "Goodhit, give Mendez your biosuit. I've just relieved you of flight duties."

"But... but... is that legal?" asked Goodhit, who was actually looking something like hopeful at the prospect.

"Legal is as legal does," Brian said. "Give it to Mendez. I'll clear everything with Jorgenson before we go out."

"Well... if it's an order," Goodhit said.

"It's an order," Brian confirmed. "Hand it over."

He handed it over. Matt quickly began to put it on while Goodhit quickly made a relieved retreat. It was far from the right size, hanging loosely on his hips and stretching a little too much on his legs.

"That thing gonna work for you?" Brian said, looking at it dubiously.

"I'll make it work," he said, tugging at the leg portion. "What's the mission?"

"We're going after the arty."

"The arty?"

"The air strike took out fifteen of our heavy guns. The rest won't be able to suppress the WestHem arty enough to force them out of range. The ground pounders need us out there to start settling the score."

"What about the APCs?" Matt asked. "Killing their ground troops is our primary mission."

"I know," Brian said. "It's bad news no matter which way you look at it. We're being forced to react to something the WestHems did instead of the other way around."

"And that's not good," Matt said.

"Fuckin' aye," Brian agreed. "That's how you lose wars. Now come on. Get that thing on. They got a brand new plane for us, right off the assembly line. We get to bust its cherry."

Matt, Brian, and their cohorts did their very best to even that score. They weren't terribly successful in their endeavor. Major Wilde up in orbit had anticipated the possibility that the Martian aircraft would start targeting the mobile artillery as it marched and had made sure that the tracked guns did not travel in a formation. Instead, he interspersed it throughout the rest of the formation, putting it particularly heavy in the middle of the tanks. Looking through infrared enhancement and traveling faster than sound while trying to identify tiny vehicles that looked very similar to tanks proved to be a little more difficult than most of the Mosquito gunners could handle. Though none of them were shot down and all of them combined scored an average of 1.3 hits per pass, they simply couldn't positively ID their targets in the time they had on each pass. They ended up killing a lot of tanks — four for every one artillery gun they hit. By the time the lead elements of the WestHem divisions passed into the range of the 250s, the Martian air force had only managed to kill twenty-four of them.

The special forces squads faired a little better in their mission. With more time to identify their targets they scored hits pretty much every time they fired. But the formation was moving steadily along at twenty-five kilometers per hour. They did not stop to engage enemy forces that fired upon them. They did not stop to check on their comrades that had been hit. They just marched steadily forward, moving inexorably towards the Jutfield Gap and the coming battle. By the time of engagement the special forces teams, operating from both sides of the valley, had chalked only forty-two kills of the mobile artillery guns.

The formation marched forward until they got within thirty kilometers of the Jutfield Gap. At this point the artillery guns separated from the main column and began to set up into firing positions. They still had their targeting data from the first battle and they put it to use. In a complex ballet of shooting and scooting they began to fire, raining shells down upon the first Martian line of defense. The air crews continued to pound on them as much as they could and the special forces teams moved forward and began to do the same and the remaining five guns, guided by two circling peepers, did their own part to send heavy shells into the guns.

The WestHem's lost many guns to this onslaught but the rate of attrition was simply too slow. The Martians could not, no matter how hard they tried, neutrilize the artillery. And while all the airpower and the special forces teams concentrated on this task, they were unable to fulfill their primary mission: that of killing the APCs and the enemy soldiers within them. Those APCs arrived at the Jutfield Gap just before 0130 on the morning of September 14. They had lost less than ten of their number on the way — four of those from simple mechanical breakdowns instead of enemy fire. The entire compliment of 180,000 ground troops slated to push on Eden had reached the first line of defense intact.

The tanks formed up around them and they began to move in.

The artillery barrage had been going on for ten minutes now, the 150mm shells dropping atop their hill, exploding and shaking everything. It did not match the ferocity of the barrage they'd endured during the first phase but all knew there would be no let-up this time.

"Tanks moving in!" said a voice over the net. "Battalion strength. Our tanks and the AT teams are engaging."

Jeff was huddled against the back of the trench, his head down low, the SAW curled up against his chest. He didn't get up to look at the tanks. He wasn't putting his head in one of the firing holes until he absolutely had to.

More explosions began to rock the hillside as the tanks opened up on the anti-tank positions above them, raking them with a terrifying volume of eighty-millimeter fire. It sounded like they were blowing the entire top of the hill off. He felt fear unlike anything he'd experienced to this point. Soon those guns would be shooting at his position, supporting the advance of the ground troops. He felt fear for Xenia as well. She was down in her tank with Valentine and Belinda Maxely facing twice as many tanks as they ever had before. She could be dead already, her beautiful body fried to a pulp by a WestHem tank laser. That was a thought he tried to push out of his mind but it refused to go.

"APCs moving in," said another voice. "A whole fucking shitload of them!"

"I got 'em," said Sergeant Walker, who was peering through one of the periscope cameras. "Too many to count. If they're fully loaded with dismounts we're looking at multi-battalion strength coming after our position."

"Fuck me," said Hicks, his eyes wide and terrified.

"Where the fuck are those reinforcements?" asked Drogan. "We only have two platoons on this hill. We can't hold off that many marines!"

"No, we can't," Walker said. "The LT says it's the same situation up and down the line. We're gonna be pulling back real quick."

"How quick?" Jeff wanted to know. "I vote for fuckin' now!"

"We need to bloody them up a bit first," Walker said. "AT teams and the tanks are engaging the APCs now. They've knocked out about ten of them."

"Any word on friendly tank losses?" Jeff asked.

"No," Walker said. "No word. Okay, everyone. This is it! APCs are stopping about two hundred meters short of the hill. Get in position and open fire as soon as they start to dismount. Remember, stick to your zones!"

Jeff stood up and put the barrel of the SAW through the firing hole. He looked out into a sea of muzzle flashes from tanks, smoke and explosions from return fire, and laser flashes from anti-tank fire. The APCs were in a broad line stretching from one side of the hill to another. Walker was right. There were too many of them to count.

An artillery shell landed just down the hill from him. The flash overwhelmed his visual mode. The concussion hammered into him hard enough to drive some of the air from his lungs. Several pieces of smoking shrapnel came flying into his firing hole, one of them pinging off the side of his helmet.

"Jesus," he mumbled, just as another one exploded a little further up.

Mortar shells, fired from behind them, began to drop in the midst of the APCs, their proximity fuses causing them to explode about ten meters up. And then the marines began to dismount, appearing from around the back of the APCs. The mortar rounds felled some; most began to move forward, toward the base of the hill.

Jeff put his targeting recticle on a concentration of them and opened fire, taking three of them down with one burst. He then shifted and fired at another group that had come out from one of the other APCs. The rest of the squad opened up as well, popping at them with their rifles. Many marines went down but within thirty seconds there were hundreds of them still up and they were moving in.

The APCs began to fire to cover them, sending sixty millimeter shells and twenty millimeter cannon fire at the infantry positions. Riggins, one of the newer members of Jeff's squad, was killed almost immediately as a twenty millimeter round went right through his head. Two of the shells exploded directly in front of Jeff's hole, sending more shrapnel into the trench. A piece of it ripped through the top of Jeff's shoulder but missed the skin beneath.

"Creek, displacing," he called, letting them know that the SAW would be out of action for a few seconds. He moved to the hole to his right and put it back out there. In the time this took the marines down below had advanced another fifty meters. They were moving in as fast as they could, not shooting back, not crawling, not stopping to help those that had fallen. He opened up on a group of them, raking down six of them but had to stop and pull back inside as a furious barrage of sixty millimeter and twenty millimeter fire began to slam into his position. Sandbags exploded and dust flew. Shrapnel sprayed everywhere. He bent down low and moved back to his original hole. This time he only got three marines before the APCs below started plastering him.

"They're at the base of the hill," Walker said, unleashing a three round burst from his own weapon. "They now have defilade from the mortar fire."

"They're not stopping to regroup, sarge," Drogan said. "They're moving up fast, all at once. Not using covering fire."

"They learned from the last time," Walker said. "Keep the fire on them as long as you can, but get ready to pull back. The AT teams have already disengaged."

The artillery continued to slam into the hill and the marines below continued to climb. Jeff moved from hole to hole, firing the SAW down at them, mowing down two or three at a time and then quickly displacing before the APCs could zero in on him. The other squad members continued to fire their own weapons, most using single shots at individual soldiers. Drogan had a grenade launcher on her M-24 and when they got into range she began to use it. Their shooting was true and the marines fell in considerable numbers but there were simply too many of them over too great an area. Their advance was relentless and terrifying.

When the artillery suddenly stopped, indicating that the marines were close enough that they might get hit with it, the order finally came down. "Okay, everyone," Walker said. "It's time to get the hell out of here. Withdraw to the rear as quickly as you can. Creek, you and I will keep some fire on those marines until everyone is headed down."

"Right, sarge," he said, moving in towards the center of the trench and putting his barrel through.

The rest of the squad grabbed all the ammunition, food packs, and waste packs they could carry and started working their way through the trench. Jeff and Walker put bursts of fire down on the advancing marines for about two minutes and then Walker decided that was enough time.

"Let's hit it, Creek," he said. "The sooner we get down and in the APC, the sooner your girlfriend down in the tank will be able to pull out too."

"Fuckin' aye," Jeff said, firing one last burst down and taking out two more marines. He pulled the SAW back inside and slung it over his back. He followed Walker down to the access trench and they began to work their way down to the bottom.

The APC's were waiting down there and they climbed inside. The doors shut and they began to rumble across the wastelands, heading for the Blue Line to the east. All up and down the line the same thing was occurring. The Jutfield Gap — Eden's most formidable chokepoint on the western approach, the chokepoint responsible for more than seventy percent of the enemy infantry and armor casualties in the first phase of the battle — had fallen to the marines in less than thirty minutes.

Captain Callahan sat halfway up Hill 778, his back against a large boulder, his M-24 resting on his lap. Twenty meters further up the hill was the opening of the trench the Martian infantry troops who had recently vacated this hill had operated from. One of his platoons was carefully approaching it, their weapons ready, peering inside to make sure the former occupants had really left.

"Remember," Callahan told newly promoted Lieutenant Skag, who was in charge of that particular platoon, "keep your men well clear of that trench. Those Martians love their booby traps."

"Yes, sir," Skag replied. "We're not going closer than five meters."

Callahan's company had been one of five that had gone after this particular hill, which had been held by a single company of MPG reinforced with an anti-tank platoon. The hill had fallen with an ease that was almost absurd in light of the heavy price they'd paid during phase one. The anti-tank fire as they'd approached had been very light, with only one or two weapons flashing. They'd lost more APCs to the Martian tanks than from the AT weapons — a stark reversal of the first time. Callahan had lost fourteen of his men on the advance, ten when their APC was hit by one of the tanks, two to the Martian mortar fire as they'd dismounted, the other two to small arms fire from within the trenches as they'd mounted the hill. The other companies involved in the attack were reporting similar casualty rates. Apparently the new plan of moving quickly in overwhelming numbers was having the desired effect.

"Callahan," said the voice of Captain Boothe on the command channel. "Why don't you stroll on up the hill for a minute. There's something up here I think you might want to see."

"On my way," Callahan said. He stood and began to climb, walking around the edge of the lower trench opening and onto the steeper slope of the hill. The going was a little tough but he relished the fact that he was doing it without being shot at. In about five minutes he made it up, finding Boothe standing near a collapsed heap of sandbags.

"I think we know why the AT fire was so sparse from this position," Boothe told him after they switched down to a short-range channel.

"Oh?" Callahan asked.

"Take a look," he said, pointing beyond the sandbags.

Callahan took a few steps closer and looked inside. A large portion of this trench had collapsed, its concrete barricades smashed open, its sandbags blown to pieces. There were more than a dozen dead Martians visible in the rubble, some with limbs blown off, some with heads blown off, most with their protective biosuits shredded by shrapnel. The remains of their AT weapons lay with most of them.

"The arty," Callahan said.

"Exactly," Boothe confirmed. "These trenches are well-designed and well-built but they can't stand up to a sustained artillery barrage with penetrating shells. I talked to Colonel West while you were climbing up here and he confirmed that all up and down the gap we're finding the same thing. We didn't get all of the AT trenches but we got a lot of them. That kept them from blasting us while we moved in and let the APCs and the tanks concentrate fire on the infantry trenches. Coupled with our greater numbers we were able to walk up these hills with minimal opposition."

"So that air strike we launched did some good after all?"

"It would seem so," Boothe said. "We didn't get all of their heavy guns. I saw some of those big-ass shells passing overhead as we moved in, but it was nothing like the first phase. If we can keep our artillery firing and supporting us we're gonna take that fucking city, Callahan."

"What about when their reinforcements are all in the fight?" Callahan asked. "We hit them here before they were able to get in on it. What about the Blue Line?"

"We're going after the Blue Line as soon as all of the hills are cleared," Boothe said. "That should be in less than an hour."

"Nice," Callahan said, looking at the dead Martians with relish. It was nice to see that they were capable of being killed after all. "I'm gonna head back down and tell my men what I've seen up here."

"You do that," Boothe said. "It's good for morale."

"You know it," Callahan said. His panic and anxiety were now gone. It seemed that maybe an end to this nightmare was now in sight.

The Blue Line

September 14, 2146

0332 hours

The trenches in the Blue Line had not been repaired after the first phase of the war. All of the efforts had instead gone into fixing the main Jutfield Gap positions on the theory that the gap was where they would inflict the most damage. As a result the position Jeff and the rest of his platoon were occupying was tattered and blasted, with many of the sandbags destroyed, much of the concrete already crumbled open, and large holes around most of the firing positions.

"If they bring that arty down on us we're fucked," Hicks said as they repaired what they could and set up their equipment.

"I heard we lost a lot of the AT guys," said Drogan. "Is that true, sarge?"

"It's true," he confirmed. "Casualties were heavy among the hilltop positions in the gap."

"How heavy?" asked Jeff.

"I don't have exact numbers," Walker told him, "but we're losing a lot to desertion now too. You all saw the desertion line out there, didn't you?"

They had. As they'd climbed up this hill to occupy this trench greater than a hundred soldiers had been awaiting evacuation by the support APCs. And that was just in this section.

"If we lose all the AT teams there won't be anyone to keep their numbers down when they move in," Drogan said.

"Can you fuckin' blame them?" Hicks asked.

"You're looking at it the wrong way," Walker said. "Most of the AT teams are staying."

"Huh?" asked Drogan.

"They got the shit kicked out of them in the last battle and took heavy losses. They're fighting in an army that allows you to leave without consequences at any time. And yet, despite all that, only a couple hundred are choosing to call it a war. Most of them are willing to climb back up those hills and give it another go. What does that tell you?"

"That they're a bunch of fucking idiots?" Hicks suggested.

"No," Walker said. "That they believe in what we're fighting for out here. That they're willing to put their fuckin' lives on the line for it."

"Exactly," Jeff said. "That's why I'm staying."

"Me too," said Drogan.

Hicks hesitated for a moment but finally added his "me too" too.

"Incoming!" a voice yelled over the net.

Jeff looked up long enough to see the streaks of incoming artillery shells heading in their direction. There were a lot of them. He dove down into the trench and shoved himself under the overhang, trying to make himself as small as possible.

Concussions began to slam into them a few seconds later, rocking the trench, sending more sandbags down, filling the air with dust. They hammered in every few seconds, some far away, most close. The barrage went on and on without letup.

"They're hitting up above!" Drogan said after a particularly fierce series of explosions. "They're going after the AT teams."

"And they got them," Walker reported, his voice sounding a little shocked. "Two direct hits on the upper trench. Heavy casualties are reported and the trench is out of action."

"Fuck," said Jeff, his fear becoming palpable now.

The tanks rolled in a few minutes later and started plastering the entire hillside with eighty-millimeter shells. The APCs followed soon after, disgorging hundreds of ground troops and adding their own sixty and twenty millimeters to the fray. Jeff manned the SAW and the other squad members started putting rifle rounds down on the marines but this time the return fire was even more intensive. In addition, someone down below had noted the absence of anti-tank fire from the upper trenches and had directed the artillery fire onto the lower trenches. Huge explosions began to rip into the ground above and below. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before a lucky shot hit in just the right place.

Everyone was right. There was a bright flash of light and an explosion that blew in an entire section of their trench, obscuring even the infrared mode with dust and debris. Several screams echoed over the net, one them cut lethally short. Jeff felt shrapnel lance into his side and his legs, felt the sting of penetrating steel into his body. He was thrown down, gasping for breath, the SAW twisted and distorted from the blast.

His ears were ringing and his mind was not quite sure where he was and what he was doing. Slowly both of these problems faded to the point that he could hear frantic conversation over the continuing blast of explosions. He lifted his head up, remembering that he was in the middle of a battle. He checked his status screen and saw that his biosuit had been penetrated in two places but had sealed.

"Goddammit, Creek!" Walker's voice yelled, cutting through the fog. "I asked if you're okay! Give me some status!"

"I'm hit," he said, his voice weak. "I don't know how bad."

"Try to stand up!" Walker said. "If you can walk we need you to. We're pulling the fuck out of here right now!"

"Right now?" he asked.

"Right fucking now!" Walker confirmed. "If we don't the fucking marines are gonna cut off our retreat!"

He pulled himself to his feet, feeling sharp pain in his left leg, duller pain in his left side and his right leg. Still, his appendages supported him. He looked down and observed that the SAW he'd been assigned to was beyond help. He groped for his M-24 in his back holder and pulled it out. "I'm okay, sarge," he said. "I'll be able to walk out, I think."

Another series of explosions rocked them, sending more debris cascading through the trench, sending another section of sandbags down in an avalanche. Jeff ducked down, waiting for it to be over.

"Check on Hicks, Creek," Walker told him. "I've lost signal on his suit!"

"Hicks?" Jeff asked, that cutting through more than anything else. "Is he hit?"

"I don't know," Walker said. "He was next to you when the shell hit. Try to find him."

Jeff looked frantically at the section of collapsed trench and saw a piece of warmth in the shape of a leg protruding. He quickly bent down and began pulling debris free, unmindful of the pain in his side with each motion. Drogan, having heard the conversation rushed over to help. It only took thirty seconds or so to uncover him — what was left of him.

"Oh God... no," Drogan said.

Jeff didn't have the voice to even echo her sentiment. Hicks' eyes were open, unseeing, staring upward. His arms were limp at his side. His chest had been blown open by shrapnel, ripping a twenty to thirty centimeter hole in the torso of his suit. Boiling blood vapor began to rise from this hole the moment they uncovered it.

"What's his status?" Walker demanded.

"He's dead," Jeff said. "Took it in the chest."

Walker didn't have time for sentimentalities. "Okay," he said. "Colinhead is injured. Pick her up and carry her down. We need to clear this trench now! The fucking marines are already halfway up!"

Jeff and Drogan each took one last look at their friend, at the man who had been with them since the start. They then went and grabbed Private Colinhead — who had suffered from a nasty stomach wound — and began to haul her to the rear of the hill.

The Blue Line had fallen in less than fifteen minutes.

"All units from the Blue Line are retreating at best possible speed to the Purple Line," General Zoloft, commander of Eden forces, told General Jackson. "They hit us hard, Kevin, and they hit us fast. We had to pull out so fast some of the troops had to leave the wounded behind to keep from getting encircled by the WestHem tanks."

"How bad are the casualties?" Jackson asked, having to fight to keep his fear from showing.

"The AT platoons got it the hardest," Zoloft said. "The WestHem arty plastered their positions with sustained, penetrating shell fire. The trenches just couldn't hold up, particularly since most of them were already damaged from the first engagement. Preliminary reports are more than four hundred dead, five hundred wounded, more than three hundred unaccounted for."

Jackson sighed, having trouble looking into the eyes of his subordinate's image on the screen. "And the WestHems?" he asked.

"They're still clearing the Blue Line but their tanks and APCs are already forming up on the other side to start the next advance."

"And their arty?"

"We've been pounding on those mobile guns, just like you ordered, but are efforts are not very effective. The only time we can hit them with the remaining heavy guns are when they are actually setting up to fire. When they're advancing to the next position they keep constantly in motion, zigzagging back and forth in unpredictable patterns. The Mosquitoes and the special forces teams are scoring some kills but not enough to make much of a difference."

"All because of that damn air strike," Jackson said, shaking his head in disgust. "I can't believe I didn't anticipate that in advance."

"That isn't your fault, Kevin," Zoloft told him. "Nobody thought about them launching something like that until after they'd done it."

"I should have," Jackson insisted. "I committed the same error that they've been committing this whole time. I underestimated them. I started to feel that their entire staff and their entire planning process was corrupted so I started to think they couldn't possibly do anything clever or original." He shook his head again. "My lack of insight into this latest landing may very well cost us Eden."

Zoloft didn't seem to know what to say to this. Instead, he changed the subject. "How are things in New Pittsburgh? Are they holding there?"

Jackson nodded. "They're holding. The WestHem artillery moved in and the 250s engaged it, just like before. They were forced to pull their mobile guns back out of range again. When the tanks and the APCs rolled on the Crossland Gap our AT teams hit them hard. Casualties have been light and as of five minutes ago we still held the gap, although the dismounts are moving up the base of the hill under heavy fire. We'll more than likely start pulling back to the NP Blue Line in the next thirty minutes."

Zoloft nodded. "That's good," he said. "It's fortunate that the air strike in NP was launched fifteen minutes after the Eden strike."

"Yes, that seems to be the deciding factor."

The two men stared at each other's image for a few seconds.

"Look, Kevin," Zoloft said. "We're getting killed out here. I'm taking heavy casualties among the AT crews and I'm losing a lot of the others to desertion. I don't think my forces can hold the Purple Line. I'm not sure they're going to be able to hold the main line. Not if the WestHems keep their arty intact."

"I see," Jackson said.

"You see?" Zoloft said, allowing some of the strain he was under to show through. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean, General? Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?"

"I think so," Jackson said. "But suppose you tell me just so we know we're on the same page here."

"Our defense is untenable," Zoloft said. "We're outnumbered, our reinforcements are arriving too slowly, and the WestHem artillery is massacring the most important part of our defenses. We're not inflicting significant casualties on the enemy with our ACRs." He took a deep breath. "I'm afraid that unless things change I'll be forced to pull all of the units out of the field under MPG doctrine. We're not out here to be kamikazes. If we can't hold them back we must surrender Eden to keep people from being needlessly killed."

Jackson nodded. "I understand," he said. "And I completely agree with you as well."

Zoloft looked solemn, scared. "So... you think its come to that?"

"If things go on as they are... yes," he said. "We'll be forced to surrender Eden to them."

"If we surrender Eden, we'll lose this planet eventually," Zoloft said.

"I know," Jackson said. "We'll hold on for a few years but if they hold Eden they hold a base from which to launch attacks from. They'll hold our rail hub and our largest agricultural base."

"I don't want to do this, Kevin," Zoloft said. "I've been with you from the beginning. You know that. You know I wouldn't even suggest this unless it was the only option."

"I know," Jackson said. "But quite frankly, I don't see any other way at the moment."

"Me either." He sighed. "Listen... do you think that maybe we should contact Browning and ask for a cease fire in the Eden theater?"

"He'd never go for it," Jackson said. "Not unless we agreed to a cease fire in New Pittsburgh as well. And the way things are going down there it looks like we're going to hold New Pittsburgh."

"Is there any point in holding it though?" Zoloft asked. "I mean, sure, we can probably hold onto it and the rest of the cities for a few years but eventually..."

"I see what you're saying," Jackson said. He shook his head violently. "Goddammit! I can't just accept that after everything we've gone through that we'll be defeated just because of one instance of bad luck!"

"So... so... what are you saying?" Zoloft asked.

Jackson called up a map of the Eden area on the screen next to him. He looked it over for a few moments, looking at the lines of defense his armored cavalry regiments were supposed to be inflicting heavy punishment on. There was the Jutfield Gap and the Blue Line — both of which they'd already been pushed out of. Behind that, in the area where the valley widened out like a funnel, was the Purple Line, where they were heading now, and the Red Line, the last line before the final defensive positions known as the main line.

"All of this planning, all of this sacrifice destroyed because of a goddamned air strike," Jackson said. "Because we can't take out their fucking artillery guns."

Zoloft remained silent, simply watching his boss think this through.

"The Mosquitoes can take out some," Jackson said, "but not enough. The same goes for the special forces teams. They're effective, but we just don't have enough of them."

"It's too bad we couldn't send tanks after those mobile guns," Zoloft said wistfully. "They'd blow them into little pieces."

"Yes," Jackson said, continuing to stare at the map. "And if wishes were blowjobs, perverts would have a job for life. Let's talk realities here, Zoloft. There's no way we could advance our tanks through the WestHem lines and into the rear where..."

"Where what?" Zoloft asked.

Jackson was staring at the screen again, looking at the layout of the valley the WestHems were currently marching through. It was an ever-widening cone surrounded by foothills and mountain ranges — the same foothills and mountain ranges the Mosquitoes used as cover for their attacks.

"General?" Zoloft asked.

"Hold on a second," Jackson said, looking more intently at the screen now.

Zoloft held on, not speaking.

"Computer," Jackson said, "give me a satellite overhead of Eden from 0130 today. Infrared enhanced."

"Overhead loading," the computer said. A moment later the image appeared.

"Son of a bitch," Jackson said, looking at the tiny figures of the WestHem armor spread throughout the wastelands. The imagery was clear enough that he could tell what kind of vehicle was what. "Zoloft," he said. "Pull up overhead 09142146ED0130A on your screen and tell me what you see."

Zoloft did so. "I see an ass-load of WestHem armor moving on the Jutfield Gap and a lot of flashes from artillery firing."

"Exactly," Jackson said. "The artillery is firing from the rear of the formation. And the range on WestHem tanks and APCs is... ?"

"Uh... about one hundred and sixty klicks. What's your point?"

"I think I have an idea," Jackson said.

"What is it?"

"Let me work on it for a few more minutes before I describe it in detail," Jackson said. "In the meantime, let's not go surrendering anyone just yet. I may be full of shit but maybe... maybe I'm not."

"What about my troops?" Zoloft asked. "They're heading for the Purple Line right now and my battalion commanders tell me I can expect a lot of desertions when they get there."

"Tell them to bypass the Purple Line," Jackson said. "Tell them to bypass the Red Line as well. All ACR units are to head directly to the main line of defense and help shore them up."

"You think there's a chance of neutralizing the WestHem artillery?"

"Maybe," Jackson said. "In the meantime, let them know that if their position is indefensible they'll be pulled off the line. Make sure the AT holders in particular are given that message. You can quote me on this: If we cannot suppress the WestHem artillery we will surrender our position. You will not be subjected to marine artillery fire again, no matter what. Hopefully that will stem the flow of the desertions to some degree. If what I'm thinking actually works we're going to need the AT crews."

"Can you honestly make such a promise?" Zoloft asked.

"I don't lie to my troops," Jackson said. "Send that message off and get those orders out. I'll get back to you as soon as I have time to think this through."

"Doing it now, Kevin," Zoloft said, excited to see the excitement in his commander's eyes.

STILL ALIVE, the text message from Jeff read. HEADING FOR THE MAIN LINE. ORDERS JUST CHANGED. REINFORCE 2ND INF. HICKS BOUGHT IT IN THE LAST ATTACK. YOU STILL OK?

She was still okay. Though two tanks from their platoon had been blown up by the WestHem tanks during the engagements at the gap and at the Blue Line, and though one other had been damaged enough to be left out in the wastelands for all eternity, and though their concrete barrier had been burned through in no less than six places and their hull had been nicked in two, she, Belinda, and Zen were still alive and well. She had killed more than two dozen WestHem tanks and a dozen APCs in the last three hours, killing more than two hundred marines, but she herself was still alive, breathing, and wondering how much longer her luck could possibly hold out. She was also thrilled to find out that Jeff was still alive as well. She had heard some disturbing accounts of the casualties taken in the two battles, had seen the sheer volume of artillery, tank, and APC fire the hill positions had gone through.

"Did I hear a beep from your computer, X?" asked Belinda, who was driving their tank at forty klicks an hour to the east, keeping it in formation with what remained of their company.

"Yes, B," she said, utilizing the nickname she'd bestowed upon her enigmatic companion in response to always being called X. "Your hearing is as good as it always was."

"He's okay?" she asked, her voice without a trace of emotion, leaving Xenia to wonder is she was asking because she was disappointed that he was okay or glad.

"He's alive," Xenia told her. "Hicks isn't though. He got killed in the last engagement."

"Oh..." she said. "I'm sorry for him."

Xenia seemed to sense something like sincerity in her tone. Seemed to. Valentine, on the other hand, was obviously upset by this news.

"Hicks bought it?" he asked. "Jesus fucking Christ. Did he say how?"

"No," she said. "Just that it happened in the last attack."

"So many fucking people dead," Zen said. "And are we doing any good out here? It's starting to look like it's all for nothing."

"Don't say that, Zen," Belinda said. "It's not all for nothing. It can't be!"

"They just told us to abandon the Purple Line and the Red Line, Belinda," he said. "That means they know we don't have a chance in hell of holding it. Does that sound like we're doing any good to you? You saw how much fucking armor those marines had out there, didn't you?"

"I saw it," she said.

"We held the gap for less than half an hour," Zen said. "We held the Blue Line for even less. I'm not sure we're going to hold the main line at all. I think maybe Zoloft and Jackson are about ready to throw in the towel."

Belinda had an argument to counter this point of view. Zen had a counter-argument. Xenia listened to neither one. She tuned them out and called up her holographic keyboard so she could compose her reply.

WE'RE ALIVE TOO, she wrote. SORRY ABOUT HICKS. I LIKED HIM. WE'RE HEADING FOR THE MAIN LINE TOO. MAYBE WE'LL SEE EACH OTHER THERE?

She sent off the text and then leaned back in her seat, stretching her sore back. She had been sitting in this tank for the past fifteen hours now. She yawned and contemplated catching a little sleep. After all, as gunner she had nothing to do while in transit and it was a ninety-minute ride to the main line of defense. She didn't notice that the conversation between Belinda and Zen had come to a halt.

"Motherfucker," Zen's voice said, stirring her out of the semi-doze she'd been slipping into.

"What?" she and Belinda asked in unison.

"New orders," Zen told them. "They just came across from General Zoloft himself."

"What are they?" Xenia asked.

"We're to report to a staging area twelve kilometers north of the main line."

"Just us?" Belinda asked.

"No," he replied. "Not just us."

Chapter 23

Eden main line of defense

September 14, 2146

0445 hours

The 17th, 9th, and 14th ACRs, the battered veterans of two Jutfield Gap battles, made their way into the rear areas, passing through the main line of defense and assembling in staging areas west of the city but east of the artillery positions. Eden defense doctrine dictated that these three regiments were to be resupplied and refueled and then utilized as tactical reserve units for the 2nd Infantry Division where their rapid mobility capabilities would allow them to be rushed — either piecemeal or fully intact — to portions of the main line that required immediate reinforcement. It was plain from the moment they came limping in that doctrine was not exactly being followed in this instance.

The first thing noticed was that all of their tanks and the support vehicles that supplied and fueled them were not in the staging area.

"Where the fuck are the tanks?" Jeff asked Drogan as the dismounted wearily from their APC. He was looking around almost frantically, seeing nothing but other APCs, armored supply vehicles, and, strangely, dozens of the tracked agricultural trucks that the 2nd Infantry soldiers had recently used to remove the WestHem dead from the battlefield between phases.

"I don't see them," Drogan replied, taking only a cursory look around. "Have you heard from Xenia? Maybe she can tell you."

"I haven't heard from her in more than an hour. She sent me a text after the last withdrawal so I know she was all right then."

"Nothing since?"

He shook his head. "The tanks aren't even showing up on the forces screen anymore," he said. "It's like they were never there in the first place."

"That is kinda strange," Drogan said. "I'm sure there's a good reason for it."

"Yeah," Jeff said worriedly. "I'm sure there is." First Hicks was killed and now Xenia was missing — vanished without a trace. What else could happen?

He soon found out. Colonel Martin himself — commander of the 17th ACR — arrived on a support APC. He was dressed in a brand new model 459 military biosuit but he carried no weapons on him. He stood atop the turret of one of the APCs and commandeered the main dispatch channel so he could address the entire regiment (except the tanks, which had disappeared).

"Men and women of the 17th," he said, his gravelly voice transmitted in clear digital audio. "We don't have much time before things start hopping around here again so I'll spare you the blathering bullshit about the last battle. We were hit hard and fast in all sectors and we took some heavy casualties — unacceptably heavy casualties. We weren't able to fulfill our primary mission of slowing down the WestHem marines at the gap and the defensive lines behind the gap. We were not able to inflict significant casualties on the enemy. This failure was not the fault of any of you out there — you people fought hard and you fought well and I'm proud of each and every one of you. Nor was this failure my fault, or General Jackson's fault, or General Zoloft's fault, or Governor Whiting's fault. It was simply the fortunes of war acting against us. The enemy got one in on us with their air strike and were able to prevent us from neutralizing their artillery. They came at us with overwhelming numbers before reinforcements could be fully deployed. In short, they kicked our asses in this particular battle. That is war and the Martian way is not to try to find someone to blame but to try as hard as we can to learn from what happened and to prevent it from happening again.

"That is what we're trying to do now. Our reinforcements from the 12th and the 5th ACRs out of Proctor have now all arrived and are being deployed to the main line. Most of the 4th Infantry Division from Proctor are on their way here right now and should start arriving early this evening. So please take assurance in the fact that help is here and more is on the way."

He took a few breaths and looked around at the sea of faces staring back at him from behind their helmets. "People," he said, "I fully understand why some of you are doing this but desertion is starting to become a serious problem out here. I know that right now many of you are contemplating leaving before the next phase of this battle begins, particularly those of you in the anti-tank platoons. It was you folks, after all, who were hit the hardest out there in the gap and in the blue line positions. But before any more of you leave please let me explain a few things to you. All I ask is that you listen to me and trust me as you've trusted me in the past. I made a vow long ago that I would never lie to my troops and I'm not about to start now."

He paused to let that sink in. When he felt it had, he went on. "Okay, the first point I want to make is that the defensive positions you'll be manning here on the main line are much more formidable then the positions in the gap. The main line has always been regarded as the place to make our final stand and it was constructed with that in mind. Those positions are solid, reinforced concrete bunkers with concrete overhead protection that will stand up a lot longer to artillery bombardment before crumbling.

"Now I understand the basic theory of defensive positions. No matter how strong your defenses are, a determined concentration of firepower will eventually break it. We haven't neutralized the WestHem artillery and, if we don't, it is possible that they might be able to inflict significant, even lethal damage upon these positions. I don't like telling you that, I know it isn't helping my pleas to stem the flow of desertions, but it's the truth. If we don't do something about the WestHem arty, we may have a repeat of the Jutfield Gap and the Blue Line casualties. It will just take a little longer.

"So... on that note, I have been authorized to tell you that General Jackson and General Zoloft are working on a way to reduce or neutralize that artillery in this theater of action. I can't tell you what their plan is — although I have been briefed on the rudimentaries of it — but I can assure you that there is a plan in effect and it stands a very good chance of being effective. Now if this were WestHem and I was a WestHem marine colonel telling you this, I would expect you all to think it was a bunch of bullshit. However, I'm not a WestHem marine colonel, I'm a Martian colonel and I've told you this same thing before during the first phase of the battle. I was telling you the truth then, wasn't I? I am not lying to you now. I hope you will all consider my record before making any decisions.

"And there is something else I'd like you to consider as well. I have been told by General Jackson and General Zoloft that our forces here in Eden will not be subjected to that volume of fire again even if their plan should fail. If we cannot knock out or neutralize the WestHem artillery and they began to bring shells down with impunity as they did before, you will all be pulled back and the city will be surrendered to the WestHems before we even have a chance to experience the sort of losses we suffered in the gap and at the Blue Line.

"So please, have faith in your leadership a little bit longer. We need every man and woman with a gun, with an AT weapon, with an APC or a tank to stand between our city and those forces of corporate WestHem that are trying to take it away from us. We can do this, people, if we only stay united. We're fighting for our very freedom. Don't let us lose it after everything we've gone through to get this far. If we lose, then all those who have fallen will have fallen in vain. That is all I have to say on that subject. Now then... I have reserve assignments for those who will be staying."

He tried to go onto his reserve assignments but he was interrupted by the sound of applause. He wouldn't have thought he could hear something like that out in the thin atmosphere, with everyone wearing gloves on his or her hands, with his own head covered with an insulated helmet, but sixteen hundred people doing it at once made a noise no matter where you were — as long as there was any air to carry the sound.

"Thank you," Martin said when it finally died out. "As I said, I'm proud of each and every one of you and when we beat those fucks back into orbit you will all know that you played a major part in it. Now, on that note... those assignments.

"As you might have noticed, the tanks and their support units are not here. They have already been reassigned and redeployed to the 2nd Infantry to help shore up certain positions on the line where a particularly thick barrier is needed. Many of the tanks from the 2nd Infantry have joined them. Unfortunately this has left some armor gaps in other places along the line and our APCs, minus their mounted infantry crews, will be used to augment these gaps."

"What the fuck?" Jeff heard Tim Locker — the driver of their APC — mutter over the tactical channel. "Augment the tanks?"

"I know this is a departure from MPG doctrine," Martin was saying. "Trust me when I say it is a necessity. And, like the AT positions in the bunker complexes, our fixed armor positions are a bit more considerable than the gap positions. They are all hull-down depressions surrounded by concrete and reinforced with titanium shielding on the front and sides. The APCs will not be placed in any position where they are not augmented by at least one 2nd Infantry main battle tank."

"How are we supposed to reinforce anyone if they're taking our APCs?" Drogan asked. "Are we supposed to walk to where they need us?"

"No," Jeff replied, pointing to a group of the tracked agricultural trucks. "I think they've developed alternate transport for us."

It turned out he was entirely correct as Colonel Martin explained just seconds later.

"Great," said Walker, who, though he had applauded as loud as anyone a few minutes ago, seemed less than thrilled with all the change in basic doctrine. "We'll be riding in the back of trucks, completely exposed. One proximity shell from one artillery gun or even a mortar will shred us all."

They all pondered that unpleasant image in silence.

"Okay, folks," Martin wrapped up. "The WestHems are currently performing a textbook assault on the Purple Line, which they don't realize is completely empty. After that, it is anticipated they'll do the same for the Red Line. After that, we expect they'll have to refuel and rearm before they can move on the main line. That will take most of the day to accomplish and our arty, special forces teams, and aircraft intend to make that process as slow and painful for them as possible.

"In the meantime, we ourselves need to refuel and re-arm too. Let's get that done and then start moving to our new assignments." He paused for a second or two. "Free Mars, people. Free Mars. We're not just saying it, we're fucking doing it!"

AgriCorp Greenhouse 02.13223 — 05.66542, 14 kilometers northwest of Eden

0645 hours

This particular greenhouse was full of tomato plants that had been days from being harvested. Now it looked like most of the yield would have to be written off since 253 main battle tanks had entered the sanctity of their growing area and smashed most of them flat with their treads — enough agricultural destruction to make an AgriCorp executive cry had any of them known about it.

The tanks were spread out in staggered lines all across the fields, their ranks closing like a funnel into four distinct lines near the north end where four fueling and resupply cars were waiting to service each of them. At the head of each line the tanks would be pumped full of hydrogen for fuel, oxygen for oxidizer, and would have any shells or bullets they'd shot off in the first engagements replaced. They would then move onto the access tunnel that led to the next greenhouse to the north where a final assembly for... for something was taking place.

Out the west side of the greenhouse the first foothills of the Sierra Madres mountain range could be seen. Beyond that, the higher peaks of the range were poking up above the horizon, dust devils and plumes of red being blown from their summits. This section of agricultural land was among the oldest on Mars, the first to be cultivated in Eden's earlier days. It was also the furthest west the greenhouse complexes stretched — most of them were off to the north and the east of the city on the vast flatlands known as The Plains of Eden. The two greenhouses the tanks were assembling in were the very last ones built in the westerly direction before the land began to rise into the foothills.

Xenia sat atop the turret of her tank, her legs dangling down into the commander's hatchway. Since they were in a pressurized environment she, like most of the rest of the tank crews, had removed her helmet, unzipped the top of her biosuit, and pushed it down into a bunch around her stomach. Her braless breasts jiggling beneath her tight and sweaty MPG t-shirt had become a point of distraction for most of the males — and many of the females — within visual range of her. She pretended not to notice as she munched on a tomato she'd picked from one of the surviving plants and chatted with Belinda who was poking out of the driver's hatch, also unprotected to the waist and also eating a tomato. Belinda's large breasts created some distractions as well, although not quite as much since they were firmly encased in a cotton sport bra beneath her t-shirt.

"So what do you think?" Belinda suddenly asked, breaking a lull in conversation that had gone on for the past fifteen minutes.

"What do I think?" Xenia responded, looking at her with a sparkle in her eyes. "I think I'd love to come down there right now and lick that tomato juice off your pouty lips."

Belinda flushed with arousal at these words but she refused to take the bait. "I mean what do you think about all this?" she asked, pointing at the formation of tanks all around them. "What in the hell are we doing out here, fifteen kilometers away from where the action's gonna be? What are they gonna do with us?"

"I liked my thought better," Xenia grumbled. She sighed and tried to take her mind off how fucking horny she was right now. She was ordinarily quite amorous in her pursuits of pleasure but combat seemed to wrench this up by a factor of four or so. She wasn't able to completely banish the erotic thoughts from her head but she was at least able to push them back to their own red line. "I heard a few rumors when I was out picking these tomatoes."

"Yeah?" Belinda asked. "What are they saying?"

"They're just rumors," she qualified. "Probably based on nothing but speculation, but the consensus seems to be that we're going to be used for some kind of surprise flank attack."

"A surprise flank attack?"

"That's what they're saying," she confirmed. "They pulled 250 or so main battle tanks off the line where we're desperately needed and moved us up here to the north, well beyond where any fighting could conceivably take place. They cut all outgoing communications from our combat computers and our tank computers — Jeff must be worried sick about me by now."

Belinda frowned at the mention of Jeff Creek, a stab of black jealousy piercing straight into her heart. "Uh huh," she said, just barely maintaining a civil tone. "What else?"

"I was talking to one of the 2nd Infantry guys out there. He said his battalion was split in two when they sent out the movement orders. He doesn't know where the other half got sent — they cut off the com link before he could talk to one of his butt-buddies assigned to the other half — but he saw them heading south from the main line. He seemed to think there's another group of tanks teaming up somewhere south of the city."

"Hmmm," Belinda said thoughtfully. "What the hell kind of flanking maneuver do they think we're gonna be able to do? The marines have more than six thousand tanks out there. They're stretching them all across the valley from the Sierra Madres to the Overlook Mountains. How can you flank anything if you can't get around it?"

"I don't know," Xenia said. "As I said, it's just a rumor."

"What if that's not what they're planning?"

"What do you mean?"

"What if they mean to have us blast straight through their line?" Belinda asked. "That would be suicide."

"Yes," Xenia said, nibbling on her bottom lip a little. "The strength of our tank forces is our fixed positions. If we go mobile we lose our advantage and they outnumber us twenty to one — or at least ten to one if there's another 250 of us assembling to the south."

"That's still nowhere near enough for a head-on confrontation," Belinda said. "I'm sorry, but if that's what our orders are they can count me out. I'm willing to risk my ass out here but I'm not gonna throw my life away for nothing."

"Me either," Xenia agreed.

The four tanks in front of them finished up their loading and moved off, heading for the tunnel. The loading bosses waved the next four forward.

"About fucking time," Belinda mumbled. She dropped back into her hatch and disappeared. A moment later the tank's engine started up with its distinctive turbine whine. Xenia held onto the barrel of the commander's machine gun as they moved forward nine meters and stopped next to the supply cars. The engine shut down and Belinda popped back up again, climbing completely out. Xenia climbed out as well and waked across the top of the right tread guard where she opened the main hatch to the turret.

The ammo supply technician, a greasy, dangerous looking type of about nineteen or so, walked over to her. He was shirtless, his skin shimmering with sweat in the early morning light, his gang tattoos (he had honorably retired from The Dust Devils of 44th Avenue) showing prominently.

"Hey there," he said as he unabashedly looked Xenia up and down. "You are one sweet looking piece of ass, darling," he told her.

Xenia smiled at him. There had been a time when she would have been deathly afraid of such a person but that time was now gone forever. Her exposure to Jeff and to the horrors of the battlefield had burned such fears right out of her. Instead, she wondered if there was a way to take advantage of his lustful infatuation for her. "Thank you," she told him, giving a deliberate bounce to make her breasts jiggle.

The loader groaned lasciviously. "Damn, bitch," he told her. "Those are the juiciest fuckin' melons I ever seen. I been scopin' on them titties since you was six tanks back."

"I thought I felt them burning," she said sexily, giving a little shoulder shrug.

"Mmm hmmm," he said. "You gotta let me check them things out, baby," he said. "I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't."

"Well... we'll see what we can arrange maybe," she said.

"Fuck yeah!" he yelled enthusiastically.

"But first," she said, "business before titties. Aren't you supposed to be laying some ammo on me?"

He sighed in mock consternation and then turned businesslike himself. "The fuckin' war effort must go on," he said. "What you be needing?"

Xenia turned businesslike as well. "Six eighties and a hundred twenties," she said.

"Fuckin' aye," he said. "You good on four millimeter?"

"Haven't fired a round of that yet. We could use some extra food packs and waste packs though."

"Coming right up, sweet tits," he told her. He walked over to his car and disappeared inside.

Meanwhile, a prim and proper woman in her early thirties, wearing a wedding ring with a huge diamond on it on a chain around her neck, had attached a fueling hose to the inlets at the front of the tank.

"What do you need?" she asked Belinda.

"Eighteen K hydro, twenty-one K O2," she replied.

"Fuckin' aye," the woman said. "It's loading."

"You look very familiar," Belinda said. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

The woman smiled. "Everyone says that," she said. "But no one can ever figure it out when they see me dressed like this and pumping fuel into their tanks. I'm Callie Hashbar."

"Callie Hashbar?" Belinda said in surprise. "No shit?" Callie Hashbar was a longtime news anchor for one of the primary MarsGroup video channels. She was married to one of the upper echelon executives for MarsGroup.

"No shit," she said. "Back when the war started I figured I could serve Mars better by signing up for service instead of reading off a teleprompter in front of a camera. I asked for combat duty but... well, I wasn't in good enough shape so they put me in a support position." She shrugged. "I don't mind though. If it wasn't for people like me you folks wouldn't have any fuel to fight those fucks, would you?"

"Fuckin' aye," Belinda agreed.

The fueling took about five minutes. By the time it was done the greasy former gang member emerged from his car with an electric cart full of eighty-millimeter shells, a case of twenty-millimeter shells, and stacks of food and waste packs. He drove it over to the side of the tank.

"Your supplies are ready, sweet tits," he told Xenia.

"Right," she said. They began the loading process, which consisted of the loader handing the shells one by one to Belinda who, in turn, handed them to Xenia inside the tank. Xenia would then put them in the ammo slots that loaded the main gun. After the eighties they loaded the twenty millimeters in. After that they loaded up the waste packs and the food packs and handed out their used packs.

"You're all loaded," the gang member said with a grin. "Now how about flashin' me a quick shot of them titties to keep my morale up?"

Xenia looked at him, as if considering. "Well..." she said, "you don't get somethin' for nothin' in this world, you know what I mean?"

"I just loaded you up with fresh ammo," he said. "Ain't that somethin'?"

"That was your fuckin' job," Xenia told him. "I'm looking for service above and beyond the call."

"Like what?"

"I smell cigarettes all over you," she told him. "How about you break down with some for me and my friend here."

"You show me them titties first and I'll break down with something."

"Dust Devils honor?" she asked.

He laughed. "Someone been talkin' to you, baby," he said. "Yeah, Dust Devils honor." He tapped the side of his tattoo two times to confirm this.

Xenia smiled and then slowly pulled her t-shirt up, revealing her alluring bare breasts to his gaze. The nipples were hard and the loader's eyes widened in arousal, his tongue licking at his lips.

"Damn, baby," he said. "They even nicer than I thought."

"Thank you," she said, letting her shirt fall back down. "Now pay up."

He smiled, removing half a pack of premium West Virginia smokes from his pocket and pulling one out. He handed it across to Xenia. "And there's your payment," he told her.

"One fuckin' cigarette?" she said, outraged.

The loader shrugged. "That's the goin' rate here in the north end of the godforsaken greenhouse."

"But you got to see two tits," Xenia countered. "That oughtta be worth at least two smokes."

"You shoulda negotiated your terms beforehand," the loader told her. "Hell, I only got a eighth grade education and even I know that shit."

"Hmmph," Xenia pouted. "If I show 'em to you again will you give me another smoke?"

"Fuck no! I already seen 'em. You want another smoke you gotta up the ante a little."

"Like what?"

"I wanna touch 'em," he told her, nearly drooling over the very thought.

"One lousy smoke for a touch of these?" she asked. "You must be dusted. Gimmee what's left of that pack and you got a deal."

He shook his head, though only after a moment's hesitation. "No way, baby. This is my last fuckin' pack. I'll give you three of them."

"I want 'em all," Xenia told him. "Take it or leave it."

"I guess I'll have to leave it then," he said with visible regret.

"Are you sure?" Xenia asked in her sexiest voice. She cupped the breasts in question through her t-shirt, squeezing them together. "I bet you never touched a pair like these before, have you? Did you see how hard my nipples were? They want to be touched, baby. They're begging for it."

"Five smokes," the loader said, his eyes wide, his voice cracking.

"All of them," she insisted. "Final offer. Going once... going twice..."

"All right, all right!" he said. "You fuckin' win. Now bust 'em out."

"Hold on a sec," she said, continuing to push them together. "Dust Devil's honor?"

"Yeah, baby," he said, making two quick taps of his tattoo. "Dust Devil's honor. Now bring it on!"

She let go of her breasts and slid down to the tread guard, sitting on the edge of it, her feet dangling down toward the ground. The loader stripped off his work gloves and dropped them indifferently onto the compacted Martian soil. He walked over and stood between her legs, his eyes wide, a prominent bulge pushing out the front of his MPG shorts. Xenia pulled up her shirt, baring her breasts once again. His hands attacked them, squeezing them roughly, twisting them, tweaking the nipples to the point it was almost painful. It was so arousing she almost had an orgasm right there on the tread guard.

It went on for about fifteen seconds before she made him stop. She knew if she didn't she would lose control of herself, would put her hands on that bulge and start doing some squeezing of her own. After that, who knew what could happen?

The loader was speechless as he backed away from her, looking at her in lustful awe.

"The smokes?" Xenia asked with a voice that wasn't quite steady.

"Uh... sure, right," he said, pulling them from his pocket and docilely handing them over.

"Thanks," she said. "I... uh... guess we oughtta get moving now."

"Sure," he replied. "I guess you'd better. Uh... listen, after this thing is over maybe you and I could kinda... you know... hook up?"

"We'll see," she said. "If you see me in the Troop Club some time, don't be afraid to come and talk to me."

"I won't," he said as she climbed back up to her position on the turret.

"Free Mars," she told him.

"Free Mars," he replied, blowing her a kiss.

Belinda was sitting back in the driver's hatch. She shook her head in amusement. "Xenia, you're such a cheap slut," she said.

"I know," Xenia said dreamily. On Mars being called a cheap slut was not exactly an insult.

Belinda dropped back into the driver's seat, not bothering to shut the hatch or put on her restrain harness. She pushed the ignition button and the engine started. She was gratified to see that both hydrogen tanks and both oxygen tanks were now reading full. She put the tank in gear and began to move forward, creeping along at five kilometers per hour, following the flattened soil of those that had come before her and entering the access tunnel.

She was not the least bit jealous or upset about what she'd just witnessed Xenia, the woman she loved more than life itself, doing. She would not have been upset if Xenia had fucked the loader right in front of her, in fact, she might have been inclined to tear off a piece of him herself — the entire episode had aroused her greatly. The loader was nobody to Xenia. She didn't even know his name. And sexual petting or other contact with a casual acquaintance — just for the sheer pleasure of the contact — was something that Martian culture did not frown upon, even when one or both of the participants was married or in a long-term relationship. It was just one of those things that happened and the Martians had concluded long ago — even before most of them had left Earth — that there was no point in trying to regulate or control such behavior, that you should just go with it and accept it as a given. However if it had been Jeff Creek she had been touching, flirting with, allowing to touch her... the very thought made her see red. The difference was that Xenia had feelings for Jeff and when feelings were added to the mix, the jealousy began.

The staging greenhouse was one that had been growing strawberries. Like the tomato greenhouse they'd just left, most of the harvest had already been smashed flat by marauding tank treads. The armor formations were a little more organized over here and Belinda was directed to the northeastern portion, right behind two other tanks from her company. She brought the tank to a halt and then shut down the engine. By the time she made it back out of the hatch Xenia had left her perch and was half in and half out of the main hatch.

"B, can you come in here for a second," she asked her. "There's a jam in the eighty feeder and I need a little help clearing it."

"Yeah, sure," Belinda said, sliding under the main gun and slipping through the hatch into the cramped compartment. Xenia slammed the door and latched it the moment she was inside. "What the..." was all Belinda had time to mutter before Xenia's soft body was crushed against hers, her mouth fastened to hers, her tongue trying to press between her lips.

"Oh my fucking god," Xenia whispered, licking at Belinda's lips, her hands groping at her breasts, running up and down her back. "I'm so fuckin' horny, B! Fuck me! Fuck me right now! Right here!"

"Xenia..." Belinda started but was cut off by Xenia's tongue sliding into her mouth again. She enjoyed the kiss for a few moments, returning it with swipes of her own tongue — God Xenia was a good kisser! — but then she mustered the strength to push her away.

Xenia fell backwards onto the commander's seat. She was undaunted in this rejection. "Come on, baby," she pleaded. "Do it to me! Let me pull my bottoms down!"

"Keep your bottoms up," Belinda said. "If you take your piss-catcher and your anal vac off it'll take you twenty minutes to put them back on."

"I don't care, baby," she said. "I need you."

Belinda smiled. "You know what the magic words are, don't you?"

"I love you!" Xenia said. "I love you, I love you, I love you! Now show me how much you love me!"

Belinda shook her head, fighting for her resolve with everything she had. "You're speaking out of lust right now," she told her. "In fact you're making quite a spectacle of yourself. I can't accept those words under these circumstances."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Xenia screamed. "B, I just told you I love you."

"I don't believe you're sincere," she said. "Not yet anyway."

"Oh Jesus God," Xenia said, almost crying in frustration. "What does it take to get laid around this place?"

"It takes sincerity," she said. "And I'm not getting that right now. So how about we stop before this turns into something that will lead to hard feelings?"

Xenia's face went through a struggle but finally softened. "Okay," she said. "I'm sorry. I guess I just got a little out of control."

"That's okay," Belinda said. "And don't think for a minute I wasn't tempted to take advantage of you."

Xenia nodded, sitting up a little straighter in the chair and composing herself. "How about a little suck on my titties?" she asked. "And then I'll suck on yours? That's not really going too far, is it?"

Belinda chuckled. "I'm gonna go pick some strawberries," she said, opening the main hatch. "You want some?"

"Yeah," Xenia. "I guess I could suck on some of those instead."

Belinda went out into the fields, winding between the tanks and working her way over to some of the undamaged plants. She was not the only one with this idea. Dozens of other tank crewmembers were out there as well, all of them with their biosuits down to the waist. She shared stories and rumors with them as she gathered the fruit she could find and stored them in the plastic wrapper that had been around a case of food packs. By the time she made it back to the tank — with more than a hundred strawberries in her bag and more than a dozen in her stomach — Zen had returned and was sitting on the tread guard next to Xenia.

She gave them the strawberries and both immediately began munching on them, making grunting noises of ecstasy as they chewed.

"Goddamn we grow good shit here," Zen proclaimed as strawberry drool ran down his chin.

"Fuckin' aye," Xenia agreed. "It's almost as good as..." She gave a meaningful look at Belinda. "Well... you know what its almost as good as."

"Uh huh," Belinda said. "Just don't eat too many or we might use up all of our waste packs... if you know what I mean."

"It would be worth it," Zen replied.

"So what's the word?" Belinda asked. "Did they tell you what we're out here for?"

"Yeah," he said. "They told me. We're gonna try to flank the WestHems and circle around into their rear."

"Flank them?" Belinda asked. "How? The only way into their rear is to blast through their lines and drive there. And that's flat out impossible."

"We're not going to blast through anything," Zen said. "They came up with another way for us to do it. Something the WestHems won't be expecting."

"Like what?

"Well... I can tell you one thing. If we try this, things are gonna be a little bumpy for a while."

"Bumpy?" Belinda asked.

"Yeah," he said. He told her the plan.

"Holy shit," she said. "Can that work?"

"They seem to think it can," Zen said. "We'll have to be precise and not deviate from the path even a little bit. If we do... well... you can imagine what will happen."

"Yeah," she said nervously. After all, it would be her that would be driving the tank. "And when do we move out?"

"In one hour," he said. "Just as soon as the rest of the tanks are refueled and re-armed."

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

0900 hours

Major Wild watched General Browning deliver the latest briefing to the big three media reps. For once there were actually some elements of truth in the briefing, at least as it concerned the attack on Eden, which he was talking about now.

"As the sun rose over the Martian surface outside of Eden," Browning told them, "our forces had already smashed through their first line of defense with only a few casualties taken. The marines found thousands of dead Martian terrorists in the trenches when they cleared them, terrorists killed by our superior firepower in artillery and tank gunnery. We then hit the second line of defense — the so-called 'Blue Line'. There we pushed them out in less than fifteen minutes, sending them reeling in disarray, forcing them to leave thousands more of their dead and wounded behind.

"This brought us to the 'Purple Line'. We attacked in force once again and met no resistance at all. The reason for this was that the Martians had never bothered to occupy this line of defense at all. We found the same at the 'Red Line', which is the last obstacle before their final defensive positions outside Eden itself.

"We do not know if the terrorists are still holding this line or not. We are unable to determine that. If they are, they will be killed or driven off in a similar manner and it is my believe we will be standing in the city of Eden by the time the sun goes down tonight."

"Why so long?" asked an InfoServe reporter. "The Red Line is only ten kilometers from the main line. Is there some reason for the delay in attack?"

"Yes," Browning responded, reading from his teleprompter at the pre-written answer to this staged question. "There is a very good reason. Our tanks, APCs, and artillery platforms have just marched across more than a hundred kilometers of Martian wasteland and fired off most of their shells. They need to refuel and re-arm before they can move onto the final battle — assuming the Martians still have the stomach for it. These vehicles are being refueled and re-armed as we speak by the supply train units that have followed behind the advance the entire way. As soon as this process is complete — and our estimates have that occurring at around 1430 today — we will begin the final march towards the liberation of Mars' largest city."

There was a round of staged, though seemingly spontaneous applause from the reporters, camerapersons, and sound technicians recording the broadcast. General Browning smiled shyly, as if he hadn't been expecting such an honor. And then, the unexpected happened.

"What about New Pittsburgh?" asked a pretty young reporter from ICS. "How are things going there?"

There was a mute gasp from all in attendance, including General Browning. That question was not on the official agenda! Why in the hell had that young, ditzy girl asked it? Who had authorized that? Browning actually blanched a little. This was a live briefing and he had no pre-written answer to such an enquiry. But now that it was out there, he had to give some kind of answer.

"Son of a bitch," Wild said, burying his head in his hands.

"Well... uh... you see," Browning said. "The fact of the matter is that... uh... the operations at New Pittsburgh are going... you know... pretty much the same as the operations at Eden. We've broken through their first line and are working on clearing the lines behind them. We're not moving as fast there as we are at Eden but we are closing in on the terrorist main line."

The reporter asked no more. A curt, angry voice in her earpiece had already chewed her out for straying from the agenda.

"So, if there are no more questions," Browning said, his eyes telling them that there would be no more, "I have the liberation of Eden to monitor. Either myself or a member of my staff will update you on any further developments as they... uh... develop."

He practically ran out of the briefing room, his face red, his fists clenching with anger. He stormed into his office, where Major Wild was waiting for him.

"That went well, sir," Wild told him. "Despite the unauthorized question at the end."

"Where in the hell did that stupid twit get off asking that?" Browning demanded. "Who authorized it?"

"No one authorized it," Wild said. "I just talked to the head ICS rep for Martian operations. She's some inexperienced file researcher that one of the anchors has been banging. It sounds as if he promised her she could attend one of the briefings as a first step towards getting a junior anchor position. She wasn't supposed to ask anything at all but apparently she thought she'd show some initiative."

"Some initiative? They're not supposed to be asking anything about the New Pittsburgh operations until we start to turn things around down there. I trust she's being disciplined in some way?"

"So they say," Wild said with a shrug. "I wouldn't worry too much about it, sir. You did fine up there for having to shoot from the hip like that."

"You think so?" Browning asked.

"Absolutely," Wild said. Actually, Wild thought he'd looked like what he was: a blithering idiot with no idea what he was actually doing, but sometimes discretion really was the better part of valor. "Now, since we're talking about New Pittsburgh..."

"How are things going there? Are we at the main line yet?"

"No, sir," Wild told him. "We're still engaged at the Red Line there, slowly pushing our way up the hills. Casualties continue to be heavy. Losses of APCs and tanks to the Martian AT fire continue to mount. It's just like the first time in New Pittsburgh. Our failure to neutralize the Martian heavy guns is taking its toll."

"They need to keep pushing!" Browning said forcefully. "We'll have Eden in our hands by the end of the day and that will be good for a day or so worth of media coverage. But as soon as they get tired of showing a bunch of grateful greenies kissing our marines after the liberation, they're gonna start asking about New Pittsburgh again. I want to make sure we're knocking at their back door when that happens."

"I understand, sir," Wild said. "It's just that the Martian's New Pittsburgh reinforcements are not even fully deployed yet and they're still punishing our men quite hard down there. What's going to happen when the 6th Infantry men arrive from Libby and start adding their guns and their AT weapons to the fight?"

"All the more impetus for the men to take that position immediately and push on to the main line before those reinforcements get there. You send them a message from me that for every minute that goes by as they fight this battle, two more greenies are arriving to oppose them. They need to clear those hills and push on. Quickly!"

Wild knew that such a message would do nothing but piss off every man down there. He said his yes sir but had no intention of actually sending the message. Browning would probably forget about it by the time lunch was served anyway."And how are things in Eden?" Browning said, turning to a brighter subject. "I assume the resupply effort is in full swing?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it full swing, sir," Wild said, "but it is in progress."

"Is there a problem with it?"

"The same problem we had in phase one. Now that we're stationary and trying to transfer fuel and ammunition from the trains to the vehicles the Martians are hitting us hard. Their artillery is raining down non-stop all over the formation. We had no idea they even had that many shells to throw at us. Those traitors at the Alexander Industries plant must have been working night and day ever since the beginning for them to stockpile so many. And the air attacks from the Mosquitoes are continuing as well, although they're not hitting our APCs."

"They're still trying to destroy our mobile guns?"

"They're trying," Wild said, "but it seems they're still having trouble differentiating a tank from an artillery platform when they make their runs. I've had them keep the guns interspersed throughout the tank formations just for this reason. We are taking some losses in tanks because of this — and the morale among the tank crews is taking a nose-dive as you can imagine — but the bulk of our guns are staying intact. The losses we are recording are coming from their special forces teams. There are at least six different anti-armor teams out on our perimeter somewhere and about every ten minutes one of them snipes at a few of the guns and usually hits them. There is attrition there, but its not enough that we have to worry about it during the next assault. We will have enough mobile guns left to pound their main positions during the attack."

"Good, glad to hear it," Browning said. "So we're on schedule to have that city liberated by 1800 tonight?"

"Well... I don't think I can promise that, General, but..."

"You said that everything was going according to plan," Browning said. "We've pushed them off their first lines and hardly broke a sweat. We're getting re-armed now and our artillery will still be functional. Why wouldn't we punch through by 1800?"

"I don't know, sir," Wild said. "I'm not saying we won't punch through, I'm just saying that this is war and that things go wrong sometimes and things you don't expect happen. I don't like to lay down timelines for major operations like this."

"Is it possible that we'll be standing in Eden by 1800?" Browning said.

"Yes, sir," Wild said, "it is certainly possible. Likely even. It's just that I can't guarantee that. I'd feel better about laying down a time frame if I just had some recon shots of the area. I have no idea what those Martians are up to down there."

"What could they possibly be up to?" Browning asked. "We've beaten them. There's nothing they can do now but run away like the cowards they are."

"I suppose," Wild said. "I still wish I could see what they're doing down there."

Sierra Madres Mountain Range, 60 kilometers northwest of Eden

1220 hours

Belinda Maxely could feel nervous sweat running down the back of her neck, pooling in the junction of her helmet and the top of her biosuit. Her hands gripped the T-bar of the tank tightly, her feet rested gingerly on the control pedals — one on the accelerator, one on the brake. They were climbing again, traversing a bumpy, rocky, uneven rise between two mountains at a slope of more than thirty-five degrees. The turbine engine was whining with power as the treads slowly pulled them upward at about five kilometers per hour. In her view screen she could see the rear of the tank in front of her, the slope of the ground she was traveling on, the pink Martian sky, and the jagged peaks she was passing through rising high above on each side. To her left, unseen but she knew it was there, was a drop into a canyon that lay less than two meters away. And the ground they were on was sloping in that direction by more than twelve percent.

Xenia couldn't take the tension of not knowing what was going on any more. She unclipped her harness and popped the hatch over her head open. "I need some fresh air," she told Zen who dutifully chuckled at her weak joke.

She stood up, pushing her head through the hatch and immediately regretted it the second she looked to the left. She saw a steep cliff dropping more than two hundred meters into a rocky gorge. From her perspective it seemed mere centimeters away from their left tread. "Oh my fucking God," she whispered, feeling suddenly dizzy and sick to her stomach — a sensation worse that what she experienced during lightening.

"What's wrong?" Zen asked, having heard her transmission.

"Nothing," she said, tearing her eyes away from the sight. She quickly ducked back down and slammed her hatch shut, vowing not to look outside anymore.

They were the forty-third tank in a single-file line of 253 of them. As Zen had told them, their mission was to perform a flanking maneuver to get into the WestHem rear area. And, as Belinda had pointed out, there was no way to do that in a conventional manner without passing through the impenetrable WestHem line. So they were going with the unconventional, a plan that was considered impossible for tracked vehicles of any kind and especially tanks, to accomplish. They had entered the nearer peaks of the Sierra Madres Mountains and were slowly working their way westward by climbing and then descending, turning and then turning back, passing over ground that had never been trod upon by humans let alone driven upon by vehicles.

"Coming up to the top," Belinda said, watching as the tank in front of her disappeared from view. She checked her map display and saw that immediately after starting back down she would have to turn right to a heading of two-eight-four, which would keep her on an even narrower and steeper sloped stretch of the mountain instead of sending her over a cliff.

"I don't remember them telling us we would have to climb fucking mountains when I signed up for the tank corps," Xenia said, sitting back in her seat and keeping her eyes tightly shut.

"I know what you mean, X," Zen replied. "I mean, getting fried by a WestHem laser is one thing. At least it's over quick. Falling off a cliff and tumbling five hundred meters down... well... that's something else."

"Can you guys shut your asses?" Belinda barked at them. "I really need to concentrate for this next part."

They shut their asses. Belinda gave them a little bit of acceleration as the slope before her momentarily increased to forty-three percent. The front of the tank rose up, so all she could see was sky for a second, and then it suddenly nosed downward as she went over the rise and started downward. She saw immediately why she needed to make the right turn. There was nothing but a sheer drop-off directly in front of her. Her own stomach did a few flip-flops but she forced herself to wait until the navigation carrot on her screen swung to the right. When it did, she pushed the T-bar to the left, slowing up the right tread enough so the left tread could push her through the turn. She felt the entire tank slide a little to the left, towards the drop-off, and she goosed the accelerator just a bit, pulling them through it. The slide stopped but the tank, now traveling downhill on a thirty-eight degree slope, started to pick up an alarming amount of speed. She braked as harshly as she dared, slowing them before they could run into the tank in front of them. She only hoped the tank behind them would do the same.

It did and they slowly worked their way down a twisting, turning area of drivability until they were in the narrow gorge below.

"Okay," Belinda said, "we've scraped through that one. We're gonna drive four klicks through this gorge and then we got one more climb and one more descent before we get back into the foothills."

"So you're saying we might actually make it there in one piece?" Xenia asked.

"We might," she said. "This last one looks like the toughest of all though."

"I'm surprised we made it this far," Zen said. "I thought they were fuckin' dusted when they told us we would drive through the mountains. I guess the mapping software we got from Air Ops was pretty good shit after all."

The mapping software he was talking about was the same software the Mosquitoes and the Hummingbirds used to wind their way through these same mountains. It had been developed over the past twenty years and even beyond and was based on countless surveys by laser and radar equipped satellites that had mapped every square centimeter of the mountain ranges with every point measured for exact altitude and slope. This information had been meant to assist pilots and systems operators to plan their flight routes through the area without hitting the large, immovable object known as the ground. It had never been intended to assist ground vehicles in traversing those same mountains but, when turned to the task, and with the assistance of several super-computers in the possession of the MPG, it had done just that, plotting a continuous route in which the slope, width, and rate of climb or descent was within the parameters in which a main battle tank could operate. That route was a twisting, turning snake and some of the passes — such as the one they'd just traversed — were right on the margin of passable and impassable, but it had been deemed possible and the mission had been given the green light.

It would have been easier, of course, to simply travel through the smaller foothills at the base of the mountains. There would have been more room to maneuver, the paths wider and less steep, the ultimate distance much shorter, which would have left a much wider safety margin of fuel and oxygen remaining for their actual mission. But the foothill approach was quickly ruled out due to detection concerns. There was simply too many places where the WestHem marines in the field might have spotted the column of tanks as they'd passed by, too much possibility that the dust they raised with their treads — even though it was being minimized by their slow speed — could have billowed up enough to be spotted.

They reached the end of the gorge and turned to the south, following a cut where a Martian stream had once drained. They began to climb, bumping over rocks, occasionally sending little landslides downward to clatter on the tanks below. Halfway up they turned back to the east, following a tributary of that former stream for half a kilometer before turning back to the south again up a steep slope to a ledge that overlooked the gorge on the other side. The pace here was particularly slow, less than two kilometers per hour but slowly, softly, they made it up and over — the clearance between the path and the drop-off less than a meter now.

The column went down the other side, winding and twisting back and forth until they reached a raised plateau that would have been a meadow had it been on an earthly mountain range. The tanks began to assemble into columns and rows once again. When the assembly was complete, the shut their engines off and powered everything but their communications gear down. Ahead of them was a gap between two of the Sierra Madres foothills. Beyond that was the Valley of Death, as the WestHem marines had come to call it.

Zen looked at his mapping software one last time before powering it down. They were two kilometers from the valley, sixteen kilometers west of the Martian main line of defense. As far as he could tell, they had arrived here completely undetected. On his enemy forces screen — which was constantly updated by encrypted satellite transmissions sent out from MPG headquarters in New Pittsburgh, he could see that the main thrust of the marine's forces were gathered just beyond the Red Line. That would soon change.

"What now?" Belinda asked, unstrapping her restraints and opening the hatch above her head.

"Now," Zen said, "we maintain strict radio silence except for inter-tank communications, and... we wait."

"That is what we do best," Xenia said.

"I have a question?" Belinda asked.

"What's that?" Zen replied.

"General Jackson never gives names to operations, right?"

"Right," Xenia said.

"So why did he decide to name this one 'Operation Hannibal'?"

Ten kilometers east of the Eden main line of defense

1500 hours

Captain Callahan was feeling the familiar nervousness he remembered so well from the first phase of the war. He was sitting in the command seat of his APC and the booming of artillery fire from the Martian positions went on and on outside, sometimes far away, sometimes close enough to rock the APC on its springs and send a pattering of shrapnel against the armor. It was relentless and had been for the past six hours, making him wonder just how many 150mm shells those Martians had. But it wasn't the artillery that was bothering him, it was the Mosquitoes and the special forces teams hiding in the hills.

Two hours ago they had suddenly lost interest in killing the artillery guns and had gone back to their normal tactic of targeting the APCs. Since then, every five minutes or so, three or four would be exploded by laser shots from these platforms, killing everyone inside. There was nothing that could be done about this. The troops could not dismount because of the artillery fire and the APCs could not move around even if that would have done any good. They were stuck here, sitting and waiting, hoping that the specter of random death would not fall upon the vehicle they were currently sitting in.

Callahan was confident that his APC would not be specifically targeted for destruction because it was one of the command APCs. Strict orders that were said to have originated from General Browning himself stated that absolutely no communication that was not urgent in nature would be transmitted from any APC. This would keep the special forces teams from zeroing in on the officers. But that random chance — that possibility that one of those aircraft or one of those hidden, ghostly AT holders would happen to pick his APC — worried him greatly.

Oh well, he was forced to conclude. If it's my time, it's my time. Nothing I can do about that. At least we made it through the refuel and re-arm process.

That had been a bit hairy in and of itself. The Martian artillery had been deliberately targeting the refuel points all day long, sometimes doing tremendous damage, causing nasty, messy death. It was during this process that troops were exposed, that fueling hoses were exposed, that live ammunition was out in the open just waiting to be prematurely detonated by a close explosion. But again, someone up above — General Browning it was said — had come up with a procedure that had minimized the attrition during the process. The APCs, tanks, and artillery platforms would pull up as close as physically possible to the supply car and the supplies would be tossed across from one hatch to the other. Though tossing eighty-millimeter shells over a distance of a meter and a half was dangerous, it had proved to be not as dangerous as keeping the four meters of seperation that protocol dictated. This closer distance had also reduced the amount of fueling hoses damaged by shrapnel and had kept the amount of troops out in the open as few as possible too. When it had been the turn of Callahan's APC to go through the process a few pieces of shrapnel had come pinging in, causing a slight injury to their driver, but that had been it. They had pulled away and sat in wait ever since.

The minutes ticked by and Callahan watched the time display carefully. They had been scheduled to pull out and begin their assault on the main line by 1430 at the latest. The measures taken to protect the armor crews had slowed that down considerably.

An explosion rocked the APC, the concussion so violent that Callahan knew it wasn't merely another arty shell going off. "Who got it?" he asked the driver, who was looking out through his camera.

"Third squad of second platoon just bought it," the driver told him. "They were two APCs over from us in the line. Blew them to bits."

Callahan nodded, feeling his anxiety to get on with it pushing at him. He wondered again why the Martians had abandoned their attempt to take out the artillery guns. Was it because they realized they wouldn't be able to kill enough of them to neutralize the weapons in the coming battle? Was it because they realized they'd better start taking out some of the ground troops instead? Or was it... was it something else? Something more sinister?

He didn't know, couldn't know, but the question itself made him uneasy. The Martians were clever bastards, led by a man who had proven himself to be a military genius. Was it possible he had a few tricks left up his sleeve?

While he was still pondering that thought the last of the APCs finished the fueling process and the fueling trains began their long, slow turn that would take them back towards the Jutfield Gap where they would stage — hopefully not to be needed again. The word came over the command net, transmitted from the ship instead of from one of the APCs.

"All units," the voice said. "Prepare to start moving in. The time has come to liberate Eden once and for all."

Engines began to start one by one and, after less than twenty minutes, the next order came and the tanks and APCs began to move forward, heading for the main line and the final battle.

Meanwhile the mobile artillery guns separated from the camouflage they'd enjoyed amid the tanks and began to assemble into their own formations. Their loaders and gunners prepared to begin firing on pre-determined points, their goal to destroy the concrete reinforced anti-tank bunkers of the main line. A battalion of tanks remained behind to guard them. This was not because any trouble was expected — after all, what kind of trouble could there be? — but because it was standard doctrine.

And from high above a group of peepers under the control of the MPG noted all of this movement and tracked it, the take being sent to the highest levels of MPG command.

General Jackson sat in his office, an open link to General Zoloft appearing on one of his computer screens. Another was showing live shots from the peepers. Yet another was showing a composite view of the entire Eden theater of operations, including the tanks that were now sequestered just beyond the foothills.

"Lead elements are moving in," Jackson said. "What's their speed?"

"Twenty-five klicks," Zoloft told him. "Arty is setting up in position and will start firing soon. Supply trains are moving west at twelve klicks."

Jackson nodded, smiling predatorily. "It would seem the time is right. Get the Hannibal tanks moving on their targets, full speed ahead. They have the telemetry and they have their orders."

"Yes, sir," Zoloft said smartly. "The order is going out now."

"I'm going to address the troops," he said. "Computer, open a link on the main dispatch channel for Eden operations."

Jeff and Drogan were sitting against the backside of the agricultural truck their squad had been assigned, facing the city. They could see the high rises before them, the city buildings they were fighting to protect. Their topic of conversation, as always, was the uncomfortable and unresolved love triangle between Jeff, Xenia, and Belinda.

"Just wait until the fighting is over," Drogan was telling him. "You're not gonna be able to sort anything out with anyone until then. In that, Xenia is completely on the fuckin' money, you know? How can you make plans in the middle of this mess? How can you commit yourself to anyone or anything when any of us could be dead at any minute."

"I can't change how I feel, Drogan," he replied. "I know I'm stupid for imagining a life beyond this thing. I can't even imagine what Mars is gonna be like if we win, but..."

"All units in the Eden theater of operation," a familiar voice suddenly cut in. "This is General Jackson, talking to you from MPG operations in New Pittsburgh."

"What the fuck is this shit?" Drogan asked, actually grateful for the interruption. She was getting a little weary of hearing Creek drone on and on about Xenia all the time. Sure, she was a hot piece of quim, but was anyone worth all the fuss?

"I don't know," Jeff replied. "I think maybe the shit's about to hit the fan."

"For those of you who are monitoring the enemy positions on your command screen," Jackson said, "you already know what I'm about to tell you. For those who aren't, let me break the news. The WestHem marine units have completed their resupply operation and, as of ten minutes ago, they have begun to move in on the main line of defense. They are moving east at two-five klicks per hour in standard assault formation. The final battle for the fate of Eden is about to begin.

"Desertions have been high over the past few hours, mostly due to the pounding that the WestHem artillery inflicted upon our Jutfield Gap and Blue Line positions last night. I understand and I hold no ill will towards those who left. They simply decided the price of our freedom was a little higher then they expected. For those of you who have stayed behind, I salute you and I thank you for your faith in me and the other commanders who are leading this struggle. Allow me now to ease your mind a little bit about what is to follow.

"The WestHem mobile artillery guns are forming up as we speak. I expect they will begin firing on your positions soon. I wish I could tell you that you won't have to endure any artillery fire at all, but I can now tell you that we initiated a plan that will deal with those guns quickly and efficiently. We will neutralize the artillery threat in this battle and we will neutralize it swiftly. I cannot promise zero casualties before this neutralization takes place — after all, this is war and one cannot always predict everything when so many unknown variables are floating around — but it is my belief that we will silence those guns before they are able to compromise the integrity of most of the main line infantry and anti-tank positions.

"That is all I have to say for now," Jackson concluded. "I don't want to take up communication time that is best left to your field commanders. But I wanted to let all you know that when those shells start to fall on you that it will not last for long. Free Mars, people. You're fighting a just war."

Drogan and Jeff looked at each other.

"What do you think?" Jeff asked her. "Feel good bullshit?"

"He hasn't laid any of that on us yet, has he?" she replied.

"That's true," Jeff admitted.

"Did you hear how he termed that? He didn't say 'we're trying to neutralize the artillery', he said we will neutralize it."

"I sure the fuck hope he's right about that," Jeff said. "Because we're sitting out here in the open."

Lon and his squad were lying across two hills on the north side of the valley, directly across from where the WestHem resupply operation had been carried out. They had been out here all day, long enough to be resupplied twice with fresh charging batteries for the three anti-tank lasers they carried. Their orders had changed several times, seemingly against military logic, with no explanation of why.

When they'd first been dropped they had been tasked with going after the mobile artillery guns. For three hours they'd sifted through the massive collection of armored vehicles deployed from horizon to horizon, picking out individual guns and then targeting them, having to displace each time they fired in order to avoid the inevitable return fire from the marine mortar squads. And then, after the first supply drop they'd been told to ignore the mobile guns and to start hitting the APCs again. They had puzzled over this — there were still almost five hundred mobile guns out there, enough to cause the infantry troops at the main line quite a headache — but they'd obeyed. And then, just an hour before, after their last supply drop, their orders had changed yet again, and this time it was almost too much to take.

"Hold in place," they were told. "Do not engage any enemy units for any reason until further orders. Even if engaged, retreat without firing if possible. Repeat: Hold all fire until further notice."

"Are we surrendering?" Lisa asked. "Is there a cease-fire in place?"

"I don't think so," Lon said. "A cease-fire order would've gone out to all troops in the field at once. This came from Colonel Bright's office so it only applies to us."

They'd watched helplessly and angrily as the tanks and APCs started their engines and began to form up in lines for their march to Eden. They had a total of sixty charging batteries with them, enough to take out six hundred marines by themselves. Instead, they were letting them stroll out of here unmolested — or almost unmolested. The Mosquitoes kept making regular appearances and popping off two to four at a time.

And now, as the rear elements of the main army disappeared over the eastern horizon and as the artillery units began to form up into firing positions Lon suddenly wondered if the plan was for them to start engaging the artillery now. After all, it was all out in the open, right in front of them, with only a scattered battalion of tanks interspersed around the perimeter to defend it. Even the mortar squads were gone. But the minutes ticked by and no such order came.

"Goddammit," complained Horishito, "what the hell are those rear-echelon motherfuckers doing back at command? How the hell can they expect us to just sit here and watch the enemy start pounding on our forces without doing anything about it?"

"I agree, sarge," Lisa said, stroking the side of her AT laser nervously. "Maybe there's some kind of communications breakdown going on. Maybe we oughtta just engage anyway. If we don't start hitting them soon we aren't gonna knock enough of them out to make a difference."

"Wong's right, sarge," said Jefferson. "We been sitting here too fucking long. Let's start lighting up some guns."

"No," Lon said, looking at his time display. It had been ten minutes now since the last elements had disappeared. Even the dust cloud was slowly dissipating. "They gave us very clear and very precise orders. I'm not going to start acting on my own. Not yet anyway."

That pretty much ended the talk of dissension from their instructions. They grumbled a little more but no one else suggested opening up on the guns. Five more minutes ticked by, during which time the guns below finished their complex dance and seemed ready to unleash a barrage of 150mm shells any second.

"Message coming in, sarge," Jefferson suddenly reported. "It's decoding now."

"Finally," Lon grumbled. "AT teams, get your weapons charged up."

"It says... what the fuck?" Jefferson said.

"Jeffy, I seriously doubt that message reads 'what the fuck'. So what the fuck does it actually say?"

"Sorry, sarge," he said. "It says: 'Engage all main battle tanks within your zone immediately. Do not engage mobile guns. Primary targets are the MBTs."

"What the fuck?" Lon said.

"It must be a mistake," Horishito said. "It must be for Delta squad over on the avenue of advance."

"No," Jefferson said, "it is specifically made out to our squad and the other three squads on this perimeter."

Lon shook his head. "I hope they know what they're doing," he said. "All AT's, open up on the main battle tanks. Let's get it on."

They started with the closest tanks first since they would be the ones to put down the most accurate return fire. Three weapons flashed and three tanks exploded. At the same time, further away, three more tanks exploded as another squad two kilometers to their east opened up as well. The remaining tanks, alerted to the position of their tormentors by the flashes of the weapons, turned their turrets in their direction. They got off one more shot apiece before the eighty-millimeter shells came screaming in, showering the hillside with lethal shrapnel.

"Displace," Lon said calmly. "Move to position three."

They rolled down the hill just as the fire reached a furious intensity. Once at the bottom they trotted further into the hills and then worked their way westward, towards another two hills. They climbed them as quickly as possible and lay down on their stomachs.

"The guns are firing now," Lisa reported as she waited for her weapon to charge.

And indeed they were. All across the valley the long barrels were flashing, sending white streaks downrange toward the main line positions.

"Hope they got their heads down back at the line," Lon said. "Keep the fire up, guys. Two shots and then displace."

"Sarge," Horishito suddenly said. "Look to the west!"

Lon looked in that direction and saw a large dust cloud billowing up — the mark of a shitload of armored vehicles on the move. "Who in the hell is that?" he asked.

"There's another one!" Jefferson said. "From the other side of the valley!"

Lon looked and sure enough, more clouds of red dust were rising into the air from the other side.

"Reinforcements from the LZ?" Horishito asked.

"I don't know," Lon said. "I didn't think they had anything left to reinforce with. Jeffy, as soon as we displace after this next shot, send off a report on this to command."

"Right, sarge."

Lisa and the other two AT holders fired their shots, destroying three more WestHem tanks. They reloaded and then destroyed three more, displacing from the hill and moving to the next position. As they were climbing up Jefferson reported that a new message had come in.

"What is it?" Lon asked.

"'Martian main battle tanks in multi-battalion strength moving in on your position from the west and from the southwest to engage WestHem mobile guns. Continue to engage WestHem MBTs until Martian tanks get in range and then cease fire to avoid friendly casualties'."

"Martian MBTs?" Lisa asked. "That's what's making all that dust?"

"How in the fuck did they get out there?" Horishito asked.

"Son of a bitch," Lon said, suddenly understanding the strange progression of orders now. "Don't worry about how they got there. They're here. Get some fire on those WestHem tanks so they can do their job!"

Xenia stared intently at her gunnery screen, her hands on the twin laser cannon controls, her eyes looking at the terrain ahead, waiting for the first of the mobile guns to appear. They were moving at top speed for the terrain, more than ninety kilometers per hour and they were bouncing violently, their engine roaring. Both of her cannons were fully charged and ready to fire.

"Targets will be in range anytime," said Zen, who was monitoring the telemetry screen that was updated from the peepers circling overhead. "Special forces teams on the perimeter have been hitting the escort tanks and have taken out about half of them. They will disengage when we come into view. Xenia, hit the guns in our sector as soon as you see them but tanks will remain the primary target until they are all gone. Remember, the guns can't hurt us but the tanks can."

"Right, Zen," she said.

"Belinda, we drive full speed until we're right on top of them and then slow to a crawl. When they start to scatter we stick to our zone. Don't go chasing after the escapees. Someone else will get them. We stay put in our zone until its clear and then we go to whatever zone they assign us next."

"Right, Zen," she said.

"How's our fuel?" he asked.

"We're down to a third on hydrogen, a little more on O2."

"Okay, don't spare the fuel. Remember, they'll arrange for a way to get some out to us once the mission is over."

"Right."

They crested over a small rise in the land and suddenly the targets were there in front of them, hundreds of self-propelled artillery guns stretching from one end of the valley to the other, gather around in groups of four and eight.

"In range!" Zen yelled. "Light 'em up, X!"

"Fuckin' aye," she said, placing her targeting recticle on the first and squeezing the button. The gun exploded spectacularly, which much more force than a mere tank due to the higher volume of explosive shells contained within. She quickly panned to the right, covered another one, and sent it into oblivion.

"Nice shooting, X," Zen said. "Fire at will. Remember, get the tanks when you see them."

All around them the explosions began to flare as the other tanks opened fire as well. A tank suddenly appeared before them. It's laser flashed and there was an explosion somewhere behind them as a friendly tank went up.

"Target, tank," Zen yelled. "Ten o'clock! Six hundred meters."

"Got it," Xenia said, putting her recticle on it. Before she could fire, however, two other lasers from other tanks hit it at once, blowing its turret off.

"Never mind," Zen said. "Pop some more guns. I'm counting eleven of them in our sector."

She put her recticle on another target and fired. She then did it again.

By this time all artillery fire had stopped as the crews manning the guns and their commanders realized — perhaps a little belatedly — that somehow, some way, Martian tanks in overwhelming force were slamming into their formation and slaughtering them. They quickly folded up their guns and tried to make a run for it, scattering like ants whose anthill has been kicked over. There was no hope in running however. The guns could not hope to get away from front line tanks. They simply didn't have the speed.

The remaining WestHem tanks that had been assigned to guard duty were caught as off-guard as everyone else. They drove around in confusion for a few minutes, firing wildly at anything they could see, killing some of the Martian tanks — and their crews — but not nearly as many as they would have had they been organized in even the most rudimentary manner. They were blown up one by one and within three minutes they were all dead, leaving the rest of the mobile guns completely unprotected.

General Dakota Dickenson — commander of the WestHem forces in the Eden area of operation — at first thought the message his aide passed onto him was a particularly poor joke, that or some of the Martians hacking into their communications set and playing games.

"That's impossible!" he said. "There's no way the Martians could have gotten tanks into our rear area!"

"Sir," said Major Horshell, "I listened in on the transmission myself. Colonel Dallas of artillery command is out there in the middle of it in his APC. He sounded panicked, sir and he reports better than three hundred Martian tanks swept down on them from the west and are 'blowing the shit out of my guns'. He is requesting immediate tank support from the main advance."

"Get him on the com," Dickenson ordered. "And get Colonel Fowler in here too."

"Yes, sir," Horshell said, turning quickly to his computer screen.

While he waited Dickenson quickly panned the telemetry screen he had been viewing the advance on westward, to the area where the artillery guns were deployed. His breath caught in his throat when he saw that all of the escort tanks and more than a third of the guns were no longer transmitting position reports. The only reason for this would be a catastrophic vehicle failure of some sort — like being blown to shit. He began to get very worried.

"Colonel Dallas on screen, General," Horshell told him.

He switched the view and found himself looking into the terrified eyes of the artillery commander. "Steve," he said. "What the hell is going on out there?"

"We're under attack, General!" Dallas said. "Hundreds of Martian tanks came out of nowhere and start blasting us to shit! They killed all the escort tanks and now they're chasing down all the guns and slaughtering them."

"Hundreds of tanks?" Dickenson asked. "How is that possible? Where in the hell did they come from?"

"I have no fucking idea, sir!" he said. "But they're sure as shit here! You need to get me some tanks out here right now!"

"They'll be on the way in a few minutes," Dickenson said. "Try to save as many of your guns as you can."

Dallas didn't answer. He simply signed off. At that moment Colonel Fowler — commander of the 27th and the 29th armored divisions (the two battered units had been combined after the bloody first phase) entered the room. "You called, General?"

"I need you to break free two regiments of tanks from the advance and turn them around. They need to get back to the refuel point at best possible speed."

"Sir?" he asked. "Why would I do that?"

"Martian tanks have somehow gotten into our rear," he said. "We don't have exact numbers but there could be as many as six hundred of them. They're slaughtering the mobile guns as we speak."

"What?" Fowler said. "Martian tanks in our rear? That's impossible! They would have had to have gone through our lines in order to get there!"

Dickenson flipped his screen back to the telemetry view. "Look at this, Fowler," he said, pointing to the conspicuous absence of more than one hundred and fifty of the blue dots that should have been there. "Does that look like a figment of my imagination? Now get that goddamn regiment turned around right now!"

"Yes, sir," Fowler said, paling.

"How long until they can get back there?"

"At least twenty minutes, sir."

Dickenson shook his head. "I don't think that's enough time," he said. "Not at the rate those blue dots are disappearing. Get on it though. We need to engage those tanks and wipe them out."

"Yes, sir," Fowler said, grabbing the nearest computer screen and going to work.

The mobile guns continued to scatter about in a panic, some zigzagging about, some trying to straight out run for it, some going in circles, a few trying to head for the foothills. It made no difference. They were much slower than the tanks pursuing them, much less maneuverable, and completely defenseless. They were chased down one by one, in groups, and they were dispatched with shots from the laser cannons. Soon some of the crews began to realize the hopelessness of their situation and brought their machines to a halt. They then jumped out through their hatches, got as far away as they possibly could, and held up their hands in surrender. Most thought the Martians would simply shoot them down but this only happened once, when a crew jumped out with M-24s in their hands. A single shot from an eighty-millimeter main gun mowed them down.

The tanks continued to blast away at the unoccupied guns and to chase down the few remaining ones that were still moving. It was when there was less than twenty of them left that the message came across the net.

APPROX ONE THOUSAND (1000) MBT'S HAVE BROKEN LOOSE FROM MAIN WESTHEM ADVANCE AND ARE HEADING AT HIGH SPEED IN YOUR DIRECTION. ETA APPROX 15 MINUTES.

"That's not good," Zen said when he read the message.

"What's not good?" Xenia asked as she sighted in on one of the immobile guns and blasted it.

"A thousand WestHem tanks just broke loose from the main column and are heading back this way. ETA fifteen minutes."

"Jeez," Belinda said. "You blow up a few of their arty guns and they get all pissed off at us."

"Yes, they do have quite the temper," Xenia agreed. She was tingling with an excitement that was almost sexual in nature.

"So what now?" Belinda asked. "It doesn't sound like we really want to hang out here, does it?"

"No, you wouldn't think so," Zen said. "Let me check with command."

He did and he was told to stand by. He stood by for another three minutes, during which time Belinda managed to chase down another straggler and Xenia managed to kill it.

"Okay, new orders coming in," Zen said. "We're to disengage from the mobile guns immediately and head west at full throttle."

"We're going after the secondary target?" Xenia asked.

"Fuckin' aye," Zen said with a grin.

In less than five minutes the entire group of tanks turned around and formed up into a loose line stretching across more than two kilometers of the valley. They rumbled to the west, moving once again at more than ninety kilometers per hour.

Chapter 24

Eden Theater — behind the WestHem line, 16 kilometers east of the Jutfield Gap

September 14, 2146, 1612 hours

Five hundred and eleven Martian tanks had entered the valley from the Sierra Madres to the north or from the Overlook Mountains to the south to make the surprise attack on the WestHem artillery guns. The mission had cost them sixteen tanks in the brief, but violent exchange with the battalion of tanks guarding the guns. The rest, having completed their primary mission, were now heading west at the best possible speed, their intent to go after their secondary target: The WestHem supply trains, which were sitting back towards the gap in case resupply of the main force became necessary.

Inside one of the tanks toward the middle of the formation, Zen Valentine sat in the commander's chair, looking at the telemetry on one screen and the Intelligence briefing on the other.

"Targets are eleven klicks away, stationary, spread out over one and a half klicks of ground," he told Belinda and Xenia. "The supply column consists of sixteen trains with fifteen cars per train. Each train is towed by six modified tanks. Do not waste time or energy engaging the towing tanks. They are pulling engines only and they have no defensive or offensive capabilities. Xenia, you'll know them when you see them because they will be stationed at the front of each train and they have no cannons."

"Got it," Xenia said, looking at an identification photo of a towing tank on her own screen.

"The column is protected by twenty-four mobile SALs," Zen went on. "They are currently deployed in a circle around the formation. Don't worry about them either. They're bad news for the Mosquitoes but they can't hurt us."

"Right," Xenia agreed. She already knew this, of course — it was basic armor school training — but it was good to go over such things for clarity before going into battle.

"Now, onto what we do have to worry about," Zen said. "There is a battalion of main battle tanks and a battalion of infantry guarding the column from ground attack. The tanks are grouped into squads and platoons and deployed throughout the perimeter of the column. The infantry is mounted in APCs and they are grouped in the middle of the column. Intelligence says the infantry units are equipped with portable anti-air and portable anti-tank lasers.

"Our platoon is assigned to armor suppression on the northeast side of the column. When we engage, our primary targets will be the tanks, the APCs, and any dismounted infantry troops. Xenia, remember to stick to your zone. There are a thousand WestHem tanks fifteen to twenty minutes behind us so if we're going to do any damage to that column, everyone has to stick to their assignment. Got it?"

"Got it," she said.

"If you manage to clear all the tanks in your zone you can start hitting the supply cars themselves. Ammunition carriers are the primary target followed by hydrogen carriers and then oxygen carriers. Remember, it will take at least two and maybe as many as four shots in exactly the same place to penetrate the armor on those cars. Take your shot and then put your second shot right on the hot spot you just created and then, once you're recharged, do it again."

"Fuckin' aye," Xenia said, feeling her heart hammering in anticipation. "Do you think we'll be able to knock out all the guard tanks as quick as we did back at the guns?"

"Hopefully," Zen said. "And we're getting a little help in that too. Command says that four flights of Mosquitoes are inbound to hit the tanks before we get there. Hopefully they'll do us some good."

"Four flights?" Belinda asked. "That's only eight planes."

"That's all they can spare," Zen said. "The rest of them are pounding on the APCs moving in on the line."

"Oh well," Xenia said. "It leaves more targets for me then, doesn't it?"

"Fuckin' aye," Zen said.

Brian and Matt were one of the planes inbound to deal with the armor. They had been in the plane now for the past twelve hours, landing only to refuel every few hours and then going right back up again. Both men were very tired and very sore, particularly Matt, who still sported an open wound on his gluteus maximus that screamed with pain every time they pulled a turn higher than two Gs — which was to say every turn they made during their firing runs. He could feel wet blood squishing around in the saturated bandage every time he shifted position, could feel rivulets of it running down onto the back of his leg, collecting in the wrinkles where the ill-fitting biosuit he'd stolen from Xavier Goodhit didn't quite provide the proper pressurization.

"How's the ass, kid?" Brian asked as they screamed through one of the valleys. "You holding up?"

"I forgot all about it until you mentioned it," Matt told him.

"You sure?"

"Hey, boss," Matt said, "how many times I gotta tell you? It's just some skin off my ass."

Brian nodded, although he believed Matt's words about as much as he believed the big three military briefings. "You just let me know if it gets too bad. The last fuckin' think in the solar system I need is to have my sis pass out from pain."

"You know it, boss," Matt promised. "You're turning right to two-eight-three in five, four, three, two, one."

"They cut to the right above a shallow series of hilltops between to mountains, pulling 2.8 Gs according to the meter on their screens. Matt bit his lip against the pain, feeling a fresh glut of blood come pouring out of his body. When they leveled out he took a few deep breaths as the pain slowly faded out. He looked down at his telemetry screen again, trying to memorize the locations of all the tanks in the enemy formation so he wouldn't have to search too hard on the firing run. The WestHems had twenty-four mobile surface-to-air lasers protecting that supply column and twenty-four SALs in such a concentrated area meant they were cutting their exposure time down to three seconds to reduce the risk of being felled by a lucky shot.

"Look at all those tanks we put down there," Brian said after taking a brief glance down at his own telemetry screen.

"Hell yeah," Matt said enthusiastically. "More than five hundred of them. They destroyed those mobile guns in ten minutes, man! Ten fuckin minutes to do what we couldn't do after tryin' all night and all day! How the hell did they get that many tanks in the rear?"

"They had to have moved them in over the mountains," Brian opined.

"Is that possible?" Matt asked. "We fly over them mountains all the time. I never saw nothin' down there it looked like you could drive a tank over."

"Let alone five hundred of them," Brian said. "I don't know. I can't think of any other way they could've done it short of driving all the way around the mountains and coming in from behind the LZ itself. That would be a trip of more than four hundred klicks. They would've had to refuel at least twice and probably three times."

"And how would they have gotten by the LZ?" Matt asked. "There's still almost a regiment of tanks guarding that and they have visual from the Sierra Madres to the Overlooks. No way five hundred tanks just strolled by without being seen."

"Well... however they did it, they did it and they killed the shit out of that mobile arty."

"Ready to change your bad opinion of General Jackson now?" Matt asked.

"I don't know," Brian said. "I'll admit that the massive flanking maneuver was a stroke of genius, but don't forget there's a trade-off."

"What trade-off?"

"They neutralized the arty so the ground pounders won't have to get pulverized into oblivion anymore. That's good. And now they're going after the supply column to keep the WestHems from resupplying. That's good too — if it's successful. But don't forget, while those five hundred tanks are out here, the main line is now missing more than a third of it's tank support to help fight off the main thrust. If they push through the main line because we don't have enough tanks to fight them off... well, they'll occupy Eden in a few hours. If that happens this whole brilliant maneuver was for nothing, wasn't it?"

"Well... yeah, I guess you have kind of a point there."

"I sure as shit wouldn't want to be one of those poor slobs in the trenches," Brian said. "When those WestHem marines start moving on them a lot of them are going to get a lot worse than just some skin off their asses."

They flew on, making another course change and then another, their wing following their motions blindly, acting on faith in Brian's skills and Matt's navigation. Soon they reached the IP.

"Thirty seconds to target," Matt said. "I'm picking up multiple search radars and active IR from the column. Nothing strong enough to get a hit off us. Mostly leaky signals coming around the peak."

"Static," Brian said, screwing up his concentration to the max. "Your lasers?"

"Charged and ready," Matt said. "I'm gonna try to hit two tanks per pass but three seconds ain't much time when they're scattered among the supply train."

"Do the best you can," Brian said. "That's all you can do. You got my vectors?"

"When you clear the last hill cut hard right to two-seven-seven. When the carrot moves cut right again to zero-zero-three and pull up to three-four-seven meters AGL."

"Got it," Brian said. "And here we go."

They shot out over the valley and cut hard to the right. Matt felt the sting in his ass again, felt more blood gush out, but he hardly noticed, so intent was he on the mass of targets that suddenly appeared on his screen. He saw towing tanks and SALs and dozens upon dozens of tanker cars and boxcars. But the targets were more than six kilometers away and the plane was moving fast. Matt wasn't able to spot and turn his targeting recticle on an actual main battle tank until they were already turning back toward the mountains and safety. He pushed the firing button for cannon number one and saw the distinctive double flash of a direct hit. A second later, before he could even begin to target a second MBT, they were back in the hills, all the targets gone from his screen. This was one more tank then their wing managed to hit.

"Damn," Matt mumbled. "Only one hit."

"You'll do better next time," Brian said. "It's a bitch of a mission. You got our return course up?"

"Left to two-nine-eight in three, two, one," Matt said.

They circled around again, coming in from further to the west this time and targeting the rear of the formation. Once again Matt was only able to hit one tank but this time the wing managed to hit two. As they disappeared back into the hills there came an eruption of flashes from the SALs as they opened up, trying desperately to make one of those coveted lucky shots. The two planes disappeared without incident. They then came in from the east again two minutes later. This time Matt managed to hit two tanks and the wing hit one.

"Now we're sucking some clit!" Brian said as he dove into the safety of the hills once again.

In all the eight planes made five runs apiece. None of them were hit by the SALs although Brian and Matt's wing had one of the lasers pass within two meters of them (they would never know this, however, and so therefore would never be bothered by how close to death or capture they'd come). In all they managed to kill a grand total of twenty-seven of the fifty-eight tanks of the protection battalion before they were recalled.

"Why are they pulling us back?" Brian asked. "We're on a fuckin' roll here."

"Our tanks are moving in," Matt replied. "They'll be in engagement range in less than thirty seconds."

"All right then," Brian said. "Wish them luck. Get us a course back to the main line so we can take out a few more APCs before we have to go in for fuel."

"You'll have it in one minute, boss," Matt told him.

Four hundred and ninety-five Martian main battle tanks waded into the supply column, forming a semi-circle around it, and began to fire their lasers. The lead tanks in each sector, including the one crewed by Zen, Belinda, and Xenia, were tasked with anti-armor duties. The rest went after the tanker cars and the ammunition carriers.

"Target, tank!" Zen called out to Xenia as two tanks in their line suddenly exploded. "One o'clock. Get the fucker, X!"

She got him, blowing a hole in it and sending the turret flying with a single shot. She panned back and forth, searching for more tanks and found one peeking out between two of the supply cars. It's lasers flashed and two more Martian tanks exploded. Xenia fired on it, killing it.

The first of the ammunition carriers went up a few seconds later. There was a brilliant flash and the entire car was ripped to shreds, the concussion enough to overturn the two adjacent cars in its line, the shrapnel ripping into one with enough force to cause it to explode as well. This overturned two of the hydrogen carriers. Soon, other ammo cars began to explode too.

"They're reporting that three shots will take out an ammo carrier," Zen said. "They have to be exactly in the same place though, not just overlapping a little."

"I got another tank," Xenia said, panning that way, waiting impatiently for her laser to recharge. "It just came into my zone. It's not firing at the moment."

"Probably recharging," Belinda said as she brought them in a little closer.

Xenia's charge light came on. She fired at the tank and watched it explode. "Target down," she said. "You see anything else in the zone, Zen?"

"No more MBTs in our zone," he reported. "It sounds like we already got most of them across the board. Start hitting the hydrogen carriers."

"Fuckin' aye," she said, putting her targeting recticle on one of the cylindrical cars. When the charge light came on she fired, hitting it dead center and causing a bright flash to flare. As the flare faded there was a solid heat signature left behind. She kept her recticle directly on it until the other cannon was charged. She fired. The flash came again and the heat signature grew brighter. She waited impatiently until the first charge light came on again. She fired. Once again there was a bright flash but no penetration of the tank.

"Damn, that is some tough-ass armor plating they got there," she said.

Her other cannon reported charged and she fired for the fourth time. This time she achieved a burn-through of the armor. The results weren't all that dramatic. The side of the tanker buckled open and a cloud of vapor suddenly rushed out at high speed, engulfing the car for a few seconds before rising into the air and dissipating. Though hydrogen was one of the most flammable gases in existence there was not enough oxygen in the Martian atmosphere for it to burn even when a high intensity laser seared into it. But drama wasn't what they were going for here. The gas was all gone for that tanker, floating in the Martian atmosphere now, useless to the WestHem marines who relied on it to fuel their military machines.

Ammunition cars began to explode with more regularity now, scattering the cars around them, occasionally causing secondary explosions, a few times causing chain reaction explosions of four or five cars at a time. Within five minutes the entire column was in tatters, with overturned cars and debris lying everywhere. A giant but brief fireball erupted at one point when the dissipating hydrogen from one tanker mixed with the dissipating oxygen from another tanker and was penetrated by one of the lasers, thus fulfilling the three requirements of combustion — fuel, oxidizer, and ignition source.

"That was some shit," Xenia said, blinking her eyes to clear the afterimages the flash had caused. The concussion from the blast had been strong enough to rock their tank.

"That ain't propaganda," Zen agreed.

While Xenia went to work on her next target a platoon of dismounted marines suddenly appeared from the carnage, anti-tank lasers in their hands. "Zen!" Xenia said, alarmed as they began to set up their shots.

"Keep firing," Zen said. "I've got 'em." He grabbed the controls for the 4mm machine gun and put his recticle on the center of the platoon. He opened up, spraying bullets across them, killing many, and causing the others to go diving for cover back in the carnage. Other tanks took up the cause as well, sending their own machine gun fire after them. A few sent eighty-millimeter shells in their direction, proximity bursting them and blowing the exposed marines to pieces. The threat from the dismounts was neutralized before they could get off a single shot.

"All units," a voice said in Zen's ear. "Lead elements of the WestHem tank forces are now less than eight klicks out. Disengage and begin moving to the pre-planned egress point."

"We're pulling out," Zen said as Xenia ruptured an oxygen tanker. "Cease firing, X. B, get us the fuck out of here. Course should be on your screen now."

The Martian tanks turned away from the supply column and began to run at high speed away from the carnage they'd caused. Half headed northwest, the other half southwest, their plan to disappear the same way they'd come: into the mountains.

It was a good plan but it hadn't taken several things into account. They hadn't counted on an entire regiment of WestHem tanks to be less than ten minutes behind them and they hadn't counted on the fact that the survivors from the supply column would radio command and let them know the direction of travel of their tormentors as they'd left. Thus the WestHem tanks in pursuit of them divided into two, half chasing after the northern section, the other half after the southern. The last thing not taken into account was how long it would take to get more than two hundred tanks through a small opening between the hills and into the pass beyond it. A bottleneck quickly developed on both egress points, with lines of tanks waiting impatiently for those in front to clear the pass. And that was how the lead elements of the WestHem tanks found their enemy when they came into range.

"We're under fire!" Zen announced as tanks began to explode all around them. "Xenia, get the cannons turned around and start returning it!"

She did as she was told, turning and looking out on a landscape that was now dotted with main battle tanks, their lasers flashing. She immediately began to shoot back, exploding two of them within ten seconds. Her heart hammered in fear as she waited for her cannons to recharge.

The other tanks massed near the pass turned their cannons on the WestHems as well. There were plenty of targets and as the tanks continued to work their way into the mountains an epic slaughter developed on both sides as tanks exploded left and right, as flashes of lasers winked from every direction.

"We're forming up in lines," Zen told Belinda. "A lot of us are overlapping fire or blocking each other's shots. Get us moved twenty meters right."

"Moving," Belinda said, hitting the accelerator and moving the T-bar, lining their tank up against the others near them. Two of them exploded suddenly and she almost panicked. "Zen, when do we get out of here?"

"When command calls our squad and tells us to move," Zen said. "Until then, we hold and try to keep them off of us."

It went on for the better part of ten minutes. The WestHem tanks stopped their advance and spread out to give themselves better firing positions. The Martian tanks did the same and the intensity of the battle picked up, with tanks on both sides blowing into oblivion with horrifying regularity.

"Okay, we're up!" Zen suddenly said. "Get us the fuck out of here, B!"

"Goddamn right," she said, turning them around and putting the accelerator to the floor.

They rumbled across the last of the flatland, heading for the opening. They were less than fifty meters away from safety when the entire tank suddenly shuddered and spun violently to the left. Zen felt himself slammed against the side of the tank from the violence of the centrifugal force. They spun, bounced, tipped onto their side momentarily, and then finally shuddered to a halt.

"Motherfuck!" Belinda exclaimed.

"Report, B!" Zen said.

"They got the left tread," she said. "We're immobile."

"Goddammit!" Xenia said. "Twice in one fucking war is too much for this shit!"

"Everyone out!" Zen ordered. "Start heading on foot for the pass!"

They popped their hatches open and scrambled out. Like last time, they didn't bother grabbing their weapons. Once their feet were on the ground they began to move as quickly as possible towards the opening. On both sides of them other Martian tanks went screaming past, all of them avoiding hitting the pedestrians, none of them stopping to help them however.

They were twenty-five meters away when an eighty-millimeter shell, fired from one of the WestHem tanks, came screaming in. It exploded prematurely and off-target — a result of the targeting difficulties caused by the marines' continuing unfamiliarity with Martian atmospheric pressure. Even so, it sent a hail of deadly shrapnel flying toward them at suicidal speed. Most of the fragments passed over the top of them but not all. A good portion slammed into Zen, who was taking up the rear, ripping through the left side of his biosuit and tearing into his body. He thumped to the ground, breathless, feeling pain unlike anything he'd ever imagined before.

"Zen's down!" Xenia said, stopping in her tracks and rushing over to him.

"Goddammit, no!" Belinda cried, doing the same.

"Go," Zen gasped at them. "Get the fuck out of here! Forget about me!"

"Fuck that shit," Xenia said. "B, grab his uppers. I'll get the lowers."

"I can't... breath," Zen said. "I think I'm done for. Leave me."

"You ain't gonna die, Zen," Belinda told him. "Not today. We're getting your ass outta here. Now shut up."

He shut up. He no longer had the energy to talk anyway. The two women picked him up by the handles on his biosuit and began carrying him toward the entrance to the pass. Another eighty-millimeter shell streaked towards them and exploded. Once again it was too high over their heads. The concussion knocked them to the ground but the shrapnel missed them entirely. Belinda and Xenia slowly picked themselves back up and moved on.

They were forced to carry Zen partially up the side of the hill that guarded the pass in order to avoid the continuing rush of tanks that were making entry on the flat ground. They scrambled down the other side to where the pass opened up, to where some of the tanks were starting to spread out and encircle the hill.

Xenia got on the emergency channel and called command, giving their location and letting them know they had a gravely injured soldier with them. Command vectored one of the spare tanks over to them. It pulled up and stopped just at the base of the backside of the hill. The commander — someone they didn't know — popped his head out of the hatch and spoke to them on the emergency channel.

"You need to climb up on the sides," he told them. "One of you get the injured guy on the tread guard and hold him there. We're gonna take you to the rendezvous at the valley."

"Great," Xenia muttered. "Riding on the outside again."

"We need to stabilize Zen a little first," Belinda said. "Let's put him down."

"Hurry the fuck up," the commander said. "Those WestHem tanks are gonna try to follow us in here."

Zen was barely conscious now, his breathing rapid and shallow, his eyes half-lidded, seeing little. His suit was leaking in several places, where holes too big to seal on their own had been ripped. There was no active bleeding — at least not externally. Xenia pulled out the emergency supplies from her own suit and used the sealer to cover the holes. That was about all they could do.

"We need to get a medic to him as quickly as possible," Belinda told the commander.

"Command says special forces teams from the arty site are being flown out to the rendezvous point. They have medics with them. Will he make it that far?"

The trip to the rendezvous point in Gibbons Valley was nearly twenty minutes. Xenia and Belinda looked at each other doubtfully. "I guess he's gonna have to," Xenia finally said.

They hefted him up onto the tread guard, laying him flat on his back, his head towards the front of the tank. Xenia climbed onto the turret just above him and curled her legs around his chest. She held onto the twenty-millimeter cannon. Belinda climbed up a little further towards the back, holding onto the main hatch handle and curling her legs around Zen's legs.

"Okay," Xenia said. "Let's do it."

"We'll keep it slow," the commander promised. "There are a few up and down portions."

"We'll hold onto him," Xenia said forcefully. "I'm not letting another one fall."

The commander looked at her quizzically and then disappeared back inside his tank. A moment later they began to move. Xenia and Belinda both held on.

Meanwhile, the rest of the tanks — those that had survived the battle — had made it inside the pass. The WestHems tried to follow them in, intent upon finalizing the revenge mission they'd been sent on, but the commander of the Martian tanks had already foreseen this. Two companies of tanks had been assigned as rear guards and had positioned themselves atop hills just inside the pass — their cannons pointing downward towards the narrow entrance. Every time a WestHem tank attempted to enter it was blown to pieces. Within five minutes the pass was choked with burned out tanks and the WestHem commanders had lost their taste for the pursuit and pulled back.

When the tank bearing Belinda, Xenia, and the injured Zen pulled into Gibbons Valley they were directed to the center of the small valley where a landing zone had been established. Sitting on the ground here were two hummingbirds, their ramps open. Three soldiers bearing the extra camouflage of special forces members came trotting over to them. The lead soldier held up five fingers to them, indicating which short-range channel they should switch down to. Xenia and Belinda both did so.

"I'm Sergeant Fargo," the lead soldier told them. "This is Corporal Wong and Corporal Horishito. How bad is your guy here?"

"Pretty fuckin' bad," Xenia said. "He took shrapnel from an eighty in the back. He's having trouble breathing."

Fargo looked down at him and winced. "You ain't shitting," he said. The poor bastard's face was a visible shade of blue beneath his helmet. He was barely breathing at all now. "Let's get him to doc right away. Priority."

"Right," said Wong, reaching over and grabbing the upper handles on Zen's suit.

"We'll carry him," Xenia said forcefully, jumping down onto the ground and grabbing the handles away from her.

Wong nodded. "Suit yourself," she said, unoffended. She stepped back.

Belinda grabbed the lower handles and they picked him up, carrying him thirty meters over to a triage area where about two dozen other wounded were being attended by two medics. They set him down in a clear area.

"Brandy," Fargo said, talking to Mike Branderson, his squad medic, "come and look at this one. He's pretty bad."

"Coming, sarge," Branderson said, picking up his pack and trotting over. He took one look at Zen and muttered an obscenity. He then knelt down and pulled out his scanner.

"How is he?" Xenia asked when the medic finished the scan.

"He has a tension pneumothorax and his left kidney got shredded which is causing internal bleeding," Branderson said, reaching into his pack and pulling out a wicked looking device that resembled a small jackhammer with a needle on the end.

"What does that mean?" Belinda asked.

"The internal bleeding ain't too bad at the moment," Branderson said. "The problem is the tension pneumo. His lung is punctured and the air he's breathing is leaking out of it and getting into his chest cavity, causing pressure to build up. That's made the lung collapse and it's starting to wrap around his heart and keep it from beating. It'll strangle his heart in a few minutes if I don't relieve the pressure." He shook his head. "I'm surprised it hasn't done it already."

"Can you fix it?" Xenia asked. "I've been through a lot with this asshole."

"Doc's the best," Wong said, kneeling down next to her. "If he can be fixed this is the man to do it. He's a dip-hoe in Eden when he's not out here yelling at us to drink our fucking water."

Xenia looked up at her and smiled gratefully. "Thanks," she said. "You're Lisa Wong, right? The first bitch in the special forces?"

"That's me," she said. "You've heard of my exploits I take it?"

"Everyone's heard about you," Xenia told her. "You're famous, especially the part about that fight you had in training in the locker room."

"Oh yeah, that," Wong said. "I was just trying to establish my place in the hierarchy of things."

"Did you really squeeze off his windpipe until he started flopping like a fish?" Belinda asked, repeating the current rumor of choice about Wong's training days.

"Uh... yeah," she said. "Something like that."

"I also heard about you from other people," Xenia said. "I'm a friend of a friend of the guy who flies with your partner from the police department."

"I guess that makes us friends ourselves, doesn't it?" she asked.

"Okay," Branderson said, putting the tip of the needle against the upper left portion of Zen's torso. "Here we go."

"What is that thing?" Xenia asked him.

"An outside, trans-biosuit decompression needle," he replied. "It'll go through the suit and into his chest cavity to let the air building up escape. That should decompress the lung." He pushed the button on the top and the entire device jolted in his hand. Zen moaned and twisted his head a few times. There was a pop that was audible even in the thin air and a stream of bloody vapor began to expel from the top of the needle.

"Is it working?" Belinda asked.

Branderson nodded. "It's actually easier to decompress someone outside than it is in the city," he said. "The low atmospheric pressure is a big help. In fact we have to dampen down the draw on the way out to keep from decompressing his entire chest cavity and sucking his lung out through the needle.

Within a minute Zen's breathing began to normalize, the breaths deeper and more effective. His face began to turn from blue to a color that was merely pale. He came awake a little, enough to start screaming in pain.

"Get him some Vexal," Branderson told Xenia. "Fire him up with double dose."

"Isn't that too much?" Xenia asked.

"No," Branderson said. "It'll slow his heart rate down so the kidney won't bleed as bad. Now stop questioning me and do what the fuck I say!"

She did what the fuck he said, accessing his control panel and directing his suit to inject two shots of the potent painkiller — one into his right thigh, one into his right arm. Within a few minutes the screaming faded out and Zen began to relax. By this time Branderson had installed an intraosseous line in his tibia and was pushing synthetic blood and further sedation through it. Zen relaxed even more and some of his color started to come back.

"Okay," Branderson said, nodding in satisfaction. "He's doing a lot better. Sometimes I think I really am God, you know?"

"That's what we think, Brandy," Wong told him.

"So he's gonna make it?" Xenia asked.

"I think so," Branderson said. "He's tagged priority and he'll be on the first hover out of here but as long as he gets to surgery in the next sixty minutes, I think he'll pull through."

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

1645 hours

General Browning was livid, his anger directed at the man who had planned this campaign.

"How in the hell could something like this happen?" he demanded of him. "Enemy tanks in our rear? How did they get there? Did they just stroll right through our line? Or maybe the greenies have some sort of teleportation device that we've never been told about?"

Major Wilde was still stunned at how quickly everything had changed in the Eden theater. They had been within an hour of victory, maybe two, their guns poised to obliterate the Martian anti-tank positions, which would have allowed their APCs to drive right up to the very edge of the open ground before their infantry positions. And then, in an instant, the guns had fallen silent, attacked by more than five hundred Martian tanks that had appeared from nowhere. And if that wasn't enough, those tanks had then gone after their supplies, ripping into the column and destroying heavily armored boxcars and tankers that had been thought to be invulnerable to attack. "We don't know for sure, sir," he answered. "My best guess is they somehow sent those tanks through the mountains."

"Through the mountains?" Browning said. "That's your theory? Do those greenies have roads through those mountains that we're not aware of? Do they have tunnels and bridges to take them through the passes? I sure as hell never saw anything like that on the overheads."

"They have no roads through there," Wilde said, "but they have done extensive mapping and surveying of the area — much more extensive than anything we have. They might've been able to formulate a route through."

"Impossible," Browning spat.

Wilde shook his head in frustration. "It doesn't really matter how they did it, sir," he told his boss. "What matters is that they did and that we must now deal with the consequences of it."

"How bad did this hurt us?" Browning asked.

"This hurt us badly," Wilde admitted. "They killed all but eleven of the mobile guns. Those that survived I've ordered back to the LZ."

"Can't they do us some good on the attack?" Browning asked. "We should keep them forward to provide what support they can, shouldn't we?"

Wilde shook his head. "There's not enough of them to make a difference," he said. "All that would happen if we moved them forward is the remaining Martian 250s would pop them off one by one, probably before they got off more than a half a dozen rounds apiece."

"I see," Browning said. "So will we still be able to take that city by nightfall?"

"We still outnumber them by a considerable margin," Wilde said. "Although that margin has gone down since their reinforcements from Proctor are continuing to arrive with regularity. Still... the margin is high enough that victory is possible."

"So we can do it," Browning said.

"Theoretically," Wilde said. "It will be costly though. The men will have to advance through open ground guarded by concrete pillboxes and hull-down tank and APC positions. They'll be raining artillery and mortars down on them. And when they get through the open ground they'll have to clear each and every one of those positions one by one."

"I don't give a rat's ass how costly it is," Browning said. "I just want to know how long it will take. I promised the media we'd be standing in Eden by sunset tonight!"

Wilde couldn't suppress a sigh. Browning didn't give a damn about the thousands of lives that would be lost. All he cared about was keeping to the timeline he'd promised the media. "We'll either be standing in Eden tonight," he said, "or we'll be defeated, with many of our troops captured and on their way to POW camps."

"What do you mean?" Browning asked. This, at least, alarmed him to some degree.

"There will be no second chance here," Wilde explained. "The initial reports I'm getting from the supply column are that two hundred and twelve of the two hundred and forty supply cars in the train have either been destroyed completely or have had their contents released into the atmosphere. Of those that are left, most are overturned or pinned in by the remains of those that were destroyed. There will be no way for us to resupply any of the units in the field. This includes ammunition for the infantry troops, charging batteries for the portable SALs and the portable ATs, and shells for the tanks and APCs. Most notably it also means we have no way to refuel our vehicles. Getting the APCs back in the event we have to retreat will be very tight."

"I don't want to hear you talking about retreat," Browning said forcefully.

"I'm just trying to lay out the possibilities, sir," Wilde said. "The APCs might be able to make it back if they came back slow but the tanks we sent out in pursuit of the Martian tanks... well, they have just enough fuel to make it back to Eden and fight for an hour or two. They won't make it more than twenty kilometers if they have to pull back."

"There will be no pull back!" Browning said forcefully. "Talking about what you have to do if defeated means you're already half-convinced that will happen! I won't tolerate this any more, Wilde. We will push forward and we will take that city! Is that clear?"

"We'll try, sir," Wilde said. "There's not much else to do at this point."

"Now that's the spirit," Browning said. "You and I will be standing in the lounge of the Eden spaceport by midnight. Mark my words."

"Yes sir."

"Okay. Now that we've agreed to that, how about you tell me your thoughts for making it happen?"

Typical, Wilde thought, feeling his ulcer burning again. He tells me what we're going to do and then asks me how to go about doing it. "Well, sir," he said. "It's my thought that we should concentrate the bulk of our firepower and our infantry advance on the center of the Martian line."

"What about the flanks?" Browning asked.

"We don't need to worry much about the flanks at this point. If we punch through that line and get behind it we'll be able to move into the MPG base itself. All we need to do is secure a corridor large enough to move our people in. We breach into the base and pour as many marines through the hole as we can. Once the base is occupied the Martians on the flanks will be effectively cut off from their supplies and equipment."

Browning nodded wisely. "I like it," he said. "I like it a lot."

"As I said, sir, it's bound to be costly but it's the option with the most chance of success. The units are staging now, ready to move in at your order. I suggest you update your movement orders and get them moving. Every minute we sit here another one of our APCs gets blown up by the Martian aircraft or the special forces teams."

"Then I'd better get on that right away," Browning said. "Do you have those movement orders drawn up for me?"

Wilde sighed again. "Give me about ten minutes sir and I'll have a detailed advance plan for you."

MPG Headquarters, New Pittsburgh

1700 hours

General Jackson was well beyond expressing outrage and condemnation at Laura Whiting when she came strolling into his office, once again completely alone, without benefit of a single one of her security detail. It had gotten to the point where she simply came and went as she pleased, walking on the meanest of the New Pittsburgh streets, riding unescorted on the MarsTrans, just like she was another middle-aged woman out to see the sights.

"Sometimes I wonder," Jackson told her as she sat in the chair next to his desk, "if you're actually trying to get yourself killed, Laura."

"Why on Mars would I try to do that?" she asked him.

"I don't know," he said. "As long as I've known you and as close as we've been over the years, even I don't always know what's going on in that brain of yours."

"Sometimes I don't either," she said. "I was just over at NP General Hospital, visiting some of the wounded." She frowned. "There are a lot of them to visit over there."

"Yeah," he agreed. "I won't argue with you there. How was their morale?"

"Much better than I would have thought, actually," she said. "They all seem to think we're going to hold this city. They're proud to have been a part of that. A few of them even cried when they saw me."

"That's good," he said. "I think the fighting spirit of our people is going to be a major factor in this thing — something the WestHems haven't counted on."

"So you think we're going to hold New Pittsburgh?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes, I think we're going to hold it. The WestHems have taken a hell of a beating clearing our first lines here. They're in the middle of their refuel and rearm about twelve klicks west of the main line. Best estimates say they've taken at least fifteen percent casualties so far, that their tanks have been cut down by almost forty percent, and their APC are down at least thirty percent. Like in the first phase, a lot of them had to walk forward from the Red Line. We're keeping the pressure on them with arty, air attacks, mortar attacks, and special forces attacks. When they move forward to the main line we'll chop them up like hamburger. I think they just might break under the pressure at that point. Even if they don't, I don't think they have enough men or enough ammo to push through, not with our positions still intact."

"That's good news indeed," Laura said, pleased. "I'm really fond of this city and I'd hate to have to leave it."

"Me too," Jackson agreed.

"And how about Eden?" Laura asked. "I understand your flanking maneuver was successful in its mission?"

"It was," Jackson said, "but at considerable cost. They moved through the mountains undetected and caught the WestHem mobile guns completely by surprise, killing all but eleven of them according to telemetry sent to us from the peepers. They then went after the WestHem supply column. Our air strikes took out about half of the WestHem tanks guarding the column and the tanks themselves took out the rest in the first five minutes of the attack. We then blasted and blew up more than ninety percent of the cargo, fuel, and oxygen cars. Unfortunately the marines responded quicker and in larger numbers than we'd anticipated. It took us longer to get our tanks back into the safety of the mountains after the attack then we thought it would. We were engaged by a superior force of WestHem tanks on the north and the south egress points. This cost us one hundred and twelve tanks."

Laura shook her head quietly. "So many," she said.

He nodded. "Most of those were kills too. It's really hard to live through a direct hit from an anti-tank laser. We only collected twenty-three wounded from the engagement — all of them the victims of machine gun fire or eighty millimeter shrapnel after they went out on foot after their tanks were disabled by indirect hits."

"They're safe now?" she asked.

"Yes, the wounded have all been flown out and transferred to Eden hospitals. The tanks and their crews are staging in the Gibbons Valley ten klicks north of the main valley or the Cypress Valley twelve klicks south of it. We're going to fly some cargo carriers fitted with hydrogen and oxygen tanks out to them so they can refuel. I'm hoping to have them in the air before dark but... well... it's an improvised solution and you know how those go."

"I surely do," she said. "So tell me about the battle for Eden. How are we doing on the main line? I understand you've wiped out their artillery and their supplies but you're also down five hundred tanks. Will we hold? Can we hold?"

Jackson sighed, a little of the strain he was under showing in his face. "They can push through our lines," he said. "If the person directing them up there — I'm inclined to think it isn't really Browning since he's a blithering idiot — if he's even halfway competent at his job, he'll order them to concentrate on the center and push hard to break through and get into the MPG base there."

"They can?" she asked.

"It is certainly within the realm of military possibility," Jackson said. "We weren't able to cause the sort of attrition we strive for on their march forward. We were too busy dealing with the consequences of that damn air strike on our heavy guns. If not for that, Eden would be in the same position right now as New Pittsburgh. The Eden area marines were able to march almost intact right up to the main line. Our reinforcements are arriving but they are not all present. We're still shoving them piecemeal into their assignments as they come off the trains and half of the tanks are still in transit."

"So they hold too much of an advantage?"

"Not necessarily," he said. "But they do hold a significant advantage at this point in time. We're estimating anywhere from three and a half to one to almost four to one in ground troops. That's what makes their success militarily feasible. If they apply themselves to their task, they might just push through."

"You're not answering my question, General," Laura said sternly. "Will they succeed?"

"I can't say one way or the other," he said. "That's what I'm trying to tell you. It is possible for them to take Eden with what they have out there facing what we have out there. The question is, do they have the will to do it?"

"The will?"

"The will," he confirmed. "If they do take Eden, it's going to be costly for them. Their APCs and their tanks will be able to move up to within 300 meters of our main line positions but they're going to be in killing boxes subjected to intense AT fire. Their ground troops are going to have to advance over open ground that's been pre-sighted long before by our artillery crews and mortar crews and that's overlapped by fields of fire from our infantry crews. They're going to have to advance through all that and take our pillboxes one by one until they open up a corridor big enough to put troops through towards the city. All of that is going to cost them a lot of men. Their bodies are going to be littering that battlefield. That's where the will to fight comes in. My hope is that we've already sapped that will, not from the colonels and the generals that sit back in the rear or up in orbit and give the orders, but from the captains and the lieutenants and the sergeants that have to follow those orders. They will be the ones paying the price out there. We have to pin our hopes on those men making the decision that that price is too high to pay for a shithole planet like this."

"And that's what MPG doctrine has been all about, right?" she asked.

"Right," he agreed. "At least for this war. It's carried us this far. Let's see if it will carry us for a few more hours. If it does, we'll never have to rely on hope again."

"Amen," Laura said. "A-fucking-men."

Callahan was looking out through the main camera installed in his APC, staring east, towards the high-rises of Eden, which could now be seen poking upward into the sky. They were ten kilometers west of the Martian main line of defense, preparing to assault it. It was the second time Callahan had been in this particular position. The first time he'd risked a lengthy prison sentence to defy orders to advance. This time he knew he would be going forward.

Everything was quiet, which was an almost eerie sensation after all he'd been through. Their artillery had stopped firing ninety minutes before — quite abruptly, almost as soon as it had started. The official explanation was that technical difficulties had prevented artillery support. Callahan knew that was a bunch of bullshit. He was technically savvy enough to tap into some of the other operational channels and had heard the truth: that hundreds upon hundreds of Martian tanks had somehow gotten into the rear and massacred their mobile guns. They had also attacked the supply column. The word on the damage done was a little sketchier in this case but it sounded like they'd killed most if not all of the cars. That meant the supplies they carried — the fuel, the ammunition, the food packs, the drinking water, and the very air they were breathing — was now all that they had to finish the campaign with, for better or for worse. They either had to take Eden with this next attack or they would be forced to return to the LZ in defeat. Even then some of them might not make it back — particularly the one thousand tanks that had abruptly turned around and chased after the "technical difficulties" hampering the mobile guns.

The Martian artillery had stopped about ten minutes ago, tapering off as the APCs and tanks pulled into this staging location. He liked to think that they were finally out of shells to fire but he knew this was nothing but a pipe dream. They had stopped firing because there were no exposed troops for them to hit. Once they moved forward and stepped out of the protection of the APCs that fire would start up again, with proximity fused shells raining death down upon the advance.

Callahan stopped looking through the camera and switched the view on his screen to the schematic of the battle plan for his company. They were part of a multi-battalion advance on two of the pillboxes covering the main line. They would advance between a series of tank traps and right up to a vast anti-tank ditch that ran the entire length of the line. There they would dismount and cross the ditch, moving across three hundred and twenty meters of open ground to the base of the pillboxes, which were concrete reinforced structures standing nearly sixty meters high and connected to each other and the other pillboxes by a network of concrete reinforced trenches that ran behind them. As to how many Martian soldiers each pillbox would hold, that was a figure that was mere speculation. Intelligence guessed no more than a platoon of infantry and maybe a squad or two of anti-tank teams up on the top level. Callahan's estimate was a little more pessimistic. Since the Martian rail system had not been bombed the Martians had probably reinforced their positions with units from Proctor or Libby. He wouldn't be surprised if there was company strength, maybe even a little more, in each of those pillboxes, all of them with but one goal in mind: Kill enough marines to keep them from taking this position.

It was going to be bloody out there, perhaps the bloodiest battle they'd fought in so far. Men were going to die in large numbers, blown to pieces by artillery and mortars, by eighty millimeter shells fired from tanks, gunned down by rifle fire and machinegun fire and twenty millimeter cannon fire. There was simply no way around that. Callahan would be out there, directing his men in this battle and his fate would be placed back in the hands of random chance. He would simply have to hope that none of those bullets or shells had his name on them. His luck had carried him this far. Would it carry him for a few more hours?

He tried to push these thoughts out of his head. Failing at this task he tried to at least push them back to the rear a bit. With this he enjoyed a little bit of success. He looked down at the schematic again, changing the view to the overall plan for the battle. It was simple and militarily sound, which made him wonder if they'd sub-contracted out to the Martians for its conception. There would be a powerful and hopefully overwhelming thrust on the Martian positions covering a two-kilometer section of the line. The positions north and south of the center would be ignored. The goal was to punch through and secure a path for the engineers to breach the outside of the Martian Planetary Guard base. If that could be done, the city would fall. It was nothing more than a brutal lunge pitting superior numbers against superior positions — the same sort of tactic the Chinese had used in World War III to overwhelm position after position on their advance south through Canada and the western United States. Swarming, it was called, and using it the Chinese had made it from the shores of Valdez in Alaska all the way to the Columbia River on the Washington-Oregon border in less than eight months. They had done this using tanks and aircraft far inferior to the ones the Americans were using to battle them.

But they were stopped, the logical section of Callahan's brain insisted on telling him. We stopped them at the Columbia and again in the high desert region of southern Idaho because they reached a point when they just couldn't overcome the firepower being wielded against them.

"Shut up," Callahan mumbled, unaware that he was speaking aloud to his own mind. "That was different. We only stopped them after eight months of being pushed back, after thousands of battles for thousands of positions. This is only a single battle."

His brain had nothing to say to that. His emotions, however, were sending one overriding signal out to the rest of his body. Fear.

His communications computer beeped once, indicating an incoming message from command. He looked down at it and swallowed, feeling that fear well up and threaten to overwhelm him.

ALL UNITS: COMMENCE ADVANCE TO YOUR TARGETS. WE'LL SEE YOU IN EDEN

As the WestHem forces prepared for the final battle for Eden, Jeff Creek was doing what most of the other infantry soldiers assigned to the reserve (and many of the front line soldiers as well) were doing. He was catching up on some much-needed sleep. He and Drogan had found the back of the agricultural truck a bit too crowded for this endeavor and had found a nice boulder about thirty meters away to lean against. The pockets of his biosuit were now stuffed with fresh magazines, food packs, and waste packs — the bounty from the resupply trucks that had been sent out. His M-24 was curled up in his lap, the safety on, the chamber empty of the first round. He was snoring softly, his dreams not entirely pleasant. At some point a three-quarters asleep Drogan had leaned over to get more comfortable and had ended up with her head on his thigh, her own weapon slung over her back.

Someone shook him and he came awake instantly, his hands instinctively grabbing the M-24 and raising it, searching for trouble. He looked around to see what was going on and found himself looking into the face of another soldier in a biosuit. The face behind the helmet shield was Xenia's. She was smiling and holding up three fingers.

He put his rifle down and quickly reached for the communications controls, switching down to channel three in the short-range bank. "Xenia," he said, still trying to figure out if this was a dream or not. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I might ask you the same thing," she said with feigned huffiness. "I go away for a little bit and I find you with some other woman in your lap?"

"Jesus," he said happily. "You really are here. How? Why? Were you on the flanking mission?"

The story of the flanking mission had filtered down shortly after the WestHem artillery barrage — which had just been gearing up to full fury — fell suddenly and mysteriously silent. No one knew where the information had come from but suddenly the rumor that several battalions of Martian tanks had somehow made it into the WestHem rear had begun to circulate. No one had wanted to believe the rumor at first — mostly because it was good news in a battle where that staple had been in short supply — but the continued silence of those guns gradually made believers of them and before long the rumor took on the weight of a fact.

"Yeah," Xenia said. "I was on it. There were more than five hundred tanks that went."

"I was worried sick about you," he told her. "When you disappeared from the forces screen... I didn't know what to think."

"I know," she said. "It was operational security. They cut off our communications as soon as we started heading for the rally point."

Jeff squirmed his way out from beneath Drogan. Her head thumped to the ground and she awoke, startled, reaching for her weapon. She saw Jeff standing up and relaxed. Without even bothering to see who he was talking to she curled up, shifted position a little, and then fell promptly back to sleep.

"I envy her," Xenia said. "I haven't been able to sleep since they put us out here."

Jeff put his arms around her and gave her a hug. She returned it happily although, as was always the case when showing affection while dressed in a biosuit, there was something fundamental missing from the embrace.

"I'm so glad to see you alive," he told her. "I haven't been able to think about anything else."

"I know how you feel," she said. "I've been thinking about you quite a bit too."

"I love you, Xenia," he said meaningfully.

She smiled. "I know," she told him. She said no further on that subject. She couldn't bring herself to.

Jeff took this in stride. At least she was still here to give him conflicting emotions. "How did you flank them?" he asked. "Did you go through the mountains? That's the main story everyone is passing around but no one is sure."

"I guess I can tell you now," she said. "The mission has been de-classified. We went over the mountains, about two hundred and fifty to the north, through the Sierras, the other half through the Overlooks. We were in the group that went north. We climbed and crawled over the mountain passes for five hours and came out behind the WestHem lines. We wiped out their mobile guns and then went after their supply cars and wiped them out too."

"That's fuckin' bad-ass!" Jeff exclaimed. "What are you doing back here?"

"We got hit by WestHem tanks when we were trying to egress," she said. "They did a number on us, blew up about a hundred of our tanks."

"Jesus," Jeff said.

"Ours got hit in the tread just before we made it through the hills. We had to bail out. Zen got hit with some shrapnel from an eighty round. It tore him up pretty good."

"Is he dead?"

"I don't think so," Xenia said, smiling a little. "Belinda and I dragged him out of there. We rode on the side of another tank until we got to the LZ they put down for us. A medic saved his ass out there and put him on a hover. The last I heard was they thought he was gonna make it as long as they got him to surgery."

"I hope he's all right," Jeff told her. "Zen's a good guy."

She nodded. "Yeah. So anyway, since we didn't have a tank, the special forces teams that helped us at the LZ gave Belinda and I a lift back to the base." She shook her head. "Scared the living shit out of me. Humans were not meant to fly. I think that scared me more than the fuckin' battle did. Anyway, once we got back they told us there were some desertions from the tank crews assigned to the 12th ACR. They asked us if we wanted to go out and help fill the vacancies. We need every tank we can get out here since more than a third of what we normally have are out of business. We agreed to go. Belinda got assigned as a driver one out towards the north side and I got assigned as a gunner on one towards the south. I was on my way out there to report for duty but I found you on the forces screen and decided to come by real quick and tell you I was all right."

"I'm glad you did," he said. "Really glad."

"And what about you?" she asked. "Are you all right? I see a couple of patches on your biosuit there. Did you get hit?"

"Yeah," he said. "I did. Just before we pulled back from the Blue Line. It was an arty shell. The same one that killed Hicks. He absorbed most of it. Blew his whole chest open. He never knew what hit him."

"I'm sorry," Xenia said. "He was my friend too. I'm gonna miss him."

"Just like a fuckin' Thruster," Jeff said, feeling a tear wanting to form in his eye. "Doesn't know when to hit the fuckin' floor."

"How bad did you get hit?" Xenia asked him, running her finger over the patch on his left flank.

"I got some shrapnel in my side and a couple of little pieces in my thighs. Nothing big. No major vessels or organs hit. Doc patched me up the best he could. I'll live." He shrugged. "At least for now."

"Yeah," Xenia said, looking off towards the west. "They'll be moving in anytime now."

They both stared off into the distance, towards the specters of the concrete pillboxes standing sentinel over the city. All was quiet now. There wasn't even any outgoing artillery or mortar fire. That would soon change.

"How's Belinda?" Jeff asked her.

She gave him a sour look. "Do you really care?" she asked. "Or are you just trying to be polite?"

He shrugged. "I'm not really sure," he replied. "I know you care about her very much and that if anything happened to her you would be upset. I don't want you to be upset."

"I tried to seduce her out there," she said.

"In a biosuit?" he asked.

"In a greenhouse. That's where we staged before we headed into the mountains. We were able to push our biosuits down."

"I see," Jeff said. "And what happened?"

"She wouldn't do it," Xenia said. "I was horny as hell, Jeff. I'd just let some greasy loader feel up my tits in exchange for half a pack of smokes and I was hotter than hell. I attacked her when we got in the tank and she pushed me away."

"Because you wouldn't say you loved her?"

"I did say I loved her," she said. "She still wouldn't do it."

Jeff was stunned, feeling jealousy worming through his body. "You said you loved her?"

"I was desperate," Xenia said. "I blurted it out to her. Apparently she didn't think I really meant it."

"Did you?"

She sighed. "I don't know," she said. "I don't know anything. I care for her very much. I care for you very much. It might be love — hell, it probably is. I'm just afraid to say it."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because I think if I say it to one of you or to both of you... that you'll die out here, that I'll be signing your death warrant."

"That's crazy, Xenia," he said.

"I know. It's something that happens in movies on MarsGroup and intellectually I know that saying what I feel — what I might be feeling — won't have any effect on your chances out here. We're in a war and any one of us could be killed. I've almost been killed so many times I can't count them anymore. And you... you're walking in the fuckin' valley every time those WestHem marines come at your position. I just can't bring myself to make a declaration like that, not while this is all going on."

"I understand," he said. "But I don't agree." He reached up and took the sides of her helmet in his gloved hands, turning her head to face him. "I love you, Xenia. I want you to know that, to fuckin' understand that. At least that way if you die out here you'll die knowing that someone loves you, that someone will cry over you."

"That's sweet, Jeff," she said.

"Yeah," he said, "sometimes I come up with them, don't I? And... well... as much as I hate to admit it, I know that Belinda feels the same way about you. She loves you too."

"Christ," Xenia said. "Why are we even talking about this now? We could all be dead in another thirty minutes."

"That's true," Jeff said, "but we might all be alive when this is over too. What's gonna happen then?"

"I don't know," she said.

"Me either, but we're all gonna have to do something about this situation, won't we?"

"Too much to think about right now," Xenia said. "This is exactly why I won't say... won't say how much I care for you."

"Well... at least we're getting somewhere, huh?"

A signal suddenly blared over the command net, piercing into their ears. They looked at each other, both knowing the time had come.

"All units on the Eden MLD," a voice spoke over the channel. "WestHem units are moving in towards the line. Estimate contact in ten minutes. Forces screens are being updated every six seconds."

"I need to get to my tank," Xenia said. She grasped his hands, squeezing them, and then blew him a kiss. "I'll see you when it's over. We'll talk more then."

"Fuckin' aye," he told her.

She turned and began trotting off. Within seconds she was out of his view. He wondered if he would ever see her again.

Chapter 25

Eden Main Line of Defense

September 14, 2146

1730 hours

The tanks were the first to move against the line — thousands of them rumbling forward in tight, well-formed ranks stretching across two kilometers, their main guns pointing forward, their lasers charged, their ammunition magazines full of fresh rounds from the last resupply operation. Most had full fuel and oxygen tanks but about eight hundred and fifty — the survivors of the battle with the Martian tanks behind the line — were sporting less than a third of their capacity of fuel and oxidizer. Having so many of the monstrous machines in so concentrated of an area going against an enemy tank force a tenth their size, should have been enough to force victory right there. But the MPG engineers had long since taken steps to rob a superior foe of such an easy win.

As the tanks grew closer to the line they encountered a series of steep, artificial berms they could not drive over. They encountered other areas filled with steel tank traps that would break a tread if they were struck. And they encountered lines and lines of anti-tank ditches that were flat out impassible. All of this caused the tanks to bunch of tighter, to lose some of the unit cohesion, to narrow their formations in such a manner that it would be difficult for all of the tanks to fire simultaneously. Eventually they were funneled into narrow corridors only fifteen to twenty tanks wide, reducing the wide scope of fire they'd hoped to enjoy.

It was as they started to narrow up and lose their maneuvering room that the Martian armor opened up on them from their hull-down positions between the pillboxes. Tanks began to explode with frightening regularity all up and down the advance line. Turrets flew, men were shredded, and the dead hulks served to hamper the advance forward of the other tanks, forcing some to simply push their dead companions off into the ditch in order to keep open a corridor for the tanks behind and the APCs to drive through.

The WestHem tanks returned fire from the first moment they were fired upon, blasting within their zones of responsibility as fast as their cannons could be discharged and then recharged. The entire line lit up with the flashes of laser impact. Concrete dust and smashed sections of the protective barriers flew everywhere but the Martian tanks were unaffected as of yet. It would take many shots in exactly the same place to burn through the titanium shielding beneath the concrete.

The WestHem tanks were forced to stop three hundred meters west of the pillboxes. Before them was the main anti-tank ditch. Four meters deep, six meters across, lined with concrete, and running unbroken the entire length of the main line, it was impassible to any vehicle without the assistance of a complete engineering battalion equipped with heavy-duty bridging materials — something the WestHem marines were conspicuously lacking.

The laser fire between the entrenched Martian armor and the exposed WestHem tanks reached a furious pace. With each WestHem tank that was blown up, two more would move forward to take its place. Their crews prayed to whatever deity they believed in that the ground forces would advance quickly and silence those murderous positions.

Captain Callahan watched from his commander's hatch as they advanced forward. Thousand of armored personnel carriers entered the obstacle-ridden maze the tanks had just passed through although they now had the added obstacles of dead tanks and live tanks caught in a massive traffic jam to go around and weave through. Like the tanks, the APCs began to draw heavy laser fire from the Martians as soon as they were forced to bunch close together. This fire did not come from the Martian armor, however. It came from high on the pillboxes, from the heavily fortified Martian anti-tank positions.

APCs blew up all around them. There was no warning, no way to tell which APC was targeted until it simply flashed and exploded, shredding and incinerating everyone inside. Callahan watched in horror, trying to discern some sort of pattern to the death and destruction, trying to give himself some sort of reassurance that something other than random chance was at work here. He was woefully unsuccessful in this venture. An APC blew up right next to his, taking out one of his squads, and then five more blew up somewhere else, both in front and behind, some close enough for the concussion to rock him. It was as random as anything could be. There was no skill involved in surviving here. It was simply luck.

The tanks lining the anti-tank ditch began to fire their main guns, plastering the upper sections of the pillboxes with eighty-millimeter fire. The APCs began to fire their sixty-millimeter guns at these positions as well. It looked impressive enough as explosions, smoke, and debris obscured the entire top half of the pillboxes but the frequency of the laser fire coming back at them did not ease up even a little bit. APCs continued to flash and explode all around them.

Callahan checked his command screen as they bumped and bounced over the last two hundred meters before the dismount point. His company was now down three complete squads — one lost during the attack on the first line, one lost in the staging area, and now, one lost in the advance to the main line. Fortunately all were from different platoons and many of his platoons had been reinforced with an extra squad due to the shortage of APCs. He made sure his communications gear was set to the command channel. He keyed up and addressed his platoon leaders.

"Listen up, guys," he said, his voice strangely steady despite his terror. "Dismount is in just a few seconds. They're gonna pour every conceivable kind of fire they got on us the second we step out of these APCs. Get your men through the tanks and into that anti-tank ditch as quick as possible. Don't return fire at the pillboxes. Small arms fire ain't gonna do shit to those positions. Get everyone into the ditch where we'll at least have defilade from everything but the arty and the mortars. We'll regroup and then move in from there to the base of the pillboxes. Is everyone clear on that?"

One by one they responded that they were clear.

"Very well," he said. "Things are gonna be ugly the next hour or so. Keep the faith, keep pushing forward, and God willing we'll be standing inside Eden soon. Remember, we got the numbers on them. Let's use them wisely."

No one answered him. The APCs began to grind to a halt a few seconds later. The ramps swung down and he and his men emerged into a living hell of noise, confusion, and death. Explosions hammered into them as proximity fused one hundred and fifty millimeter shells and eighty-millimeter mortars came raining out of the sky. Men were blown to pieces, arms, legs, heads flying off, bodies ripped in half and tossed about. Bullets were streaking in from everywhere, machine gun fire, single shots, three round bursts, cutting others down like ducks in a shooting range. Blood vapor and dust filled the air, making it difficult to see. Callahan watched the sergeant and two of the men from the squad he was with shot down the moment they stepped away from the relative safety of the APC's rear end.

"Down!" he yelled on the command channel. "Get your men on the their bellies! Crawl to that fucking ditch and get inside!" With that, he followed his own advice and threw himself to the ground.

Gradually all the men in his company, in the other companies, in the two battalions tasked to take the pillboxes, did the same. This kept them safe from most of the small arms fire since the tanks were now able to block it. It did very little, however, to protect them from the artillery and the mortars. They continued to boom up and down the line, spraying lethal shrapnel onto the marines below, sending clouds of blood vapor welling upward in their wake.

The first of the troops reached the line of tanks and paused there, trying to regroup a little before pushing forward to the ditch. Callahan reached the rear of one of the tanks — as of yet unscathed in any way — and raised himself up to a kneeling position just behind the right tread of the vehicle. A quick check of his forces screen showed he'd lost thirty of the one hundred and fifty men he'd dismounted with, including one of his lieutenants.

"This will not be a clusterfuck," he told himself, knowing even as he spoke the words that he was lying. "I won't let it."

Another wave of artillery shells came arcing in, exploding up and down the line, killing or maiming more men. Callahan heard shrapnel bouncing off the tank he was hiding behind, saw two more of his men go down.

By this point the men from his company were mixed up with men from the other companies, even men from other battalions. It was not quite a panicked run yet but it was heading that way. More than two hundred men rushed from the cover provided by the tanks and moved across the open ground, heading for the ditch. More were shot down by the small arms fire. Callahan saw one man try to cross in front of a tank just as it fired its main gun. The shell did not explode but the sheer power of the muzzle blast blew the man into hundreds of pieces, scattering some of them more than thirty meters away.

"Christ," Callahan muttered, trying to pick out the path he would take for his own dash.

The first wave of men reached the edge of the ditch and threw themselves inside. Another wave followed right after them. That was when his lieutenants began to scream on the command channel, something incomprehensible. He heard the word "rebar" and "impaled" several times. The rest was gibberish. At the edge of the trench the third wave of men suddenly halted, trying desperately to avoid going in, this despite the fact that small arms fire was cutting them down as they stood there.

"What the fuck is going on?" Callahan demanded. "Somebody chill the fuck out and give me a report!"

"Beyers here, sir," said the lieutenant in charge of his fourth platoon. "The Martians have rebar sticking up from the bottom of that ditch! They've sharpened the points into spears! We couldn't see it because of all the dust that's blown in there. The men went down and... fuck, sir... I never seen nothing like this. They're impaled down there!"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Callahan said, horrified.

Men began to pile up at the edge of the ditch. Others, panicked, not knowing what was going on, slammed into them. Many fell in. The panic increased when the machine gun and rifle fire picked up in intensity, slamming into them. And then another wave of artillery fire, targeted directly over the tanks where most of the other men were piling up, started to explode above them. More men from the tank positions rushed forward, pushing more men from the front into the ditch. Fights broke out and several men on the edge began to shoot at their own troops with their M-24s, desperate to avoid being pushed over.

The force of the troops pushing from behind was much greater than the resistance of the troops trying to stand firm on the edge of the ditch. Dozens and then hundreds fell in. At this point those on the edge stopped hesitating and simply allowed themselves to be carried in. Callahan thought he had an idea why the resistance had stopped.

Another shell exploded very close behind him, close enough that the concussion pushed him forward onto the tank's tread guard. Bullets came slamming in just in front of him, ricocheting off the steel hull of the tank less than half a meter in front of his face. He pushed himself backwards, until he was standing on the ground again and then made his dash to the ditch. He stopped for a second on the edge and saw that his suspicions had been correct. Dozens of marines were down on the bottom, impaled by the sharpened rebar points. Some were dead, the points penetrating through their chests, their stomachs. Others were less fortunate. One man had slid down the concrete side and had ended up impaled right through his groin. He was squirming and twisting, probably screaming as well although Callahan couldn't hear him. Others had the spikes through their lower legs, their thighs, their hips. What this had all served to do, however, was to cushion the landing for those behind them. It was distasteful to use the corpse of another marine as a landing pad but things were down to sheer survival now. Knowing that he would be haunted by it later — assuming he lived long enough for there to be a later — Callahan slid down the eighty degree concrete slope and into the ditch, his feet landing firmly on the chest of one man and the head of another, his weight driving the lethal spikes even further into their lifeless bodies. He stepped forward, using the corpses of others to make his way over and between the spikes until he made it to the far side of the ditch. He leaned against the concrete wall, catching his breath, trying to control the fear and horror.

There was defilade from the mortars and the artillery fire here since the airburst shell fragments were coming in at an angle. Other men had figured this out as well and it was crowded on this side. Most looked like they had no intention of leaving. Others were continuing to leap into the ditch and it was soon full of men, pushing chest to chest, legs to legs. They had to go up the other side and make the final dash to the base of the pillboxes. Callahan spoke on his command channel, trying to tell his platoon leaders to start moving but no one was listening to him. He tried on the tactical channels, speaking directly to the men but all he got for his efforts was insubordinate profanity.

"Fuck that shit, sir," someone yelled back at him. "I'm staying here."

"Goddamn right," someone else added. "If you're so fucking hot to get up there and get your head blown off, be my fuckin' guest!"

"We need to move up all at once, all along the line," Callahan said. "It's the only way that any of us are going to get out of here alive!"

"I know how to get out of here alive," one of his sergeants said. "We go back up the other side and start heading back to the APCs. Remember what happened the first time? The Martians stop shooting at you when you retreat!"

"I vote for that!" someone else put in. "Let's get the fuck out of here! Let the goddamn greenies keep this fucking place if they want it that bad."

Other voices quickly echoed this sentiment. Callahan wasn't listening in on the other companies' channels but he suspected the other captains were probably getting similar dissent. He was actually starting to think that what they were suggesting was sensible when the Martians pulled their next surprise on them.

Mortar shells began to fall into the trench, exploding not in the air but when they hit the bottom. Men were blown apart, splattered against the sides of the trench, ripped apart by the shrapnel, gutted by pieces of rebar that were blown loose and hurtled through the air at high speed. This happened all along the length of the ditch, the shells dropping neatly inside as if they'd been lofted from directly above.

It's a fucking trap! Callahan's mind screamed at him, panic starting to flow freely. They have this entire ditch pre-sighted and they're dropping impact-fused mortars inside of it! They've probably been practicing this for years!

"Get out!" Callahan yelled at his men. "Start helping each other up to the top! We need to get out of here or they're gonna blow all of us to pieces!"

This time the men were a little more willing to listen to him. The edge of the ditch was four meters above their heads. The men against the wall formed stirrups with their hands and other men moved forward, putting their feet in them and getting lifted up to the edge. Once they grabbed the edge the lower man would give the upper a shove, sending him up onto the ground. Many of the men hefted up came tumbling back down again, shot to pieces by the Martian small arms fire from the pillboxes.

"Faster!" Callahan yelled. "And more! We need to get everyone up at once if anyone is going to live! Come on! Move, move, move!"

His men picked up the pace. The other companies did the same although Callahan didn't know if they were simply following his example or had figured out the same thing on their own. But soon hundreds of men all along the length of the occupied portion of the ditch were shoving their comrades upward as fast as they could, trying desperately to get out of the frying pan of the mortar ridden trench and into the fire of the open ground beyond.

Jeff Creek, the rest of his platoon, and two other 17th ACR infantry platoons had been moved from the reserve staging area to Pillbox 73 when it became apparent that the marines were making a push to the center. Pillbox 73 was two kilometers west of the personnel airlocks for the MPG base, one of the primary defensive positions guarding the approach to the most important section of the city. They had been driven over to the rear of it in four of the agricultural trucks and had accessed it by means of the movement trench that led to a small opening in the rear. From there they'd climbed several sets of concrete stairs and entered the lower infantry level where a company of 2nd Infantry Division troops had already been engaged with the advancing marines who, at that point, had just dismounted from their APCs.

The interior of the pillbox was open and cavernous, with a high ceiling. The floor behind them was covered with steel crates full of ammunition, grenades, extra weapons, and other supplies. The firing ports lined the western, northern, and southern walls and consisted of open spaces about half a meter high and two meters long, each protected by an extra layer of concrete. Jeff had been assigned to a mounted 7mm heavy machine gun in the south corner of the pillbox. Drogan and the other members of his squad were in the firing ports around him, lined up with their M-24s and a SAW three to a port. The floor at their feet was littered with hundreds upon hundreds of empty shell casings.

The pillbox was as formidable of a defensive position as they'd been promised. For the past thirty minutes now the WestHem tanks and APCs had been slamming wave after wave of eighty millimeter, sixty millimeter, and twenty millimeter directly into them. The explosions were terrifying, to say the least, and much of the concrete had crumbled away under the onslaught, but so far the barrier was holding. Of the one hundred and ninety troops occupying this particular pillbox only two had been killed and six wounded — all the result of shrapnel flying into their ports at exactly the right angle and making a lucky strike.

What bothered Jeff about the pillbox, however, was not the protection it offered from the front and from the sides, but the apparent lack of protection it offered from the rear. Instead of small openings to fire through like on the other three walls, the rear had huge openings in the concrete, two of them, each one ten meters long by five meters high, going from floor to ceiling. They were, in effect, paneless windows to the outside large enough that he could see the mortar teams and some of the agricultural trucks parked out there. He could see the buildings rising beyond the MPG base, could see the sky and the ground through them. True, they would not generally experience enemy fire coming in from the rear — if they did they were in a lot of trouble — but wouldn't you think they would have enclosed it back there just for general principals? He couldn't think of any rational explanation for this somewhat glaring oversight.

"Creek, displace!" sergeant Walker commanded him. "They're starting to pound on your position again."

"Right, sarge," he said, pulling the barrel and the body of the heavy machine gun backwards, removing it from the firing port.

The gun he had been assigned weighed almost a hundred kilos even in the reduced gravity of outside. It was fed by a drum that contained nine hundred 7mm depleted uranium, armor-piercing rounds. It could fire that drum empty — if he so desired — in less than forty-five seconds, although he generally shot in short bursts. The barrel was cooled by a liquid nitrogen circulation system that made it unnecessary to ever change barrels. The entire unit was clipped to a rail that ran the length of the pillbox just beneath the firing ports. He folded it upward now and then slid to the left, pulling it along its rail until he reached the last firing port on the southwest corner. He then pushed it back downward and slid it out through the firing port. He looked outside, searching for his next targets in his zone of responsibility.

The landscape he looked out over was a scene of almost incomprehensible death and destruction. Out beyond the main anti-tank ditch, in the area that was called "the armor maze", were hundreds of smashed and burned WestHem tanks and APCs with hundreds of dead and gravely wounded marines lying in groups all around them. Other, undamaged tanks were interspersed around them, their main guns flashing as they launched more eighty-millimeter shells, their anti-tank laser cannons flashing as they tried to kill the entrenched armor. Undamaged APCs added their fire as well and a steady, seemingly endless stream of more continued to appear from over the horizon, making their way into the tank maze to disgorge more marines to come charging into the maelstrom. Artillery rounds exploded out among the advancing troops with steady regularity and bullets continued to fly in high volume, cutting into any exposed men out there. A cloud of smoke and dust had billowed into the sky, illuminated by the setting sun. Most disturbing, however, was the fog of red vapor that was intermingled with the smoke and dust. It was barely noticeable over the armor formations but thick enough to cast a shadow over the anti-tank trench. It was blood, Jeff knew, the blood of thousands of dead and dying marines. Thousands were dead, but still they kept swarming forward, seemingly undaunted by their losses.

"Shift your fire to the trench now, Creek," Waters ordered. "They're starting to make it out of there."

"Right," Jeff said, pushing the barrel downward a bit. His zone of responsibility had been the APC staging area prior to this, the area where the marines were leaving the relative safety of their armored vehicles and starting to push forward to the trench. He'd mowed down dozens in the past ten minutes, raking his fire up and down the line, putting his targeting recticle on one group after another, shooting some while they were running, some while they were crawling, others while they were trying to hide. Those that made it to the front of the tanks were being engaged by other platoons, other heavy machine guns. As they'd actually jumped into the trench itself Jeff had found himself feeling almost sorry for the poor bastards.

"We got rebar in those trenches," one of the 2nd Infantry guys had told him earlier. "It's sticking up almost a meter from the bottom and spaced every half a meter. The ends have been sharpened with a steel grinder until the tips are fine enough to sew with. The dust covers them up. They won't know until the start jumping in there."

"How do you know about it?" Jeff had asked.

"Who the hell do you think maintains the trench?" he'd asked. "And that's not the only surprise we got in store once they jump into the trench."

And indeed it hadn't been. Once the trench was full of marines the mortar squads, using impact-detonating shells, had started to drop their rounds right into the trench. It was a maneuver they'd practiced time and time again in pre-war days with helium-filled practice rounds, all of the coordinates from every conceivable position, using every conceivable atmospheric pressure pre-programmed into each weapon's memory. That was when the cloud of red fog had started to get really thick.

"It's over for them," Jeff had exclaimed happily. "There's no way in hell they can live through that!"

"I wouldn't be too optimistic," Walker returned. "Remember, there's almost two hundred thousand of the motherfuckers out there. No matter what we do, they're still advancing."

Walker had been right, of course. Within minutes of the first mortar shells dropping into the trench, the marines had started climbing out the other side. It had been sporadic at first, with those being tossed up easily shot down, usually before they could even get their feet beneath them. But now they were starting to come up faster, one after the other, all along the length of the trench. The gunners were cutting them down, leaving their corpses spread all over the open ground, but it was starting to get hard to keep up.

Jeff saw that a group of about sixty had just emerged all at once in his sector. He opened up on them, starting at the right side and raking his fire to the left. They spun and fell, their legs chopped out from, their heads exploding, their chests and stomachs ripped open. Drogan and the others added their fire as well, picking up any stragglers. But by the time they'd taken out everyone in that wave another wave of more than a hundred had emerged in their place, all of them running as fast as they possible could toward the base of the pillbox.

"Why can't we get some fucking arty on them?" Jeff asked as he opened up again, mowing six of them down in one burst.

"The range is too short," Walker responded, firing a three round burst of his own. "We're less than two klicks from the guns, remember?"

"Yeah," Jeff said, firing another burst at the marines closest to their goal. "I guess so. Maybe they should shift the mortar fire back though."

"It's killing a lot more of them right where it's at," Walker replied. "They're trapped in there with spikes underneath them, mortars blowing the shit out of them, and gunfire in front of them. If this don't break their will to fight, nothing will."

It didn't break their will to fight. They kept pouring out of the trench like ants, moving forward relentlessly despite the brutal losses they were taking. The tanks and the APCs guarding the spaces in between the pillboxes opened up on them, air bursting eighty and sixty millimeter shells directly in front of them, blowing others to pieces with their twenty millimeter cannons, but still they came on. Soon the inevitable happened and several groups managed to make it all the way across and disappear from sight. They were now directly underneath the front wall of the pillbox.

Callahan's heart was hammering in his chest as he felt the blessed safety of the concrete pillbox up against his back. His breath was tearing in and out of his throat, his legs and back trying to cramp up on him, adrenaline flooding through his body like a potent and possibly malevolent drug. Somehow he had made it, running across that open ground while other men were shot down and blown up all around him. The man running next to him had been hit with twenty-millimeter fire and had been cut in half. The man on the other side had been hit with heavy machine gun fire, blowing his back open and sending most of his internal organs out onto the battlefield. But Callahan had not even had so much as a close call. None of the bullets had even come close to him.

"My luck can't last much longer," he said when he'd recovered enough to speak.

He looked around him, seeing very few familiar faces among the two dozen or so men who had managed to make it here with him. There was absolutely no order to the advance, no cohesion of any kind. It was simply a bunch of terrified men running for their lives. That needed to change if they were going to get any further.

He grabbed the man next to him and turned him so he was facing him. He reached down and turned the man's communication set onto his company's tactical channel. "I'm Captain Callahan," he said. "Charlie Company of second battalion. 314th."

"Sergeant Coolidge," the man replied, his voice shaky and scared. "Bravo Company of third battalion. 322nd."

"I'm taking command of everyone in this position until someone higher ranking shows up," Callahan said. "We need to get everyone on the same tac channel. Start getting everyone to switch. Pass the word up and down the line."

"Right, sir," Coolidge said. He turned to the man next to him and went through the same motions. That man then turned to the man next to him and did the same.

While they were doing that another dozen or so men managed to make it to safety. They were immediately grabbed and made to switch their channels as well. Callahan, meanwhile, got back on the command channel and hailed Colonel West, who had been placed in charge of this particular section of the line.

"Where are you, Callahan?" West asked him from the relative safety of his own APC some six kilometers back. "What's your situation?"

"I'm in position at pillbox seven-three," he said. "I have about thirty men with me and more are trickling in. We're in defilade from Martian fire at the moment but pinned here. We can't advance to the rear of the pillbox and gain entry until we get more men. There's at least a hundred Martians up in that position, maybe more. I'm gonna need some SAWs, some grenade launchers, and a whole shitload of riflemen before we can put this pillbox out of action."

"I'll send out the word for everyone in that section to move to your position," West promised. "How many men will it take?"

"When I've got a hundred or so over here and enough machine guns and grenade launchers, we'll make the attack."

"What about the Martian armor on the flanks?"

"They're in hull-down positions as far as I can tell. They won't be able to engage us with their guns unless they pull out of them a little. If they do that, our tanks will be able to plaster them."

"Got it," West said. "Keep holding. Once we take one pillbox we can get some AT crews in there to slip around the back of the Martian armor and take them from there. That will let us move men to the next pillbox. If we can capture and hold just two of them and then push the armor out, we can start moving men in without having them mowed down."

"That's my idea, sir," Callahan said.

"Are the losses as bad as I'm being told?"

"Worse," Callahan answered. "They're exterminating us out here. The sooner we open a corridor the sooner we can stop it."

"Right," West said. "The order is going out now."

Callahan switched back to the tactical channel and addressed the men who had gathered. "I'm Captain Callahan," he told them. "And I'm not thrilled to be in charge of this clusterfuck but there's no one else here to do it. I know we're all from different units but we need to organize if we're going to live through the next hour. Get yourselves organized into something like squads. As more men arrive, incorporate them into your units. Once we have enough, we're going to circle around to the front of this pillbox so we can put it out of business. Once we do that we should be able to open a corridor to get more troops in here and then we can bring up the engineers and move up to the MPG base. That's the plan for now. Do I have any lieutenants here?"

"Lieutenant Hunter here, sir," a voice spoke up.

Callahan actually knew him. He was a platoon leader from Alpha Company from his own battalion. "Glad to hear you made it, Hunter," he said. "You're second in command of this abortion. Get everyone organized the best you can and make sure everyone else who makes it here gets switched over to this channel."

"Right, sir," Hunter said.

Ten minutes went by, during which another thirty-seven men managed to make it through the open ground and join them. From across the ditch the tank fire that was supporting them began to get erratic, slowing down noticeably.

"They're running out of ammo," Hunter said.

"It's not like they were doing us much good anyway," Callahan said. "All they've done for us is bring a bunch of concrete chips down on our heads."

"Well, at least we're safe here," Hunter replied.

He was proven wrong a minute later. Something thumped to the ground about twenty meters to Callahan's right. He just had time to look over there when a sharp explosion cracked through the air. One of the men was blown straight up into the air, his left leg flying off his body. Two other men went down on the other side of him and stayed down, blood vapor rising from their bodies.

Something else thumped down to Callahan's left.

"Grenade!" someone yelled as men tried to scatter away from it. Most made it. One didn't. The shrapnel ripped into his back, dropping him. Two more grenades came down from different positions. The men began to panic now, some of them running back out into the field where they were gunned down.

"They're dropping them out of their firing ports!" Hunter yelled. "We need to get out of here!"

"There's nowhere to go!" Callahan shouted back, his mind trying to figure a way to deal with this problem.

Some decided to go anyway. Two men rushed around the corner of the pillbox and were immediately blown to pieces by machine gun fire from one of the APCs stationed out there. Three more went running back toward the anti-tank ditch. They were shot down one by one by the Martian riflemen above them about thirty meters out.

More grenades came dropping down. Someone tried to pick one of them up and throw it further out but he didn't do it quickly enough. It exploded in his hand, shredding the entire top of his body.

Callahan felt panic wanting to overtake him and fought it down. He looked out at the three men who had gone running back the way they'd come and suddenly something occurred to him. "Everyone!" he yelled. "Move away from the wall about ten meters. We'll still have defilade there! Move out and get down on your bellies!"

The men didn't have to be told twice. They ran out as a group and threw themselves to the ground. This kept them far enough away from the pillbox that the dropped grenades couldn't hurt them but close enough that they still weren't in sight of the gunners up above.

"Christ," Callahan said, feeling like he was standing on a high wire above a crocodile cage. "How much longer?"

Just fifteen meters above their heads, the machine guns and the rifles fired on, trying desperately to cut down the numbers of men making it across the open ground. Jeff Creek had changed drums on his heavy machine gun three times now and was over three quarters of the way through the fourth. Out on the open ground the red fog of blood vapor was becoming nearly as thick as the one over the anti-tank ditch. The corpses of marines absolutely littered the battlefield but still they kept coming forward, crawling out of the trench and making the life or death sprint towards the safety of the pillbox shadow.

"There's more of them now," Drogan said, firing the rest of her magazine empty at a group making their final approach.

"They're reinforcing this position," Walker said. "They've probably shifted some of their troops assigned to take down other pillboxes here."

"Aren't we the lucky ones?" Jeff asked, cutting down yet another group, although six of them managed to escape and make it to safety.

"The tank fire has stopped though," Drogan said. "Anyone notice that?"

Jeff actually hadn't noticed that, but now that she mentioned it, it seemed like it had been the better part of five minutes since an eighty or a sixty shell had last exploded against the concrete. "Out of ammo, you think?"

"Fuckin' aye," Walker said. "And there ain't no way to..." He paused, listening to someone on the command channel. "Fuck me," he said at last.

"What is it, sarge?"

"We're pulling out of here," he said. "Everyone start gathering as much supplies as you can and start heading for the egress points. Creek, you'll be the last to go. Stay on that gun until the rest of us are down."

"Why are we leaving?" Drogan asked, alarmed. "I thought this was the last line of defense."

"There are almost a hundred marines down below now," Walker said. "They're gonna move on us at any time."

"We can fight them off!" Jeff said. "They'll have to move up those narrow staircases in order to flush us out of here! We can't let this position fall!"

"We'll do what we're ordered," Walker said. "And that's that. MPG doctrine is to not allow a position to become enveloped. I'm told this is a standard part of the defense plan. Now hurry the fuck up, people. They want us out of here as quickly as possible."

The troops inside the pillbox picked up as much as they could carry and made their way down the steps, leaving only Jeff and the three other heavy machine gunners to hold the fort. Jeff continued to mow down all he could shoot and the tanks and APCs guarding the flanks continued to do the same. Even so, the number of marines making it across the open ground grew exponentially with the reduction in fire.

"Creek," Walker's voice barked in his ear. "We're down. Get your weapon and get your ass down here too. We're rallying in the ditch just outside the pillbox."

"Right, sarge," Jeff said. "What about the seven millimeter? Do I disable it?"

"Don't worry about it," Walker said. "It's mounted to the wall and would take twenty minutes to dismount. The marines won't have any use for it other than to shoot at their own men."

"Right," Jeff said, taking his hands off it. He picked up his pack and his M-24 and headed for the stairs. The trip down took him less than two minutes. Once in the access trench he began following it east until he caught up with the rest of the troops that had evacuated the pillbox. They were moving rapidly toward the rear.

"Where the fuck are we going?" Drogan asked.

"There are small trenches lined with sandbags two hundred meters further down. We're going to occupy those and make the marines lives a little more miserable."

"Move, marines, move!" Callahan ordered less than a minute later. "They're pulling out of the position."

His make-shift company — which was staffed with only ten people who had originally been assigned to him — moved back up against the wall of the pillbox and began to edge along it, turning the south corner and heading for the access point.

"Hunter," he said, talking to his second-in-command, "keep close to that wall and keep low. The tanks and the APCs shouldn't be able to hit you along that side. Be careful when you get to the east side. The Martians who just left might be in firing positions."

"Right, Captain," Hunter replied, passing that order along to the rest of the men.

"And remember," Callahan said, "we don't know for sure they evacuated that position. This could be a trap. They could be waiting up there to gun us all down as soon as we enter. And be careful even if they did evacuate. The Martians love to booby-trap things."

"Yes, sir," Hunter replied.

He led the men forward, keeping them hugging the wall. They passed around the corner without incident although all of them nervously eyed the Martian tank position located less than one hundred meters away. They could hear the booms as it fired its main gun out at the advancing troops in the open ground, could hear the stuttering of its twenty millimeter gun and its four millimeter commander's gun. It paid them no attention, however. It couldn't fire on them even if it wanted to since it was below their line of sight.

The lead men made it to the southeast corner of the pillbox without incident. As they slipped around this corner, however, intending to drop into the access trench thirty meters away, small arms fire erupted from about two hundred meters east of them. Bullets came flying in, slamming into the concrete wall, dropping several of the men to the ground. Cries of "Get Down!" began to overlap on the net.

"Move forward! Move forward!" Hunter ordered. "Get into that trench!"

The men were now well oriented to what to do when under fire. Most of them had hit the ground the moment the fire had come in. They did not return fire. Instead they crawled forward on hands and knees as quickly as they could. Some got hit and dropped where they were. Most made it through and were able to throw themselves inside.

"What's the situation, Hunter?" Callahan asked as the next group of men turned the corner and started crawling forward.

"We're taking fire from a sandbagged position about three hundred meters behind the pillbox," Hunter replied. "Looks like company strength at least. They opened up as soon as we exposed ourselves over here."

"Can you get some covering fire on them?"

"Not from this position," he answered. "Not that will do any good anyway. We're both at ground level and they're behind sandbags. The men are moving forward on their bellies. Most are making it into the access trench."

"Copy," Callahan said. "I'm sending another platoon sized unit around from the other side of the pillbox. Once you get in there you should be able to return fire on them from a better vantage point."

"My thoughts exactly, sir," Hunter said. "I'm moving in with the next group. I'll give you a report once I'm inside."

"Copy."

Hunter looked at the thirty or so men gathered with him. He took a few deep breaths, bracing himself for the exposure to enemy fire again. "Okay, guys," he said. "Let's do it. Keep low and move fast."

They kept low and moved fast. Eight of them were shot down on the trip. Hunter was not one of them. Moving faster than he would have thought possible he elbowed and kneed his way across the rocky ground and virtually threw himself into the narrow trench. He then made his way back to the west, towards the opening of the pillbox. The entryway was about six meters square and was crowded with the troops that had already made it inside. At the far end was a concrete staircase, leading up to a small landing where it switched back.

"Anyone gone up there yet?" Hunter asked as he made his way forward.

"No one," one of the sergeants replied. "We're kind of wondering about booby traps. Remember how the Martians had their trenches rigged in the gap?"

"I remember," Hunter said. "We still have to get up there though."

"We need to wait for the sappers to come up and clear the position," the sergeant said.

"The sappers can't move forward until we open a corridor to get troops through," Hunter replied. "We can't do that until we clear this position."

"I'm not going up there first," the sergeant said. Most of the men around him nodded their heads, indicating they felt the same.

Hunter sighed, knowing that simply ordering someone up wouldn't work. It would probably only serve to get him fragged, something he'd heard rumor of happening over the past few days when a sergeant or a lieutenant ordered something unpopular. "All right," he said, trying not to show how terrified he was, "I'll go up. If I make it to the top, you all need to follow me. Deal?"

"It's your funeral," the sergeant said. "But yeah, if you make it up there, we'll follow."

He started up, his M-24 held out before him, his feet taking each step with the knowledge that it might really be his last this time. He made it to the landing without incident and then slowly turned the corner, peeking up the next section of stairway. He saw nothing. He started up this section and again made it to the top without incident. Here there was a passageway that led into the lower level of the pillbox. It was empty of Martian troops except for a couple of dead ones. Shell casings and ammo boxes were everywhere. The mounted machine guns that had killed so many of them were still in place.

"We're clear up to the lower level," he said. "Now start moving up and securing it. I'm going up to the top."

"Right, lieutenant," the voice of the sergeant replied.

With that Hunter continued upward. Again he was not blown to pieces by a Martian booby trap. It occurred to him that the Martians hadn't been expecting to be pushed out of this position and that if they were they would know the end was near. Perhaps that was why they hadn't bothered rigging it up with anything. It was as good a theory as any.

The upper level was empty of live Martians as well. There was a lot more concrete dust up here and two dead Martians lying near the firing ports. There were hundreds upon hundreds of expended laser batteries piled everywhere. He walked out onto the main floor of this level and then turned to the rear, surprised to see the huge openings in the wall that faced toward the city.

"What in the fuck did they do that for?" he asked himself, as puzzled as Jeff Creek had been over this seemingly asinine oversight.

Footsteps bounded up the stairs and a squad of marines appeared, led by the sergeant who had refused to go up first.

"We're clearing the lower floor, sir," the sergeant said to him. "So far, no signs of booby-traps, although we wouldn't really know what one looked like anyway."

"True," Hunter said, "but I find the fact that none have gone off yet to be good news. Did you see these huge openings in the back wall?"

"We saw them," the sergeant said. "I've ordered the men to stay clear of them. The Martians out in that back trench might be able to get a shot off at us if we walk in front of them."

"Why would they build such large openings in a protective structure?" Hunter asked. "It does nothing but increase exposure and weaken the entire emplacement."

"I don't know, sir," the sergeant said. "It's enough that we noticed them and are keeping clear. Come and look at this though." He led him over to the side wall, the one that faced north. Over here the firing opening was much smaller. "Take a look, sir."

Hunter put his face in the opening. Below, he could see the stretch of ground between this pillbox and the next. And since they were now well above, he could see two Martian tanks and four Martian APCs in their hull-down positions, firing out over the battlefield. "We can take them out from up here," he said. "We're high enough to put laser fire right down on top of them."

"Goddamn right, sir," the sergeant said. "All we need is to get some AT teams up here and we can clear this whole fucking area."

Hunter nodded. "Continue clearing this level," he said. "I'll get on with Captain Callahan and have them send some AT units up."

"Right on," the sergeant said. He switched his channel and ordered an entire platoon's worth of men into the room, ordering them to stay well clear of the rear opening and to man positions at the main firing ports along the walls. He ordered another squad to crawl over just to the sides of the rear openings and keep an eye out to their rear. That was, after all, where the Martians were.

Down below, Callahan, still huddled on the west side of the pillbox, listened to the report from Lieutenant Hunter with something like glee. "Perfect," he said. "Absolutely fucking perfect. I'll get West to put some AT teams in with the next wave of men. With luck we'll have our corridor open within thirty minutes and then we can start moving enough men in here to force our way past those final positions."

Jeff Creek had his M-24 pointed out toward the rear of the pillbox, the magnification on his goggles set at high. In his view was the face of one of the WestHem marines on the top level of the position. He was peeking slightly out around the corner of the opening, thinking that he was safe from being shot. He was so wrong. Jeff itched to pull the trigger, to put a 4mm round right through that Earthling asshole's face. But he didn't. He and the rest of the two platoons deployed her had been ordered not to fire.

"We could rake those fuckers right now," he told Drogan, who was deployed next to him, manning a SAW.

"Yep," she said. "Now we know why those openings are so big in the rear. When the enemy takes that position they won't have the same protection from it that we had."

"I should've known it made some kinda sense," Jeff said. "You gotta hand it to the engineers who designed this place. But why won't they let us shoot them? They've been exposed half a dozen times on both levels. I bet if we started pouring fire in there we'd hit a dozen or so."

"I don't know," Drogan said. "But we'd better do something fast. Pretty soon they'll get some AT teams up there. If they do that, they'll be able to force the armor out of the spaces in between."

The ground began to rumble around them, the soft, insistent vibration that bespoke of a heavy armored vehicle approaching. Jeff looked behind and saw two main battle tanks coming their way, one from the north and one from the south, both sticking close to the outside of the MPG base. When they made it directly behind the trench the platoons were in they turned and began heading forward, toward the pillbox.

Jeff and Drogan looked at each other, grinning. Now they understood what those big openings in the rear were really for.

"Sir!" the sergeant's voice suddenly barked in Hunter's ear. "We've got tanks approaching from the rear."

"Tanks?" he asked, alarmed. "From behind us?" In an instant he suddenly figured out the same thing as Jeff and Drogan. Why hadn't this occurred to him earlier?"

"They're setting up to fire, sir!" the sergeant said, panic in his voice now.

"Everyone back to the stairways!" Hunter yelled. "Now!"

A panicked rush began but it was far too late. The tanks outside opened up with their eighty-millimeter guns, putting the rounds directly through the large openings. They flew in, hit the front wall, and exploded with a tremendous crack, sending shrapnel ricocheting in all directions. Men were blown to pieces if they were near the front wall, riddled with shrapnel if they were near the rear. Hunter was hit with the second volley. The concussion blew him against the side wall and then shrapnel sprayed through his chest, neck, and face, ending his life in an instant. Of the one hundred and sixteen marines inside of the pillbox, sixty-eight of them were killed or so gravely wounded they couldn't stand. The rest managed to scramble into the staircases where they were safe from the exploding shells. They huddled there, still trying to comprehend what had happened, what they should do now. And then Captain Zogor Fattie, the commander of the pillbox before it fell, pushed a series of buttons on an electronic radio transmitter from within the trench behind. The booby traps that lined each stairway were detonated simultaneously, killing every man within.

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

1830 hours

Major Wilde was receiving the confused and disjointed reports from the Eden Theater of operations and trying to assemble some kind of a picture of what was going on down there. The only thing that was really clear was that they were taking horrifying casualties, most in the anti-tank trenches where the ground troops were trying to assemble or on the advance from those trenches forward.

"From what I understand," he told General Browning, pointing to a schematic of the Eden area on his computer screen, "we've pushed through and forced the Martians out of their pillbox positions in six different places on the line. Here, here, here, here, here, and here. You'll notice, however, that none of those positions are adjoining each other, therefore we have not been able to open up a movement corridor through to the rear."

"Why not?" Browning asked.

Wilde clenched his fists a few times but kept his feelings off of his face. "Because, sir, these pillboxes overlap their fields of fire and the Martians still have armor in hull-down positions in the spaces in between. Our hope had been to occupy the pillboxes we forced them out of but... well... those latest reports kind of eliminate that possibility."

The latest reports he was referring to were those that had described the traps the Martians had laid, allowing the troops inside the pillboxes and then bringing in tanks to blast through large openings in the rear. Once the troops that had survived this attack went into the stairwells, booby traps concealed in the walls were detonated. This had happened at three of the six positions so far, enough that an order had gone out for troops to not enter any of the other pillboxes.

"So are they winning?" Browning asked. "Is that what you're trying to say?"

"No, sir," Wilde said. "They just have a very good final defense. They're not giving up any ground easily. We still have enough men down there to push through those positions and open those corridors up, it's just going to cost us a lot."

"How long will it take? The press is already hounding me about not being in Eden by sunset. Sunset took place ten minutes ago down there."

"We need to keep bringing troops forward, running them through the gauntlet of the trench and the open ground. We need to occupy several adjacent pillbox positions and chase the Martians out of them. And then we need to get some AT units up there with hand-held lasers. Once we have all that, we can push forward. The Martians we chase out of the pillboxes are taking up positions in trenches just forward of the wall. We'll have to engage them with the infantry while the AT units destroy or chase off any armored vehicles."

"Sounds like a plan," Browning said. "But how long will it take? Can we get it done in the next half hour?"

Wilde shook his head in frustration. Browning just wasn't listening to him. "It'll take as long as it takes, sir. That's the only answer I can give you. We need to send out orders to start having the troops advance more towards the areas surrounding Pillbox 73 here in the middle, especially the two positions immediately north of it. If we can take Pillbox 72 and 71, it will link up with Pillbox 70, which we already hold. That will allow us to move the AT teams forward and assemble enough to move against the positions behind it."

"I like it," Browning said. "So can you do all this in the next thirty minutes? I'd like to give my victory briefing on the hour if possible."

Eden Main Life of Defense, Pillbox 73

0735 hours

Captain Callahan was up against the western wall of the pillbox again, his M-24 sitting in his lap, his mind flirting with the very edge of sanity. There were several hundred marines gathered around him, most sitting down, shoulder to shoulder, back to back, most with the empty, disbelieving expression that came with finding one's self alive after so many of one's companions have been horribly killed. From both sides of them the chattering of machine guns and explosive rounds fired from the Martian armor went on and on, cutting into the groups of marines still trying to reach one of the four positions that were now held on the line. The Martian armor was being resupplied from an apparently endless supply of fresh ammo. Out beyond the anti-tank ditch, however, the WestHem armor was completely out. There had not been a round of any caliber fired in more than forty-five minutes now.

Another group of marines came staggering in from the open ground, throwing themselves to the ground and just lying there, staring up at the alien sky. It was a common reaction upon arrival.

"Bowman," Callahan said to Lieutenant Bowman, his new second-in-command after the first one had been slaughtered in the pillbox. "How many do we have now?"

"I'm counting six hundred and sixty-four including that last bunch to make it in here," Bowman replied. "We're gonna start running out room in the defilade areas pretty soon."

"I don't think we'll have to worry about that too much," Callahan replied. "I just got the plan shipped to me from operations."

"What is it?"

"Pillboxes 70, 71, and 72 are now in our hands — or at least we've chased the Martians out of them. They sent an entire company of AT teams forward to join our unit. Only about half of them made it but we are still able to field twenty portable ATs for the next advance."

"We're advancing, sir?" Bowman asked.

"Did you think we were just going to have a picnic here?" Callahan shot back. "We're going to push into that corridor and take on the Martian trench that's guarding the wall. That's their absolute last line. The AT teams are going to go after the armor in between. I'm told that all of the other positions are going to be doing the same."

"Uh... sir," Bowman said, "What about getting some mortar teams up here for support? What about some sappers so we can clear these pillboxes and use them for overhead fire? I mean... the AT teams would be able to engage the tanks a lot better from up there."

"They won't send support units forward until we open a corridor for them," Callahan said. "We need to push to the wall the length of these four pillbox positions and then they'll send everyone forward."

There was a long silence on the net.

"Bowman?" asked Callahan. "Are you still there?"

"I'm still here," he said.

"Is there a problem with the orders?"

Another long silence. Finally, "Yeah."

Callahan had been half expecting this. In a way, he welcomed it. "And what might that be?" he asked.

"There's a lot of talk down here on the tac channels, Captain," Bowman said. "A lot of the men were afraid the plan was just what you said it would be."

"And?"

"And... well... they're saying they just made it through hell to get here and they're not willing to go through it again. Those fuckin' assholes back in the rear are wanting us to go up against entrenched positions that will probably be supported by armor. Is that what the situation is?"

"Yes, Bowman. That's what the situation is. Keep talking."

"We respect you and all, Captain," Bowman said. "But if we do that we'll take fifty percent casualties, maybe more. The men have had enough of that shit. I've had enough of that shit. We lived this long and we'd kind of like to keep on living, you know what I mean?"

"I know what you mean," Callahan said. "So why don't you reiterate what you mean so we're both clear on it."

"This is kind of delicate, sir," Bowman said. "But it's like this. The last time we were down here we had to retreat. When we retreated the Martians stopped shooting at us. You remember that? The second we turned around and started heading back to the LZ, they stopped firing and they didn't kill a single fuckin' person, a single piece of armor. It's the thought of most of us gathered here that if we were to throw down these guns and start walking back to that trench, back to our APCs, they'd stop shooting again and let us go."

"So you're suggesting we disobey orders to push forward and retreat?" Callahan asked, just for clarity.

"The men giving them orders ain't standing down here," Bowman said. "They didn't go through that ditch or run across that open ground. They don't have to think about going up against another slaughter like that. All except for you, Captain. You went through that with us. Do you want to go out there again?"

"No," Callahan said without hesitation. "I don't."

"Then it seems that maybe we've reached an agreement here."

"I didn't say I agreed with your position, Lieutenant," Callahan said.

"No? Then I'd suggest you watch out real careful like, Captain," Bowman told him. "It might be that someone's gun might just go off accidentally when they're near you, if you know what I mean."

"Are you threatening me?"

"Take it for what you will, Captain," Bowman said. "But I can guarantee you one thing. Ain't none of these men going forward under the plan you just gave me. We've already agreed to that. What you do is your own decision but I'd suggest you make it wisely. I heard what you did the last time we went up against this main line. I respect you for that and I hope you can do it again. If you won't... well... I'm next in command. I will do it."

"If something unfortunate was to happen to me?" Callahan said.

"That's right," Bowman told him.

Callahan looked at his M-24 in his lap. He fingered it a few times, marveling over the fact that he had not fired a single round through it in the entire campaign. He looked up at the men around him, seeing their faces staring at him expectantly. Obviously all of them had switched over to the command channel at some point to monitor this conversation. He picked up his rifle and removed the strap from around his body. He threw it out into the open. "Everyone get rid of your weapons," he told them. "If we're going to do this, we need to do it right. It won't do us any good if we're the only ones."

A collective sigh of relief went out across the channel and a vast pile of weapons began to hit the ground.

"Everyone stay in place for now," Callahan said. "I need to talk to some other people first."

Pillbox 72

0740 hours

Captain Steve Daniels was the man in charge of the forces gathered in front of the pillbox adjacent to Callahan's. He, like Callahan, had just received his attack orders and was trying to convince his troops that command was really serious about them.

"This is fuckin' bullshit!" an angry corporal — who was not even supposed to be on this channel — proclaimed to him. "Go up against those positions? Without mortar support? With only a few anti-tank teams? What are they? Pissed off that we managed to live this long and trying to kill us completely?"

Several other unauthorized users checked in on the same channel and expressed their opinions as well. Several people brought up the same point that Bowman had brought up. If they turned around and started heading back, the Martians wouldn't shoot at them anymore.

"This is Captain Callahan," a voice suddenly cut in. "I'm in command of the group on Pillbox 73. Who's in charge there?"

Daniels was surprised. It was quite unorthodox for a commander to get onto another commander's channel. He checked his telemetry screen to see if it was one of his own men playing games and saw that the transmission had, in fact, come from a Captain Callahan over at the Pillbox 73 position. "This is Captain Daniels," he said. "What do you want, Callahan? We're trying to organize for our attack here. Shouldn't you be doing the same?"

"We're not attacking," Callahan told him. "We've thrown down our weapons and we are going to disobey this order. From I've just been monitoring on your channel it sounds like your men are ready to do the same."

Daniels, a veteran of the first phase of the war at Proctor, was not the least bit shocked or outraged by this statement. On the contrary, he felt hope for the first time. "You're not going forward?" he asked.

"The last time we retreated the Martians didn't shoot at us," Callahan said. "We're tired of being shot at. Our gesture would be a lot more meaningful if we weren't the only ones making it."

"I think I speak for all my men when I say we'll be standing next to you when you walk out."

"Very good," Callahan said. "I'm going to talk to the men over at 71 now. Stay in place until I tell you to move.

It took less than ten minutes for Callahan to convince all four groups of marines to throw down their weapons. Pillbox 70 proved to be the most difficult. The men there were commanded by a Captain Stills, who was not a veteran of the first conflict but who had in fact been in charge of the APC maintenance section on one of the landing ships. He accused Callahan of inciting treason, malfeasance of duty, and several other things before a mysterious "sniper" put a round through his head and his second-in-command, Lieutenant Galvin, took over for him.

"We're in," Galvin said. "Just tell us when to start moving back."

"I'll let you know," Callahan promised.

Colonel West wasn't too keen on the adjustment to the battle plan — to say the least. He ordered, threatened, even begged Callahan to have his men pick up their weapons and take the Martian positions.

"We're within thirty minutes of taking this fucking city, Callahan!" he screamed. "We can be standing in Eden an hour from now, basking in our fucking glory! You want to give that all up for a charge of treason?"

"At least we'll be alive to face those charges," Callahan said. "We're coming out."

"The Martians will gun you down like dogs if you walk out into the open like that!"

"I don't think they will," Callahan said. "We're willing to take that chance in any case."

"If they don't gun you down, we will," West said. "I'll order all men at the ditch to shoot you as deserters!"

"I don't think they'll do that either," Callahan said. "Face it, Colonel. We've lost. Why make it any more complicated than that?"

"You'll be held responsible for this, Callahan. I'm warning you."

"I'm willing to accept the consequences, Colonel. You can quote me on that. We're heading out now. See you in a bit."

Xenia Stoner was sitting in the gunner's station in one of the tanks stationed between Pillbox 70 and 69. She had just had a support team reload her eighty millimeter shells and was firing them as fast as they could be put into the breach, sending them out over the endless stream of marines that kept emerging from the anti-tank ditch and heading toward Pillbox 70.

She was the first to spot movement in the opposite direction. She saw a large group of people suddenly enter her field of view from the right. She automatically turned her main gun in that direction, preparing to take a shot at them. The twenty-millimeter, which had been placed under control of the tank's driver, did the same. Xenia stopped, her finger poised over the firing button as she realized that these figures were heading back the way they had come.

"What the fuck?" she muttered.

"You seeing this shit, Jack?" asked the driver — woman named Barbie Goodbud — of the commander, Jack Woo.

"I'm seeing it," Woo said, his hand on the controls of the four millimeter gun, his recticle resting right between two of the mysterious soldiers. "But I'm not quite sure what it is."

"Their hands are up," Xenia said. "They're not carrying weapons with them."

"And they're walking back towards the WestHem positions," Woo said thoughtfully. "Xenia, get a count for me."

"At least three hundred of them," she said, mostly guessing. "More of them coming out every second."

"All of them have their hands up," Goodbud said.

"Hold your fire," Woo told them.

"What about the ones still coming forward from the trench?" Xenia asked.

"Hold you fire on them too," he said. "Let me get command and see what the fuck is going on."

The group walked slowly forward, hands held high, moving step by step over the open ground they'd recently scrambled their way across. A few of the Martian positions opened up on them, mostly out of instinct. More than two dozen were gunned down with bullets. Another two dozen were blown up by tank rounds. The rest kept moving forward, not reacting to the fire, not breaking, not running, trying not to panic. This had been per instructions given by Captain Callahan. After a minute or so, the fire on the formation stopped. As they went further out all enemy fire stopped completely — at least in this sector of the line.

Hundreds of other marines had been rushing forward at the time, having just cleared the lethal anti-tank trench and going for the final dash to what was being called "the assembly point". Many didn't notice at first that the enemy fire had stopped. But as they did they noticed the line of fellow marines walking toward them with their hands in the air. Gradually, the onrushing marines slowed their pace, understanding dawning over them.

Callahan didn't communicate with the onrushing men at all. He didn't have to. They all saw that the death and destruction that had been killing them and maiming them had come to a halt. The only reason this could be so was because the men who had gone before them were retreating. Most concluded that the attack they were racing to join had been aborted. Most didn't bother to speculate why. To a man they stopped in their tracks and waited for the formation to catch up with them. Hands were held up, telling them which tactical channel to turn to.

"We're done," was the universal message delivered to these men. "Throw down your gun and join us or go forward and get killed. It's your choice."

Nobody in this sector of the battle chose the latter option. They threw down their guns and turned around, joining the group and going back the way they had come.

The rebellion against orders spread very quickly. It started in the adjoining sectors. Men going forward saw the others going backwards with no guns, their hands held high. They saw that the men doing this were not under fire. They threw down their weapons and joined them. The men in the sections adjoining these saw the same thing and repeated this action. Within fifteen minutes the entire line had given up, most with unspeakable gratitude. For the first time in hours all of the Martian guns went silent.

For all intents and purposes, the Battle for Eden was over. The will of the WestHem marines had been broken.

Chapter 26

MPG Headquarters, New Pittsburgh

September 14, 2146, 2000 hours

"It's confirmed, Kevin," General Zoloft told General Jackson via video link. "The WestHem marines are in full retreat from the main line. They started giving up in droves twenty minutes ago. It started at the Pillbox 73 and 72 positions and spread all along the line from there."

"Could it be some kind of trickery?" Jackson asked, wanting to believe what he was being told but not wanting to fall into a trap.

"I don't think so," Zoloft replied. "They threw down their weapons and left them in the dirt. They're walking back toward the anti-tank ditch with their hands in the air. I can't imagine what kind of trickery it could possibly be. Take a look at the video from Peepers two and three."

Jackson called those particular images up on his screen and looked at the two views taken from the small drone aircraft circling twelve thousand meters above the battlefield. He saw literally thousands of men, marching slowing westward, their hands held high in the air as they stepped around their fallen comrades.

"It looks like the real thing all right," he said. "Have you ordered a cease-fire?"

"I didn't have to," Zoloft said. "Our troops stopped firing at them as soon as the marines started their retreat... well... as soon as they realized that was what the marines were doing. There were a few incidents of retreating marines being shot down."

"Unfortunate, but understandable," Jackson said. "In any case, put out a general order just to make it official. Nobody is to fire on retreating troops for any reason. Extend this order to your aircraft and your special forces teams that are hitting the armor behind the ditch. Fire only if fired upon or if the marines start moving forward again."

"It will be done immediately," Zoloft said. He paused for a few moments, staring at his commander's image. "You were right, Kevin. You were right all along. They are retreating because they knew we'd stop shooting at them if they did. The order you gave during phase one, the order we all protested... that order just saved Eden."

"I'm pleased that I've vindicated myself," Jackson said. "Not so much for the repair of my stained reputation as for the cessation of hostilities it has caused. This is as close as I ever want to cut it."

"Amen," Zoloft agreed. "For a while there I thought... well... you know what I thought. My sincerest apologies, Kevin, for all the flack I shot at you about that cease-fire order after phase one. I should've known better than to question you."

"Bullshit," Jackson said. "My order went against basic military logic and practice. As commander, I'm allowed to do that if I think it makes sense. I would have worried, however, if you wouldn't have questioned my decision. You were just doing your job. I don't want people who follow me blindly. Now stop apologizing and start passing on those orders. Be sure to tell your people how goddamned proud you are of them."

"Yes, sir!" Zoloft replied smartly, a smile on his face. He signed off.

Jackson leaned back in his chair with a tired yawn. He looked over at Laura Whiting, who had been hanging out in the war room with him ever since returning from her trip to the hospital to visit the wounded. "We did it," he told her. "We actually went and did it, Laura. Eden held. New Pittsburgh is going to hold. The Earthlings will be crawling back home in defeat soon. Mars is still free."

"Yeah," she said, her smile genuine but faintly troubled for some reason. "We did it. How close did we actually come to losing Eden?"

Jackson held the thumb and forefinger of his right hand about a centimeter apart. "This close," he said. "There is no way we could have held those marines back from entering the MPG base if they would've thrown themselves at us. They would've taken heavy losses but they would have eventually pushed through or forced us to surrender. It was a mathematical certainty. We didn't beat them, Laura. We made them give up."

"That's what you always said would repel an invader," she reminded. "It worked admirably."

"I never thought it would be that close though. I'm going to make sure it's never that close again."

Jeff Creek and the rest of his squad were the point squad for the re-occupation of Pillbox 73. Intelligence had assured them that all WestHem marines still capable of fighting had pulled back from the perimeter, their weapons thrown down, their hands held high. Jeff had no reason to question the intelligence report. After all they had rarely, if ever, been wrong so far. What he was concerned about were the men still inside the pillbox. Most would be dead. Some, however, might only be wounded — wounded, desperate, and possibly not in the communication loop that the withdrawing marines were using.

They approached carefully through the access trench, two platoons of 2nd Infantry soldiers and two main battle tanks waiting at the fallback trench to provide cover for them. They kept their M-24s locked, loaded, and held out before them, ready to fire at the slightest hint of trouble.

"Coming up on the entrance," Jeff reported. He had lost the random number drawing for point position, which meant he was the point man. "There's two dead marines just outside. They look like wounded that someone dragged out and then dropped there. I can see some arms and legs just inside. Nothing moving."

"Copy," replied Sergeant Walker. "Drogan, Zanderson, Clipjoint, Zing — get up on either side of the trench and against the wall next to the entrance. Get some frags out and ready to use but don't toss them in unless Creek comes under fire."

The four people Walker indicated scrambled out the top of the trench and spread to the sides, all of them pulling fragmentation grenades from their equipment packs. Jeff moved slowly forward, step by step, until he was able to put his head inside the opening. The entryway was reasonably clear but there was a pile of bodies at the foot of the staircase on the far side. He reported this and then moved inside. The four grenade holders jumped down and followed behind. When he reached the foot of the staircase and got a look inside he felt a gag rising in his throat.

You will not puke in your helmet, he told himself, repeating this incantation over and over as he looked at the sight before him in horror. More than a dozen marines had been in this section of the staircase when the fragmentation booby-traps installed in the walls had blown. The marines had been ripped open by the explosions, most in their midsections. Internal organs, intestines, rib and pelvic bones had been exposed on nearly every body. The entire stairwell was choked with a fog of red blood vapor that had become trapped in the confined space, that was still slowly rising from most of the bodies.

"Oh, now that is fucking disgusting," said Drogan. She and the rest of the squad had moved up behind him.

"I almost feel sorry for them," Private Clipjoint said sadly.

"Fuck that shit," said Drogan. "They tried us and they fuckin' lost. They shoulda stopped back at the line and this wouldn't have happened to them."

"Yeah, but still..."

"Could we wax philosophical a little later?" Walker asked. "For now, how about we clear the rest of this position before the marines change their minds and start heading back."

They moved up the stairs, trying as hard as they could to avoid stepping on body parts or entrails or kidneys or livers and mostly succeeding. They found more bodies on the next section of stairway and a lot more in the lower level defensive position.

If anything, the scene was even more gruesome here. Those marines that had been near the firing positions at the front of the position had been blown into pieces which were now scattered throughout the floor. Arms, legs, heads, and torsos were everywhere. Those who had been near the back, where the large openings were, had merely been ripped open. They were lying mostly intact, with hundreds of holes in them. A few were still alive, as was evidenced by the slight movements they were making and the outgassing of their exhalations. None were in any shape to put up resistance although Jeff and the others made sure to kick any weapons well away from them and to remove any grenades or ammunition clips from their biosuits.

"Doc, start sorting through them," Walker ordered their medic. "Get some medivac teams up here to get them out of here."

"Right," Tom Huffy, their medic, replied. He went to work.

"The rest of you, man those firing positions and keep an eye on the WestHems. Second squad is coming up to secure the top."

Jeff tore his eyes away from the gore around him and walked over to the firing position he'd occupied during the battle. The 7mm gun was still there but was far from functional. Its body had been broken in half by the exploding tank rounds and its barrel had been bent. Not only that, most of the ammunition drums had been cracked open, spilling the rounds out onto the concrete floor.

One look outside the firing port told him he wouldn't be needing the 7mm, or any other weapon. There were no marines anywhere near the position. Three hundred meters away, he could see them lined up just on this side of the anti-tank trench, slowly working their way inside of it in small groups and then emerging from the other side. Only then would they put their hands down.

It was then that he realized he had actually managed to live through this war.

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

2015 hours

"What do you mean they're giving up?" General Browning demanded of General Dakota Dickenson, commander of the Eden forces.

"The men have left their positions," Dickenson's image replied. "All along the length of the line they've thrown down their weapons and have walked back to the anti-tank ditch and the APCs."

"Who in the hell ordered that?" Browning yelled. "Did you order it? If you did..."

"Nobody ordered it, sir," Dickenson told him. "They did it on their own, just like they did during phase one."

"They're marines, goddammit! They can't just give up a fight without orders! You order them to go back, pick up those guns, and open that goddamn corridor to the MPG base!"

"I've already tried, sir," Dickenson said. "I've sent my orders through the colonels in command of each brigade and I've even opened a channel to all troops and broadcast my order in the clear. I've threatened to prosecute every marine who turned away from his duty for desertion, cowardice, even treason. They're simply not listening."

"What about the greenies?" Browning asked. "What are they doing?"

"Nothing," Dickenson said. "They stopped firing as soon as our men started to retreat. There hasn't been so much as an air attack since they turned around."

"Those greenies are just encouraging this behavior," Browning said, as if he thought the greenies should be encouraging the marines to attack them more.

"I agree, sir," Dickenson said. "So what are your orders? It would seem at this point that an organized withdrawal to the LZ would be the only thing we can do."

"No," Browning said immediately. "We will not withdraw. We came here to take Eden and we're going to take Eden. I order you to make those marines resume their attack!"

"Sir," Dickenson said, his voice sharpening, "you can't order me to do something that's impossible. The men are refusing to push forward. The men that were in the rear are refusing to go forward now that those in front of them have given up. The only thing we can do at this point is concede defeat and start getting our men and equipment back to the LZ — all of it that we can salvage anyway."

"That is unacceptable!" Browning yelled.

"It's also reality, General," Dickenson said. "I've got thousands of wounded down here that need to be evacuated. I've got thousands more that are going to start running out of breathing air soon. I don't have enough APCs to transport them all back. We need some kind of official cease-fire with the Martians in this sector so we can salvage what we can."

"There will be no cease-fire! If those men want to breathe they'll go forward and take Eden like they were goddamn ordered to."

Dickenson sighed. "I'm sorry, General," he said, "but if you won't make contact with the Martians for an official cease-fire, I will be forced to contact them myself."

"If you do that you'll be tried for treason!" Browning threatened. "I order you to make those men take their objective!"

"I think this conversation is over, General," Dickenson said. "I take full responsibility for my actions."

"Dickenson, don't you dare..." he started but was unable to finish. The screen went blank. Dickenson was gone. "Goddammit! Wilde, get him back on the line!"

Wilde had been standing behind Browning and had watched the entire exchange. "I can try, General," he said, "but I'm afraid he's right. The men have lost the will to fight. There is no way they're going to go forward. It's too late now even if they wanted to."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Browning said, turning his anger toward Wilde now. "They were within sight of the MPG base! They were less than two kilometers away. All they had to do was clear one more position and we would have taken that city!"

"I know, sir," Wilde said. "Unfortunately the Martians fought back much too hard. They destroyed our morale and robbed them of the will to fight. We're not going to take Eden. Dickenson is correct. We need to concede defeat to the Martians so we can get out as many men and machines as we can."

"Do you hear what you're saying, Wilde?" Browning asked. "This was your goddamn plan in the first place!"

"I was trying to do the best with what the suits in Denver left us with," Wilde said. "Mathematically it should have succeeded. But war is not just about math, as we're finding out."

"That's a copout. Those men are cowards! Treasonous, yellow-bellied cowards!"

"Call them what you will, sir. The fact remains, we've lost at Eden. Refusing to acknowledge that is not going to change anything. Now will you allow me to coordinate with General Dickenson on cease-fire terms with the Martians? The air supply situation is going to get critical down there before much longer — probably already is. If we don't come to some sort of arrangement with the Martians they're going to capture a sizable portion of our men."

"Permission denied," Browning spat. "Let the cowardly fucks get captured. I hope the greenies torture every last one of them. They deserve it for what they've done."

MPG regional headquarters, Eden

2030 hours

"General?" said Major Smoker, General Zoloft's aide in charge of communications. "I'm getting a transmission from the Eden LZ."

"Oh?" Zoloft asked, raising his eyebrows a bit.

"It's from General Dakota Dickenson," Smoker said. "He's the commander of the Eden area marine forces. Intelligence confirms that is his current position and the computer confirms voice-print analysis."

"I see," Zoloft said. "Did he say what he wanted?"

"He wants to talk to 'whoever is in charge of Eden', he says."

Zoloft chuckled a little bit. The fact that Dickenson didn't know who was in charge of Eden MPG operations spoke volumes about how much the Earthlings had underestimated them. They hadn't even bothered to develop dossiers on the MPG command staff. "Put him on my screen," he said. "Be sure to record for Intel."

"Coming on now, General."

The screen changed from a schematic of the battlefield area to a live shot of a balding, middle-aged man dressed in Martian camouflage fatigues. He had a single star on each of his lapels. His face looked tired, defeated, with bags under both bloodshot eyes.

"This is General Zoloft," Zoloft said. "Commanding officer of the Eden area MPG units."

"General Dickenson," Dickenson returned. "WestHem Marine Corps. I am commander of the Eden theater of operations."

"I know," Zoloft told him matter-of-factly. "What can I do for you, General?"

"I would like to discuss a cease-fire in this area of operation."

"We have already ceased firing," Zoloft said. "I'm sure you must have noticed that by now."

This seemed to fluster Dickenson a bit. It was obvious he was not used to being talked to in this manner by a greenie. "Well... uh... yeah, we did notice that. What I'm suggesting is that we come to terms for an official cease-fire agreement."

"Okay," Zoloft said, deliberately making his Martian accent a little thicker, "lay 'em on me and I'll consider it."

"Very well," Dickenson said. "I am willing to concede that my men will be unable to secure the liberation of the city of Eden in their current numbers under the current circumstances."

"Why that's mighty nice of you to concede that. Let's hear the terms."

Dickenson swallowed a few times, seemed about to say something, and then changed his mind. He took a few breaths. "We are willing to withdraw all of our men and equipment from the area of operations around Eden and move back to our landing zone. We would like to do this without being attacked by the insurgents you command."

"My insurgents, as you call them, have been ordered not to fire on you unless you fire on them or unless you start moving forward again. As long as you head back to your LZ and don't shoot at us, we will not shoot at you."

"Well, that is part of the problem," Dickenson said. "We have many wounded out on the ground out there. Those rebar traps and the mortar fire in the anti-tank trench are responsible for most of them. We also have many on the open ground between the anti-tank ditch and the pillbox positions. We need to collect them and load them onto the APCs for transport back to the LZ. In order to do that, we will have to move forward to some degree."

"You can collect all of the wounded in the anti-tank ditch and take them back to the LZ with you," Zoloft told him. "Any wounded east of the anti-tank ditch, however, will be attended to by my forces."

Dickenson shook his head. "That's not acceptable," he said toughly. "My wounded will not be used as further hostages in this conflict."

"They will be treated in our hospitals and given the best care possible," Zoloft said. "After that, they will be held as prisoners of war along with all of the other marines and naval personnel we captured at the beginning of this conflict until such time as a formal armistice is signed and prisoner exchange occurs."

"No," Dickenson said. "We will collect our own wounded."

"You seem to forget who is negotiating from a position of strength here, General," Zoloft said. "You are the one who got your ass kicked. You do not dictate terms to me. I dictate them to you. Your wounded will be collected, treated, and cared for as POWs under the terms of the Geneva Accords — which, I might add, is a courtesy not being returned for those of our forces that you've captured, but that's another story. In any case, the sooner we hammer out a cease fire agreement, the sooner we can go out and start hauling those wounded men in."

"I won't agree to that," Dickenson said.

"Then those men will die out there," Zoloft told him. "Any men moving forward from the main anti-tank trench will be fired upon. Now are you going to agree to this, or not?"

Dickenson remained silent for a few moments. Finally he nodded his head. "Okay," he said. "I'll abide by that. If any of my men are mistreated in any way, however, you will answer for it when this planet is liberated."

"Sounds like an ass-fuck to me," Zoloft said.

"Excuse me?" Dickenson said, genuinely shocked by this common Martian expression.

"That means I agree," Zoloft told him, suppressing a chuckle. "Anything else?"

"Yes, there are a few things."

"Lay 'em on me," Zoloft said.

"Many of my men are getting low on breathing air," Dickenson said. "Some do not have enough to make it back to the LZ. As a term of the cease fire I would like your forces to supply us with extra tanks so we can get everyone back."

"You're joking, right?" Zoloft said.

"I know that your biosuits use different air tanks than ours," Dickenson said. "But the Eden Marine Barracks had a supply of over fifty thousand tanks in one of the storage rooms. If you could put them onto some agricultural trucks and bring them out to us, that should be sufficient to get everyone back safely."

"Are you dusted?" Zoloft asked him. "You're suggesting I supply an invading army that I'm fighting with extra breathing air? Sure, I'll get right on that, Dickenson. Is there anything else you'll be requiring? I can call over to the Alexander Industries plant and see about getting you some extra ammo as well."

"Was that sarcasm?" Dickenson asked carefully.

"Yes," Zoloft said patiently. "That was sarcasm. We will supply no breathing air to your forces. Any of your men who do not have sufficient air to return to the LZ may cross the anti-tank ditch and walk forward to our lines with their hands in the air. They will be taken into custody and kept as POWs until a formal armistice is signed."

"My men will not give up to you," Dickenson said. "They all know how you treat prisoners. They've all seen the reports of you shooting the men from EMB, torturing them, using them as hostages. They will choose instead to die out there in the wastelands."

"Then they will be choosing badly," Zoloft said.

"This could be construed as war crime as well," Dickenson threatened.

Zoloft merely shrugged. "You have to beat us before you can try anyone for war crimes," he said. "I'll worry about that when it happens. No air tanks. You pass on the surrender instructions to your men and they will be treated well until they're released."

"You're being unreasonable," Dickenson said. "You are forgetting that we still have sufficient numbers to push forward and take your city. You're forcing me to consider utilization of that option."

"Don't try to finger my prostate, Dickenson," Zoloft told him. "If your numbers could have taken our city you would have had it by now. My troops are prepared to continue fighting if the need arises. Somehow, however, I don't think yours are. So do we have an agreement, or not?"

"There is one other thing," Dickenson said.

"This should be good. Go ahead."

"We have a number of tanks that do not have enough fuel to make it back to the LZ."

"Don't even suggest it," Zoloft told him. "If you think we're going to refuel your armor so you can take it with you when you go then you're even dumber than you look. Any vehicle that cannot make it back to the LZ becomes Martian property. I'm not going to discuss that one any further."

"That's nothing more than grand theft," Dickenson accused.

"As I said, I'm not going to discuss it any further. Let me summarize the terms I'm offering you, Dickenson. We will not fire upon you unless you move forward from the anti-tank trench in attack posture. Unarmed men will be allowed to cross the anti-tank trench for purposes of surrender as long as they have their hands in the air. In turn, we will collect your wounded from the area between the anti-tank trench and the city itself. This means my people will be moving about in that area, exposed to your men. If so much as a single bullet flies towards any of my people, this cease-fire will be considered null and void and we will unleash everything we have upon you. Do you understand my terms?"

"Yes," Dickenson said. "I understand them, but..."

"No buts," Zoloft said. "Do you agree to my terms?"

Dickenson sighed. "I guess I have no choice," he said. "But believe me when I say, you'll answer for this later."

"Whatever," Zoloft said, making a jerking off motion with his hand. "So it sounds like an ass-fuck then?"

"Uh... yes," Dickenson replied.

"Then say it."

"What?"

"I'm a Martian, Dickenson. I like to hear things in my own language, you know what I mean? So say it."

Dickenson's face was red with anger. Nevertheless, through clenched teeth, he replied, "it sounds like an ass-fuck."

"Very good. I'll send the order out immediately and we'll start getting your wounded in."

Jeff's platoon, as part of the reserve, had been tasked with venturing out into the open area beyond the pillboxes in order to clear and secure a landing zone for the evac aircraft that were coming in to remove the WestHem wounded from this sector. Two main battle tanks were sent out to accompany and support them. They parked themselves about twenty-five meters apart, forward of the LZ location, their main guns and their cannons pointing in the direction of the WestHem forces.

Jeff was nervous at first as he walked out into the open. Never had he felt so exposed. Sure, there was an official cease-fire in place at the moment but there were literally thousands of WestHem marines less than two hundred meters away from him, gathered at the edge of the anti-tank trench. If they decided to break the cease-fire, tanks or no tanks, he and his companions would be easy fodder. But after a few minutes of dragging dead marines out of the one hundred meter circle they were establishing, he began to relax a little. The WestHems were obviously not interested in fighting anymore. They moved slowly, with their heads down, none of them carrying any visible weapons, none of them showing even the least bit of aggression.

Clearing the LZ took about fifteen minutes, during which time they found two marines who were still alive. Once that was complete other squads accompanying teams of medics began to fan out across the field, working in sectors, scanning the dead marines and treating those they found alive. The former category was very much in the majority. The wounded were brought over to a triage area adjacent to the LZ where other medics began to work on them, preparing them for the hovers and the Hummingbirds that were on the way.

Jeff was positioned near the front of one of the tanks, his M-24 slung across his chest. He was sipping from his water every now and then but mostly staring out at the mass of fallen marines, wondering which ones he had shot down. Probably, he figured, quite a few of them since he had manned the 7mm through most of the battle. He wondered if he should feel some sort of regret about having killed so many people. He wondered if he should feel guilty that he didn't. He was about to get around to wondering if he should feel guilty for being happy that he'd killed so many marines when something hit him in the back of his helmet.

He spun around in an instant, bringing his M-24 to bear on whatever the threat might be. What he saw was a Martian soldier sticking up out of the driver's hatch of the tank that was guarding them. A closer look at the soldier's face revealed the all-too-familiar features of Belinda Maxely. She was smiling in a mischievous way.

"Motherfuck," he muttered, lowering his weapon, looking down to see what it was she had thrown at him. Without surprise he found that it was a used waste pack.

She signaled to him to come over to her. Reluctantly, he did. When he arrived she held up two fingers. He nodded and switched to short-range channel two.

"You found that funny, I suppose?" he asked her.

"As a matter of fact I did," she said. "I was kind of hoping it would break open when it hit your helmet."

"Nice," he said. "Do you have any idea how close I came to shooting you? It's not really a good idea to startle someone in a combat area during a war."

She chuckled a little. "I think I just found that out," she said. "I can't believe how fast you turned around. You had that rifle pointed at me before the waste pack even hit the ground."

"We get a little jumpy out here," he said.

She nodded. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know you were going to react like that. I thought I was being funny. Thank you for not shooting me. That would've been your golden opportunity you know."

"Yeah," he said whimsically. "And I passed it up. I'll probably really be pissed at myself later."

"Probably," she agreed. She hesitated for a second. "You heard from X?"

He nodded. "She sent me a text right after the cease-fire was announced. She said she's safe and she's glad I am too."

"She sent me the same," Belinda told him. "I'm sure you've been checking her position on the forces screen every ten minutes like I have."

"Yeah," he admitted, although it had actually been about every five minutes. She was over by pillbox 43, guarding the evac operation in that sector.

"Listen, I really am sorry about throwing that at you. I was being childish. When I saw you were out there I wanted to get your attention so that maybe... you know... we could talk a little."

"About the state of the war?" he asked.

"Don't be a butt-plug," she said. "You know what I want to talk about. You up for it?"

He walked a little closer and sat down on the tread guard next to her hatch. "Yeah," he said. "I guess I'm up for it."

That sat in silence for a few minutes, both of them staring out toward the WestHems, not meeting each other's eyes, both waiting for the other to start. Finally Belinda broke the ice. "We're both in love with Xenia," she said.

"Yes," he agreed. "That seems to be the situation."

"I've admitted that to myself. I don't think you realize how hard that was for me to do. I'm primarily a muff-muncher, although I'm not above a little schlong every now and then for variety."

"Okay," Jeff said, unsure where she was going with this.

"My point is, I love Xenia. I've loved her almost since the first moment I laid eyes on her. I would give anything to be with her, to have her be with me. And I know that she loves me too."

Jeff wanted to dispute this but he didn't. She was right. Xenia loved her as well. It was apparent to anyone who saw the two of them together. He said nothing.

"So since I'm primarily muff-muncher," Belinda went on, "I had a tendency to assume that what Xenia felt for you was something other than love. Infatuation, lust, call it what you will. Since I find it inconceivable to feel anything other than physical attraction for a man, I was trying to convince myself that the woman I'm in love with was the same way. Am I making sense?"

"Somewhat," Jeff said. "I'm not sure what you're getting at though."

"I was wrong," she said simply. "Xenia does love you. She loves you just as much as she loves me. I didn't want to believe that, but I have to because it's true."

"Yes," he said, making the painful admission himself. "She loves us both. That's kind of the problem, wouldn't you say?"

"Well... maybe it's a problem only because we're making it a problem."

Jeff finally looked at her, seeing a serious expression on her face. "What do you mean?"

"She's not with either one of us because both of us have told her that we won't be with her until she says 'I love you'. Right?"

"Right," he said, "although I hear that she did actually say that to you and you still turned her down."

Belinda chuckled. "She has a big mouth. But yes, that's pretty much what happened. Although I know she really loves me, she didn't mean it when she said it to me in the tank. I mean... well... she means it, but she wasn't saying it because she wanted me to know she loved me, she was saying it because she was horny and wanted me to munch her out to relieve that. That's why I turned her down. I want a sincere, genuine 'I love you' before I give up the tongue."

"I will admit," he said, "you have some rankin' willpower."

"She'll never know how close I was," Belinda said with a small shake of the head. "But anyway, you know what she's been telling us about why she doesn't say she loves us?"

"About how we're in the middle of a war and she doesn't know if we're even gonna be alive?"

"Right," Belinda said. "I don't think that's really the reason why. I think she might believe that's the reason — that's why she sounds so sincere when she spouts off about it — but I think it's really something else."

"What?" he asked.

"She loves us both and she's afraid to choose."

Jeff thought this over for a few seconds and then nodded. "That could be," he said. "And do you have a solution to this dilemma?"

She laughed. "You're picking up some mighty big words there, Mr. Capitalist gang banger dust runner."

He shrugged. "I've been hangin' out with educated people. So what's your solution?"

"Well, we've been assuming all this time that whoever she says she loves the first time — whoever she says it to sincerely — is the one who wins, right?"

"Yeah," he said. "Are you saying that's not the case?"

"I'm saying that's why she hasn't told either one of us. She loves us both and she doesn't want to pick one or the other. If she does, she'll lose the one she didn't pick. Either you or I will be hurt and she'll probably have some lingering resentment towards whoever she did pick because she lost that person, possibly enough resentment to sour any further relationship."

"So what are you saying?"

"I'm saying that the path we're traveling on has the potential of making everyone lose. There's another path though. One where everyone can win."

"What path is that?"

"You ever heard of a triad?" she asked.

He licked his lips a little. "You ain't talking about the city up in fuckin' orbit, are you?"

"No," she said. "I'm talking about a relationship between three people instead of two. A relationship in which we would basically share Xenia instead of forcing her to choose between us."

Jeff was quite flabbergasted. "Share her?" he asked. "Are you fuckin' dusted? That could never work."

"On the contrary," she said. "I know of many triad relationships back in New Pittsburgh. A few of them that have been going on for ten years or more."

"You're shitting me," he accused.

"Not at all. When you're a muff-muncher or a rump-ranger you get quite attuned to the ins and outs of the members of that community. Such things are illegal, of course, under the WestHem system, but we're not really under the WestHem system anymore, are we?"

"These people you're talking about," he said. "They've been doing this for ten years?"

"Yes."

"Do you actually know them?" he asked. "Or are you spouting off some rumors you heard from the other muff-munchers?"

"One of the triads I know very well," she said. "When I first started working for the Mama Rosa's in NP the manager there was part of a triad. I didn't know that at first until I ran into him at a community bar but..."

"A community bar?" Jeff asked. "What's that?"

"It's a bar where muff-munchers and rump-rangers hang out. Surely you've heard of them?"

"I'm vermin, remember? We don't have bars in the ghetto, community or otherwise. We get our intoxicants at the fuckin' AgriCorp welfare mart."

"Oh... I see. Well, anyway, I went into the bar and found Robert — he's the manager — in there with this other dude and this bitch. And both of them were hugging and squeezing and kissing and sucking all over him. He invited me over to join them and that's when he first told me about the whole triad thing. They've been living together for years and all three of them are quite in love. They are some of the happiest people I've ever met."

"In love," he said. "Doesn't your plan kind of fall apart there?"

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, you love Xenia and I love Xenia and she loves both of us, right?"

"Right," she agreed.

"But we don't love each other," he said. "In fact I think it would be safe to say that we can't stand each other. Wouldn't that make it kind of hard to work this triad thing?"

"That is a very good point," Belinda said. "But let me ask you something. Why don't we like each other?"

"Huh?"

"Well why don't you like me?" she asked. "Is it because I'm a muff muncher?"

"No," he said. "Why should I give a shit if you fuck girls? It ain't none of my business."

"Exactly," she said. "That's a very Martian attitude. Do you not like me because I wasn't vermin? Because I've been part of the working class all my life?"

"Well... no," he said. "I used to hate all working class people — that's true enough — but since I signed up I've been around them a lot. I've realized what Laura Whiting has been saying is true, that we were programmed to hate each other. Shit, Xenia is working class and I sure as shit don't hate her."

"And I don't dislike you because you're not a rump ranger," she said. "And I don't dislike you because you were vermin. I've been around a lot of former vermin myself and I've come to the same realization. So what does that leave us with?"

"You're saying we don't like each other because of Xenia?" he asked.

"Fuckin' aye," she said. "That's the only reason. Jealousy and competition with each other. We both love the same woman and we developed an instinctual dislike for each other because of the competition. But what if we're not competing? What then? When I force myself to do some examination of your character without the factor of Xenia involved, I find that you're actually quite a nice guy. You're funny. You're actually kind of smart. Most of all, you care for Xenia a whole lot. If the competition is removed maybe we could learn to like each other."

"Wow," he said, doing as she suggested and removing Xenia from the equation. If she weren't there would there have been any reason for him to dislike Belinda? No, there really wasn't. "But what makes you think the competition and the jealousy would go away if we tried this? Wouldn't we still be trying to prove something to each other?"

"That's possible," she admitted. "I'm not saying this thing will work. Hell, we might end up all hating each other. I think it's worth a shot though. It's better than where we're at now, which is hating each other and neither one of us getting any fuckin' poon from a bitch who is dying to give us some."

Jeff was still thinking it over when the first two hovers came flying in from Eden, preparing to land and pick up the worst of the WestHem wounded. He was ordered back to his position by Sergeant Walker.

"Think about it," Belinda told him as he stood up from the tread guard. "We'll get together when they let us back inside. If you're game, maybe we'll have a little chat with the X-girl about all this."

"I'll do that," he promised. And he did.

Eden MPG base

2206 hours

Matt Mendez was barely cognizant of the fact that the Mosquito he was in had just touched down on the main runway outside the base. He felt the gentle thump, felt the push against his restraint harness as Brian put on the brakes and slowed them to taxiing speed. He was weak all over, feeling like it was an effort just to move his arms or turn his head. He had never been so tired in all his life. The pain in his butt cheek was still there but had mostly faded to a dull, aching numbness.

"You okay, kid?" Brian's voice asked in his earpiece.

"Yeah," he mumbled automatically. "I just need some rest is all."

They had been circling fifty kilometers north of the battlefield for the past two hours, on standby in case there was a break in the cease-fire. So far, there hadn't been one. Matt had actually dozed off at his control panel several times. Once he had gone so far asleep he had started dreaming.

"Coming up on the airlock," Brian told him.

"Static," Matt said, hardly comprehending him.

"Get ready for heavying."

"Yeah," he said.

He came fully awake when the artificial gravity field was turned on, suddenly making him weigh three times as much as he had the moment before. A wave of nausea and sickness suddenly washed over him, bringing with it a searing pain in his chest. He found it hard to breathe, as if every inhalation was against an elephant sitting on his chest.

"Boss," he said, his voice barely audible.

"Yeah?" Brian asked.

"I think... I think you'd better get some medics over here for me."

Brian turned around to look at him, gazing on his face for the first time in hours. Even in the dim lighting, even through the helmet, he could see that Matt's face had gone beyond pale and into the land of ashen. "Jesus fucking Christ, kid," he said. "What happened?"

"I don't know," he said. "I'm just really... weak and it's hard to breathe."

Brian immediately got on the communications link and told them he had an injured sis. They vectored him toward the far section of he aircraft hanger where a transportation point had been set up to transfer the wounded marines from the hovers and the Hummingbirds to the dip-hoe carts. He brought the plane to a halt and opened the hatch, waving frantically at two dip-hoes who were manning this area.

They came over just as he pulled his helmet off. "My sis is not looking good," he told them. "Get a ladder set and help me get him down from here."

They immediately ran and got one of the wheeled ladders and brought it over. By the time they got Matt pulled from his harness and down to the ground he was only semi-conscious. He woke up a little bit when they laid him flat.

"Did he get hit?" one of the dip-hoes asked.

"He got hit yesterday," Brian replied. "During the air-strike. We got shot down and he took some shrapnel in his ass. Nothing today though."

The two medics looked at each other. "Was the wound fused shut?" one of them asked.

"They couldn't fuse it because of the way it was," Brian said. "He left the hospital and came back to fly with me. He's been hurting the whole time we've been up there but he's hung in there."

"His biosuit doesn't fit right," the other medic said. "It's really loose right on his ass."

"It's not the one they fitted for him," Brian said. "That one got shredded when he was hit."

"You let him go up with an uncleared injury and wearing a biosuit that doesn't fit?" the first medic asked angrily. "Why didn't you just take him out behind the building and shoot him?"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Brian asked.

"What do you guys pull up there? Two Gs? Three Gs?"

"Yeah, about that," Brian said.

"All of that weight pushes down on your ass, doesn't it?"

"Well... yeah."

"I hope I'm not right," the medic said. "Lets get the suit off of him."

They did, pulling off the helmet and then unzipping the suit itself. When they pulled it off of his body a large glut of congealed blood spilled out of the aft portion onto the ground.

"Jesus fucking Christ," Brian exclaimed, shocked at the sheer amount of it. Matt's entire leg was drenched in it and there was even more still inside the suit.

"He must've lost two liters," the medic said incredulously. "If he wouldn't have been in reduced gravity all this time he'd be dead."

"All from a little skin off his ass?" Brian asked.

"Every time you pulled Gs up there it was forcing the wound back open and making blood pour out of it. How long were you up there?"

"Almost eighteen hours," Brian said.

"I'm surprised he was able to stay conscious that long. Let's get an IV line in him and put in some synthetic blood."

"Is he gonna make it?" Brian asked.

"He'll make it," the medic said, running a scanner over him. "I wish I could say the same for his kidneys though. They're completely shut down from the blood loss."

"My kidneys?" Matt mumbled. "I can't afford no new kidneys." Organ cloning was something that had been available since World War III, but only to those with the money to pay for it.

"Don't worry, kid," Brian said. "We'll get you some new kidneys if I have to fuckin' pay for them myself."

Main anti-tank trench, Eden

September 15, 2146, 0224 hours

Captain Callahan was not as exhausted as Matt Mendez, but he was close. For the past six hours he and the remains of his company (they had re-grouped after the cease-fire but only forty-eight of his men were still alive and unwounded) had been down in the anti-tank trench, sorting through the dead, through the body parts, through the absolute horror of the aftermath of the battle, trying to find men who were still alive and salvageable. Upon finding such men they would pull them out and lift them to the west side of the trench where other marines would carry them to one of the waiting APCs that had survived. When the APCs filled with wounded as many men as could climb onto the outside would do so and they would head back towards the LZ.

Callahan had been offered rides back on several occasions but he had refused, wanting to stay and coordinate the rescue effort for his section. And now that six hours had passed and all of the spare air tanks had been given out, it was no longer possible for him to go back. He, like many of his compatriots, only had about an hour's worth of air left.

"What are you gonna do?" asked Captain Jacobs, who had been in charge of Delta Company from his battalion. He, like Callahan, had tried to evacuate the lower ranks first.

"I don't know," Callahan replied. "I've got about fifty-five minutes left at the rate I'm sucking it up. I guess it's about time to shit or get off the pot."

Jacobs looked at him. "I'm not gonna be a Martian prisoner," he said. "I made up my mind about an hour ago but I've been trying not to think about it."

Callahan did not question his decision. He was thinking of making the same one himself. Ever since the Martians had first taken control of Mars all those long months ago they had been told, sometimes in graphic detail, what the greenies did to captured prisoners. It was said that they had lined most of the Fast Reaction Division from EMB up against walls and gut-shot them, letting them die slowly. Others, it was said, had been tortured for hours before being burned alive, or killed with electricity, or allowed to succumb to radiation sickness. Though there was no independent verification of these atrocity reports other than mysterious statements attributed to "WestHem loyalists caught on the planet", neither man had any trouble believing them. After all, not a single marine or a single sailor that had been captured with the planet had been heard from since.

"How you gonna do it?" Callahan asked him. "Just let your air run out or are you gonna take the easy way?"

"The easy way," Jacobs said. "I don't see any sense in suffocating. Not when there's a way to make it quick."

Callahan nodded. "It's a little more courageous that way, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Jacobs agreed. "Any chance I can get you to do it for me? It's not a mortal sin that way."

"I can't," Callahan said. "Sorry. It might be a mortal sin if I do it."

Jacobs nodded. He understood. "So what are you gonna do? If you're gonna surrender to them, you'd better head off soon or you won't have enough air to make it to the torture center."

"Yeah," he said. "Like I said. Time to shit or get off the pot."

"So?"

"I'm too much of a survivor to give up so easily," he finally said. "I'll take my chances with the Martians. Maybe later, if things get too bad, I might be able to take the easy way. Hell, I can always chew a hole in my wrist, can't I?"

"I suppose," Jacobs said.

They sat for another minute or two, not talking. Finally Callahan stood up. "Well, I'm gonna get going now. Are you sure you won't join me?"

"I'm sure," Jacobs said. "I hate pain. It's the easy way for me."

They shook hands and then parted. Callahan climbed out of the ditch to the east, standing up and putting his hands high in the air. Jacobs climbed out to the west. He walked two hundred meters back to where the APCs were loading and found an M-24. He put it against his head and pulled the trigger, ending his life in an instant. Nobody around him paid him any attention. He wasn't the first or the last to choose that road.

Callahan was joined by about two dozen others as he walked forward. Most, he knew, would be lieutenants and above, with maybe a few sergeants thrown in. Automatically they formed up into a military line stretching across thirty meters of ground. Before they even made it fifty meters into the open ground a squad of Martian troops appeared, their weapons pointed menacingly at the group. They made motions that everyone should stop.

Callahan stood there, keeping his hands high. His heart was pounding hard in his chest. His fear level was even greater than when he'd been rushing across that ground earlier while under fire. At least then he had only been in danger of dying. Now he was possibly opening himself up to a horrifyingly slow death at the hands of men who hated everything Earthling. As a soldier approached close to him he took a moment to wonder if he'd made the wrong choice after all.

The soldier, he saw with astonishment, was a woman. He had heard reports that the Martians were employing females out on the battlefield but had assumed them to be mere propaganda. Apparently not. She ran a scanner over him, looking carefully at the display. When she found he was not carrying any weapons she reached slowly forward and put her gloved hand on his communications panel. She fiddled with it for a moment and then he heard a female voice in his ear — a voice with a thick, heavy, Martian accent.

"How much air you got?" she asked him.

"About fifty minutes," he told her.

"You'll make it," she replied. "Walk forward from here until you get to the point between pillbox 72 and 71. Keep your hands up until you're told to put them down. There will be other troops there to process you. Don't deviate from your course in any way or someone will be forced to shoot you. Do you understand?"

"I understand," he said. He started walking.

When he reached the point between the pillboxes he found several platoons of MPG soldiers there. He was scanned again for weapons and then another soldier stepped forward and utilized a chip scanner on him.

"Lieutenant Eric Callahan?" the voice asked in his ear.

"It's Captain Callahan now," he said bitterly.

"Okay," the voice said. "I'll make a note of that. We've got you on record as a POW now. We'll ship a notification off to WestHem by tomorrow morning."

"Sure you will," Callahan said.

The soldier seemed unperturbed by his comment. "Walk to that agricultural truck over there," he said. "Someone will help you inside of it."

Five minutes later he was sitting in the back of the truck, crowded in with almost thirty other marines. Over the next ten minutes another thirty were loaded up with them. The back of the truck was closed up and they started to move, bumping and bouncing over the uneven terrain. Soon they pulled into an airlock and the doors shut behind them.

"Everybody bear down," a voice said over the communications link. "It's time to get heavier."

Callahan felt weight come slamming back into him, making him feel like he had been shot into the air at high speed, making him gag. If he'd had anything besides food gel in his stomach it undoubtedly would have come up. Gradually, the sensation passed. Another set of doors opened up and the truck moved forward into a large hanger that was empty of aircraft. More Martian troops with guns were standing around, this time without biosuits on. Most wore T-shirts that identified them as military police.

The truck door opened and two of the MPs stood there. One spoke into a radio microphone.

"Everyone hop out of there," his voice said in their ears. "Line up over on the white line you see and get those biosuits and all clothing off. No talking to each other, please. You'll have time for that later."

It took Callahan a minute to get used to walking in normal gravity again. He almost fell twice before he made it to the white line. Slowly, methodically, he stripped off his biosuit, almost gagging again when he smelled the sour sweat odor of himself and his companions. Soon he stood naked with the others, looking around nervously to see if any women were present. In his culture the two sexes were prudishly squeamish about being nude in front of each other if not in an intimate relationship. There were no women that he could see, however.

A man with sergeant's markings on his MPG T-shirt walked up and down the line, looking each of them over. "Is anyone injured in any way?" he asked.

A few raised their hands and they were directed to another corner of the building, where medics were standing by to examine them.

"All right," the sergeant said. "Walk behind me in single file. If you follow instructions there will be no problems."

They were led into another room, down a hallway, and then through a large entranceway that opened up on an open grassy field where, it appeared, that calisthenics were normally performed. Tents had been set up here all across the middle of the field and other marines, all of them wearing bright green shorts and T-shirts, were milling about at picnic tables and near the tents. Many seemed to be eating. An industrial barbeque set was in operation near the edge of this area and the smell of cooking beef was strong in the air, making Callahan's mouth start to instantly water. Armed MPG troops, all of them wearing red shorts, T-shirts, and body armor, patrolled just outside of a white line that had been drawn on the ground all around the tent area.

"Showers are this way," the sergeant told them. "And they are mandatory. There are twelve hoses available. Please line up in twelve lines for utilization of them. Everyone down with it?"

Callahan was down with it. He made his way to the nearest line, which had six people in front of him. There was a curtain just beyond the line with a length of black hose leading to a holder above it.

He waited in silence as the men in front of him went one by one into the shower, each spending about five minutes in there. He didn't talk. Neither did anyone else. They had been told not to by the greenies with the guns and no one cared to find out what the penalty was for not obeying. When it was Callahan's turn to shower he walked forward and entered the curtained area. The hose was clipped to the top of the curtain and had a valve on it. A stack of clean washcloths and a bottle of liquid soap hung just below. A sign stated: WASH THOROUGHLY, INCLUDING YOUR HAIR. USE THE WASHCLOTHES. TAKE THEM WITH YOU WHEN YOU LEAVE AND DROP THEM INTO THE HAMPER. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

"This is fuckin' weird," Callahan mumbled to himself. He reached up and turned on the valve, expecting a spray of frigid water to pour down on him. Instead, he found that the water was heated — somewhere around thirty-five degrees he figured. He washed thoroughly, including his hair, enjoying every second of it. When he left, dripping and naked, he dropped his washcloth into a hamper that stood just outside.

Another MPG MP was standing on the other side of the shower. He looked Callahan up and down for a moment and then directed him forward. "Go see the doc over there," he said, "and then we'll get you some clothes."

Callahan simply nodded and stepped forward. A medic ran a scanner over him and asked him a few questions about the wounds on his back.

"I got 'em in phase one," he said. "Shrapnel. It's healing."

"Sounds like an ass-fuck," the medic said. He reached into a bin beside him and pulled out a pair of green shorts, a green T-shirt with the letters POW on the front and back, and a pair of leather moccasins. "Put these on and then you can hit the chow line."

Callahan took them. "No underwear?" he asked.

"We don't wear underwear on Mars," the medic said with a chuckle. "Now hurry along or your food will get cold."

Callahan hurried along, stepping forward and putting his new clothes on. He walked to the next station where another MP stopped him and ran an identity scanner over him once more.

"Captain Eric Callahan?" he asked.

"Yes," Callahan said, hiding the fact that he was impressed they'd updated his rank so quickly.

"Hold out your right wrist please."

He did as told. A small bracelet was clamped onto it.

"This is a GPS tracking bracelet," the MP told him. "It can locate you no matter where you go and it will alarm our control center if you step outside of your authorized area. It's programmed with your name and rank. Don't try to remove it or destroy it."

"I won't," Callahan said.

"You're good to go," the MP said. "Your authorized area for now is anywhere inside that white line. If you go outside the white line the alarm will go off and we'll be very upset with you."

"What happens when you get upset with me?" he asked, unable to help himself.

"You end up locked in a cell somewhere," the MP said. "What did you think?"

Callahan didn't answer him. He stepped inside the white line and made his way through the other prisoners, his nose leading him to the barbeque area. His eyes widened in amazement as he saw what was being prepared.

A team of five MPG cooks were flipping hamburgers on the grill. Fresh-baked buns were stacked in bins next to this. On the other side of the grill were fresh tomatoes, pickles, lettuce, and mountains of cheddar cheese slices. Beyond this were tubs full of potato salad, macaroni salad, and baked beans. Beyond this were large tubs filled with ice and plastic bottles of water, juice, and soda.

"Is this some kind of interrogation trick?" the man next to Callahan asked.

"Or maybe a last meal?" Callahan replied.

They looked at each other and then Callahan shrugged. "Oh well," he said. "I'm going with it for now. If it's a last meal I might as well enjoy it."

He stepped forward and picked up one of the thick, hemp paper plates. The MPG cook manning this section of the line nodded at him in greeting. "How you doin', my fine ass-buddy?" he asked. "What you down with? One burger or two?"

"Uh... can I have two?" he asked quietly.

"Fuckin' aye," the cook said. "You can have three of the motherfuckers if you want."

"Uh... two then," he said.

"That's the shit," the cook told him. He pulled two of the fresh buns out of the bin and peeled them open, setting them on Callahan's plate. He then used his spatula to remove two of the beef patties from the grill. "Medium okay with you?" he asked.

"Yeah, sure," Callahan replied.

The patties were put on the buns. "There you go," the cook said. "Sorry it's not the best quality of meat we have but production in the stockyards has been down a bit during the war. You know how it is?"

"Yeah," Callahan said, refusing to say anything else. He moved down the line and put every available vegetable and condiment onto his burgers. He then grabbed a large spoonful of the beans and the potato salad. He was given a packet with plastic silverware and hemp napkins in it by one of the other cooks. He then grabbed a bottle of AgriCorp lemon-lime soda from the ice.

He sat down at one of the tables and dug into his food. He didn't know if it was because he'd spent the last few days eating nothing but food paste, but the hamburgers were delicious, the best he had ever tasted. The potato salad and the baked beans were also a culinary experience to be reckoned with.

"This is some good fuckin' food," the man next to him — he had introduced himself as Lieutenant Dan Baker from the 327th ACR — proclaimed. "Do you think this is some kind of a trick, Captain?"

"I don't know," Callahan said, unsure what to think anymore. "I guess we'll find out soon enough, won't we?"

Aboard the WSS Nebraska, Mars orbit

September 15, 2146, 0330 hours

General Browning had been hiding in his office ever since Dickenson had disobeyed his orders and negotiated a cease-fire in Eden. The only communications heard from him were orders to Major Wilde to make sure that the marines in New Pittsburgh attacked as soon as possible.

"Since that coward Dickenson refuses to go up against Eden like a man, I need to make sure we at least take New Pittsburgh. I will not leave this planet in defeat, Wilde. Do you hear me?"

"I hear you," Wilde had assured him. "The New Pittsburgh units are still trying to resupply and refuel so they can make their attack on the line. They're being hampered by fierce artillery fire, special forces attacks, sniper attacks, and air attacks. APC losses are nearing critical."

"Exactly," Browning had said. "So the sooner they attack, the better. I want them moving the instant they have sufficient supplies and fuel. The second!"

"Yes, sir," Wilde replied. "I'll see what I can do."

That had been five hours ago. Now, Wilde entered Browning's office to find him sipping from a whiskey drink. Judging by the redness in the general's eyes, it wasn't the first one.

"What do you want?" Browning asked. "Are they moving on New Pittsburgh yet?"

"No, sir," Wilde told him. "They're not... and uh... well... they're not going to be moving on it."

Browning's face began to turn red. "What do you mean by that?" he asked.

"I just got off the com with General Blackwood," he said. General Blackwood was the commanding officer of the New Pittsburgh operations. "He says his men are refusing to advance against the line. They know what happened in Eden and they've apparently decided that retreating sounds like a good idea."

"They heard about what happened in Eden?" Browning thundered. "Who the hell told them about Eden? It's not like they're sitting out their with view screens and Internet access!"

"I don't know, sir," Wilde said wearily. "Most of the command staff back in the landing ships probably knew about the cease-fire in Eden. All they would have to do is mention it to one of the field commanders. If two or three field commanders started talking about it on the radio frequencies some of the lower ranks would have overheard the conversation. It wouldn't take long before everyone heard about it."

"That's treasonous!" Browning exclaimed. "Loose lips sink ships. You ever heard that one, Wilde?"

"A time or two," he said.

"That's exactly what happened in New Pittsburgh. We need to tell those marines down there that any rumors they've heard about a cease-fire in Eden is a bald faced lie. We need to tell them that Eden will fall within hours."

"That's already been tried, General," Wilde said. "It seems the men don't believe that."

"Get me Blackwood on the com," Browning ordered. "I'll tell him what he needs to do."

"Blackwood is not taking any calls from command, General. He has already contacted MPG command in New Pittsburgh and asked for a formal cease-fire. His request was granted and the firing stopped five minutes ago."

"He asked for a cease-fire without orders?" Browning cried. "At least that traitor Dickenson asked me first before he disobeyed my refusal. That's why this goddamn war was lost, Wilde. Because men won't obey their fucking orders!"

"Yes, sir," Wilde said, making little effort to sound placating. "In any case, the withdrawal from New Pittsburgh has just begun. Like in Eden, we have many wounded and not enough APCs to get everyone back to the LZ. Although we're not short on supplies and we do have the ability to replace air tanks, the Martians have refused to let the APCs make more than one trip. Any men that can't be carried out on the withdrawal with have to surrender."

"And Blackwood agreed to this term?" Browning asked. "That's as bad as Dickenson agreeing to leave nearly nine hundred of our tanks out there for the Martians to capture."

"Sir, there really wasn't much of a choice in either case I'm afraid. We've lost. We should be grateful the Martians granted the terms they did."

"Grateful," Browning spat. "They engineered this whole thing by refusing to fire on our troops when they pulled back the first time. They deliberately encouraged cowardice in order to foment this disgusting withdrawal."

"Yes," Wilde said. "That's exactly what they did. And it worked."

Browning was shaking his head, seemingly near tears. "I lost a war to a bunch of fucking greenies," he said. "I'll be the laughing stock of all time. They'll drum me out of the service and put me in the ghetto with the vermin. I'll go down in history texts as the man who couldn't beat a fucking bunch of vermin descendents when I outnumbered them eight to one!"

Wilde didn't quite know what to say to this. Everything Browning had just told him was true, of course. He decided to bring up another subject. "Sir," he said, "the media reps are quite upset that they haven't been updated in the past eight hours. They keep comming me, demanding to know what's going on down on the surface. As you'll recall, you promised them you'd be in Eden by sunset. And... well... since you're not briefing them any longer they've started to send off speculation."

"What kind of speculation?" Browning asked.

"The most prevailing rumor is that we've entered Eden and are experiencing heavy insurgent resistance in the streets there."

Browning shook his head. "If only that were the truth," he said. "Okay, I guess its time for me to bite the bullet. Have someone bring me a cup of coffee and I'll send a briefing off to the Executive Council. My guess is I'll be arrested shortly after and I won't have to worry about briefing the fucking press."

MarsGroup had been reporting on the battles for Eden and New Pittsburgh non-stop, on nearly all of their video channels, for the past forty-eight hours, pre-empting most of their regular programming to broadcast updates as they came in. MarsGroup reporters were located in various places throughout the fringes of the battle. Several teams of them had been allowed onto portions of both bases, including the flight lines and the wounded triage areas. Pictures of Mosquitoes and Hummingbirds taking off on their missions or returning for refuel were one of the staples of the war coverage. So were pictures of wounded MPG troops being brought in from the field. Though General Jackson or General Zoloft or General Montoya or Laura Whiting had given no official briefings, the reporters had plenty of unofficial contacts and during the course of the battle had been able to tap these sources in order to present the Martian citizens with a fairly accurate picture of what was going on.

Greater than ninety percent of the Martian viewing audience had stayed awake all night, watching as the reporters told them that Eden was within thirty minutes of falling, that WestHem marines were within sight of the MPG base and then, later, that they'd suddenly lost their taste for the battle and had turned away at the last second. It had been rumored that a cease-fire had been arranged by General Zoloft in Eden and then, later, by General Montoya in New Pittsburgh. There were even shots of hundreds and then thousands of WestHem marines being brought in as wounded or marched in as POWs. But still, everyone held his or her breath, waiting for some kind of official word.

That official word came at 0700 hours on the morning of September 15, 2146. For the previous thirty minutes the reporters, after hashing over already reported information and showing the same old file shots, had been reporting that a briefing was being scheduled from the Martian Capital Building in New Pittsburgh. When the appointed time came, the view changed from a shot of WestHem prisoners being led into the Eden MPG base to a live view of Laura Whiting's desk. Laura herself was sitting there, looking tired, worn, but cheerful, dressed in her now-customary half-shirt, her face without make-up, her hair carelessly styled. As she began to speak the media computers were logging a record-breaking ninety-nine point three percent viewer rate.

"My fellow Martians," Whiting said, a smile forming on her face. "I am proud to report to you that we have apparently succeeded in our endeavor to keep this planet in our hands and out of the hands of the WestHem corporations who have ruled us for so long. As of 2035 hours last night, an official cease-fire in the Eden area of operations has been in place. As of 0325 hours this morning, an official cease-fire in the New Pittsburgh area of operations has been in place. For the moment, all hostilities have stopped, none of our cities have been breached, and the WestHem marines who tried to jack them from us by force are in full retreat back to their landing zones. Mars will remain free, people. We have done it."

From every building in every city on Mars, from every bar, every factory where workers toiled, every patrol car belonging to every police station, every hospital, every tenement-housing complex, wild cheers erupted as the word officially became official.

"I can hear cheers coming up from the lower levels of this very building right now," Whiting went on after pausing for a moment to let her news sink in. "I think all of you know me enough by now and have been watching enough MarsGroup reports to realize that I am not exaggerating in any way. We've beaten them, people. All of us, together. We have kicked the invading forces off our planet through sheer force of will. They have just lost their best chance to return us to their corrupt system of rule.

"The price for this victory was not cheap. As you've seen from the MarsGroup reports, we had frighteningly high casualties during the past forty-eight hours. The latest figures I have — which include those casualties taken in Operation Red Grab at the beginning of the conflict and those in Operation Interdiction — are three thousand, two hundred, and thirty-seven men and women killed in this conflict. Six thousand, four hundred and ninety-three have been wounded. Seventy-four combat soldiers are reported missing in action, which means they are most likely captured by the WestHems. And, not to be forgotten, there are currently forty-four thousand, eight hundred and sixty-one Martian citizens who were on Earth, Ganymede, or serving in the WestHem armed forces when the conflict erupted. My information is that all of these people are being held as enemy insurgents by the WestHem government as well.

"We have no accurate count of the WestHem casualties we inflicted in this struggle but our best estimates put it in the neighborhood of one hundred and seventy thousand dead, perhaps half that many wounded. We have destroyed over three thousand tanks and five thousand armored personnel carriers in the ground conflict alone. And, as of five minutes ago, we have captured more than twenty-five thousand WestHem marines and sixteen thousand WestHem naval personnel.

"Those are the numbers, people, and I've reported the figures as accurately as I could. I'm not proud of the fact that we've killed so many young marines in this struggle and you shouldn't be either. We did what we had to do and our goal in doing it was ultimately successful. For those who want to know the ins and outs of the battles for Eden and New Pittsburgh, General Jackson — the primary author of those battles — will be giving a briefing on it early this afternoon. But for the time being, the WestHems are pulling back and I'm told they are incapable of mounting any sort of offensive against us that would have any hope of succeeding. Most of our combat troops will remain in their positions outside Eden and New Pittsburgh until those landing ships actually leave our planet. That will be anywhere from forty-eight to ninety-six hours according to General Jackson and his staff.

"Tomorrow morning, after the WestHem commanders have had time to brief the WestHem Executive Council on their defeat, I will be contacting that body myself with an offer to open negotiations for a formal armistice in this conflict. I will stand firm in my demands for this planet. Mars will remain free and separate from the WestHem or the EastHem economic system. Prisoners of war will be exchanged in accordance with standard Geneva Convention rules. Most important, WestHem will recognize our planet as an autonomous government.

"I don't expect them to agree to these terms. They will make up the stories they need to and try to convince their populace that this was not really a defeat for them. At some point — probably sooner than later — they will send more troops to this planet and they will try to take it from us again. If we stand together, if we continue to cooperate with each other as we've done since our vote for independence, they will not succeed.

"We are free, people. You all know what it feels like now and you all know that we can fight well enough to maintain this freedom. That is all I have to say for now. We've freed Mars, people. We've freed Mars."

She signed off a moment later, not taking any questions from the reporters. Within minutes of the end of her speech the streets of every Martian city were swarmed with the citizenry as they danced and celebrated victory.

Chapter 27

Aboard the MSS Ballbuster (formerly the WSS Mermaid)

Mars orbit, 24 kilometers from Triad Naval Base

September 18, 2146

"We're in the departure corridor, Brett," said Ensign Mandall, who was in charge of the helm. "All set to align for our de-orbit burn once get a heading."

"I'm down with it," said the now official Commander Brett Ingram of the now official Martian Navy. The Owl-class stealth attack ship that had once been known as the WSS Mermaid had returned in triumph to Triad Naval Base two weeks before. Its battle damage had been repaired and its crew augmented with an additional thirty-seven recruits, bringing it up to more than two thirds of normal staffing. As the first captain of the ship, Brett had been given the honor of naming it. Most of the crew — especially those who had served aboard it during Operation Interdiction — felt he had chosen wisely. The MSS Ballbuster it now was and it was preparing to depart for its first mission under that moniker.

"The LRD is deployed and ready, Brett," said Zorba Frank, the communications technician. He had just raised the three-meter Laser Receiver Dish that would allow Naval Command to transmit their deployment orders via encrypted communication laser. For security reasons no one aboard — not even Brett — had been told Ballbuster's mission beforehand.

"Static," said Brett, who was wearing red MPG shorts and a red MPG t-shirt with the recently created Martian Navy emblem on the breast. He was velcroed into the command chair and sipping from a cup of tea. He hated tea but currently there was no coffee of any kind available on Mars at any price. "Lock our laser transmitter on NAVCOM's dish."

"Locking," Frank said. A few seconds later — "Done."

"Transmit our current position, speed, and alignment so they can send back our orders."

"Fuckin' aye, Brett," Frank said. He pushed a few tabs on his screen. "Sending. I've got an acknowledgment via encrypted radio link."

"Static," Brett said. A minute went by before Frank reported a com laser had been received. He ordered it shipped unencrypted to the terminal in his quarters and then activated the ship's intercom system. "Wassup, dawgs?" he said. "This is Brett, your lovable yet competent captain. Our orders have been sent from NAVCOM. Sugi, if you'll meet me in my quarters we'll decrypt and review them and then give everyone aboard a chance to refuse them. Is everyone down with that?"

There was no answer to his rhetorical question. He unstrapped from his chair and floated upward, electing to leave his tea behind. "Mandall, you've got the con."

"I've got the con," Mandall replied automatically.

Brett propelled himself across the bridge to the sliding hatchway that led to his cramped but private quarters. Before he could touch the panel Frank called to him.

"Sugi on the com, Brett," he said. "You want me to patch him into your quarters?"

"Fuckin' aye," Brett said. He touched the panel, opening the door, and floated into his quarters. He spun around and pulled himself down to a seat at one of the chairs before his desk. The computer terminal had lit up, showing an audio link with Lieutenant Commander Sugiyoto, his executive officer. He touched the link. "What's up, Sugi?"

"Hey, Brett," Sugi's voice replied. "I'll be about five minutes or so if you're down with that. Got a waste tube down here in the shitter next to the kitchen that's not sucking real well. Spilled little piss droplets all over the fuckin' place when someone tried to use it."

"Can't someone else fix it?" Brett asked.

"Nobody else aboard this ship has the experience with zero gravity toilets that I do," Sugi said with a chuckle. "Remember, I spent a lot of time fixing the motherfuckers before our people were nice enough to liberate us from the WestHem Navy."

"That is true," Brett said. "Come as soon as you can, and be sure someone is watching how you fix the damn thing. I don't need my XO floating off all over the ship every time someone clogs a relief tube."

"Fuckin' aye, Brett," Sugi said. "I shouldn't be long."

He signed off. Brett leaned back in his chair and fastened the velcro strap to keep himself from floating away. He was more than a little curious about their orders in this hastily assembled mission but he guessed he would have to wait a few minutes. Working toilets took precedence over orders any day.

"Computer," he said, "give me InfoServe prime bank. SNN feed."

"Coming up," the computer replied.

"Replay the last top of the hour update recorded."

"Replaying," the computer told him.

Not many Martians watched the big three channels. This had been true before the revolution and was even more true after it. Those who did watch it, particularly the news channels, usually did so out of amusement more than anything else. Brett was one such person. He got a perverse sense of enjoyment out of seeing the spin WestHem was trying to put on every defeat or setback they suffered. He had been too busy preparing his ship for deployment over the last three days to even listen to rumors about their "official" explanation for the ass kicking they'd endured by the MPG down on the surface.

The transmission — collected from a communication satellite in Mars orbit by one of the many receivers on the Ballbuster and then recorded — began. Kathleen Condor, the latest anchor for the popular Satellite News Network appeared before him. SNN was widely accepted by Earthlings as the epitome of integrity in news reporting and had enjoyed a greater than forty percent market share of the news audience for more than a generation.

"Good evening," Condor said, looking seriously into the camera. "This is Kathleen Condor, live in Denver to update you on the latest developments on Earth and throughout the solar system.

"Topping our news tonight is the latest from Mars regarding the shocking and surprising pullback of the troops from Operation Martian Hammer — Phase Two. For that we go live to Stephanie Campbell aboard the Martian Hammer flagship, the WSS Nebraska. Stephanie?"

Stephanie appeared a second later although she was not really live at all since it took radio signals almost fifteen minutes to make the trip from Mars to Earth. The SNN executives, however, tried to make sure that things looked live to their viewing audience. Therefore Stephanie had actually started her transmission fifteen minutes before the top of the hour in a carefully planned dance, the timing insuring she would pop onto the screen right when expected.

"This is Stephanie Campbell," she said, "reporting live from the WSS Nebraska where the naval personell, the marines, and the civilians accompanying the task force are still reeling from the news that our combat marines on the surface were forced to withdraw in both Eden and New Pittsburgh while they were within an hour of liberating those cities from the icy grip of the radical Martian separatists. It was confirmed yesterday that the reason for the abrupt pullback was a lack of ammunition and breathing air. The marines on the surface fell below critical levels in both operational areas while within sight of their objectives, forcing many to turn around and head back to their respective landing zones, forcing others — a thousand or more it is now reported — to surrender to the brutal Martian death squads because they did not have enough air to make it to safety."

"Ran out of ammo and air," Brett said with a chuckle. "Not bad. Simple but functional."

"Of course the big question," Campbell continued, "has been how could such an oversight have occurred? How could two complete armies have been allowed to deploy for combat operations with insufficient ammunition and breathing air? Well, over the past twenty-four hours we have been starting to get some possible answers to that question.

"General Douglas Wrath, who, as you are all aware, has been deemed largely to blame for the training and maintenance debacles that led to the failure of the first landings to achieve their goals, is considered a key factor in these latest failures. Investigators have discovered that General Wrath only ordered the bare minimum amount of ammunition and spare breathing tanks for deployment in this operation. The reasoning for this is undetermined at this time since Wrath is confined to the brig and refusing to answer questions until his formal court martial proceedings are begun, but is has been suggested that Wrath sacrificed critical storage space for these staples of combat in order to accommodate private suites for an oversized staff that consisted mainly of female 'secretaries' and 'transcription technicians'. In any case, the marines used up the majority of their ammunition and breathing air in the first phase of the operation, leaving a severe shortage for the second phase landings at Eden and New Pittsburgh.

"Of course the blame cannot be wholly placed on General Wrath for this most critical of failures. General Todd Browning, who replaced General Wrath after phase one and who was regarded by many as a military genius for his innovative plans to liberate two of the Martian cities despite the earlier failure of his predecessor, somehow failed himself to notice that he did not have sufficient supplies on hand to complete these ambitious missions. Browning, when interviewed earlier today, placed the blame for this oversight on one of his aides — a Major Thomas Wilde — stating that Major Wilde supplied him with inaccurate figures prior to the latest landings and vastly underestimated the minimum air and ammo consumption expected during phase two of the operation. Browning acknowledges that he was ultimately responsible for these figures and admits that he did not order a double-check of them before releasing the landing ships for the operation. Both General Browning and Major Wilde have been relieved of duties and confined to the brig pending further investigation by the JAG's office. General Dakota Dickenson, who commanded both futile attacks upon the city of Eden, has replaced General Browning. Interviewed earlier by one of our imbedded reporters, Dickenson expressed anger and frustration at the mistakes made by Generals Wrath and Browning, saying they were directly to blame for the loss of the hundreds of marines lives in both phases of the operation and for the capture of more than a thousand marines by the Martian insurgents. "It's our darkest hour" Dickenson was quoted as saying.

"In other developments on Mars, reports of the most brutal of atrocities against those marines that were captured due to lack of breathing air are starting to filter out. Martian citizens loyal to WestHem have reported that all of the wounded men captured at Eden were fed alive into the city's cremation furnaces feet first in order to extend their suffering. This has got to be one of the worst..."

The door buzzer to Brett's cabin suddenly sounded, interrupting the stream of lies and quarter-truths.

"Computer, mute SNN," Brett said. It did so without replying. Brett pressed the intercom tab on his screen. "That you, Sugi?" he asked.

"Fuckin' aye," was the reply.

"Computer, open door," Brett said.

The door slid open and Sugiyoto came drifting in holding something wrapped in a napkin. He propelled himself across the room, did an agile forward somersault in which he kicked off the ceiling of the cabin and plopped right down in the chair next to Brett.

"Nice maneuvering," Brett said.

"Thanks," Sugi said, taking a little bow. "You never lose it, you know?"

"Especially after only two weeks."

Sugi held out the napkin to his boss. "You gotta try this shit, Brett," he said. "The best fuckin' thing you've done so far is getting a real chef on this tub of bolts. That bitch found a way to heat oil in an enclosed container and she cooked up a bunch of chili verde chimichangas."

"No shit?" Brett asked, taking the deep fried burrito from his executive officer. It was still warm as he took a bite. It was delicious, up to the usual standards of Martian cuisine — which were quite high. "Mmmm," he grunted with pleasure. "The is fuckin' premo shit." He took another bite, chewing noisily.

"Yep," Sugi agreed. "No matter what kind of orders they got for us, at least we'll be eating like Martians."

"Speaking of which," Brett said, swallowing down his latest bite. "How about we see just what they have in mind for us?" He looked up at the ceiling. "Computer, myself and Commander Sugiyoto are both present. Decrypt our operation orders and display on the main screen."

"Commander Brett Ingram's voice is recognized," the computer said. "Lieutenant Commander Sugiyoto, please speak for the voice authentication process."

"Sugi likes erect clits," Sugi said.

"Voice authenticated," the computer said. "Orders decrypted and on the screen now."

They both looked at the screen.

TO: WSS BALLBUSTER, COMMANDER BRETT INGRAM

FROM: MARTIAN NAVAL COMMAND (NAVCOM), ADMIRAL MATTHEW BELTING

ORDERS FOR BALLBUSTER DEPLOYMENT ARE AS FOLLOWS:

PROCEED UNDER STEALTH CONDITIONS TO APPROXIMATE POSITION OF -010.000 x +087.300 x -240.000

DECELERATE TO SOLAR ORBIT VELOCITY AND CONFIRM WITHDRAWAL OF ALL WESTHEM SPACE VESSELS.

AFTER VERIFICATION PROCEED TO HIGH POLAR EARTH ORBIT FOR STEALTH OBSERVATION OF WESTHEM AND EASTHEM ORBITAL INSTALLATIONS UNTIL RELIEVED.

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT: WEAPONS TIGHT. FIRE IN SELF-DEFENSE ONLY.

STANDING BY TO EVACUATE ANY CREWMEMBERS UNWILLING TO GO ON THIS MISSION. PLEASE ADVISE ANY CREWMEMBERS ELECTING TO REMAIN THAT, FOR SHIP SECURITY, THEY WILL BE HELD IN ISOLATION UNTIL SUCH TIME AS BALLBUSTER RETURNS.

AWAITING YOUR REPLY, NAVCOM.

MESSAGE ENDS.

"Hmm," Sugi said, reading it over. "I thought it was gonna be something hard. It's just back to business as usual for one of these tubs."

"Yep," Brett said, "only this time we're flying for new bosses, ain't we?"

"Fuckin' aye," Sugi agreed.

Brett passed the orders onto the crew via the intercom system. He told them that since the Martian Navy was a voluntary service, anyone who thought the mission too dangerous was free to resign and leave. No one took him up on the offer.

Less than an hour later the acceleration alarm was sounded and the fusion engines lit up, pushing the Ballbuster toward its first mission.

MPG Base, Eden

September 20, 2146

The last of the WestHem landing ships had departed the surface six hours before. Though there was much work to be done — not the least of which was collecting their dead from the trenches — all MPG combat troops had been pulled back inside and given a seventy-two hour pass in celebration of their victory over the WestHem marines. Some worried what would happen if the landing ships decided to come back down during this seventy-two hour period. After all, the armada was still up there in orbit. Intelligence assured them — and the Martian citizenry — they had nothing to worry about. The landing ships had already come down and gone back up twice since arriving. This was the absolute limit of their operational parameters. It was theoretically possible that they could borrow enough hydrogen from the armada ships to make another controlled landing but there was no way in hell there could be enough liquid oxygen left to oxidize that hydrogen. The landing ships were stuck up there for good. Mars was safe from all but space bomber attack, and even that was thought unlikely at best.

The MPG cooks had once again outdone themselves in serving up a veritable feast for the returning combat troops. They had assembled a buffet filled with filet mignon slabs, prime rib slices, chicken parmesan, and stuffed pork chops. There were fresh artichokes with garlic mayo, asparagus, corn on the cob, and broccoli covered with cheddar cheese sauce. There were baked potatoes by the thousands, mashed potatoes with rich beef gravy, various kinds of rice dishes, and, of course, that tried and true Martian favorite: macaroni salad with egg slices. The only things that weren't available were any kind of alcoholic beverages, any kind of tobacco, and any kind of coffee drink. Currently none of these items could be found for sale on Mars, not even on the black market.

"Premo fuckin' chow," Xenia said, munching on the garlic mayo smeared heart from her second artichoke.

"I have never felt so full in my life," said Belinda, who was leaning back in her cafeteria chair, sipping from a bottle of AgriCorp root beer.

"No shit," said Jeff, who had put away two full plates of food himself. After a week of eating nothing but food paste and drinking water, his stomach wasn't quite sure how to handle real food.

The three of them were off in a corner of the cafeteria by themselves, having drifted there by unspoken consent. Drogan, who had been briefed on the crazy-ass plan by Jeff over the last few days ("no fuckin' way somethin' like that can work long-term," she'd opined, "but it's a premo way for both of you to score a little X-pussy") had elected to go sit with the rest of her squad instead, knowing they would want to be alone with her. Belinda and Jeff had taken turns explaining their thoughts, feelings, and hopeful plans to Xenia as they'd eaten. She had listened, sometimes with surprise, sometimes with anger, sometimes with arousal. And then she had changed the subject, refusing to speak of triads and love any longer.

Xenia popped the last of her artichoke heart into her mouth, drained the last of her soda, and then let fly a trumpeting, unladylike belch that actually echoed off the nearby wall. She did not excuse herself, of course. On Mars, one never excused one's self for either burping or farting. "So," she said, "are we ready to blow this scene and go hit the hospital?"

Jeff and Belinda looked at each other. They looked back at Xenia.

"Don't you think we should maybe talk about... you know... what we were talking about?" Belinda asked.

"No," Xenia said, standing up. "I think we should go visit our friends in the hospital. Maybe we'll talk later."

"Xenia..." Jeff started.

"Or maybe we won't," she said firmly, her expression not amused. She turned and began walking toward the main base corridor.

Jeff and Belinda stared after her for a moment, watching as she walked away from them.

"Did we piss her off, you think?" Jeff asked.

"I'm not sure," Belinda said. "Maybe we just gave her too much to think about right now. Maybe this was the wrong time to bring up the whole triad thing."

"Maybe," Jeff said. "Come on. We'd better catch up with her."

They trotted to catch up and fell in behind her just as she made it to the main access corridor.

"Look, Xenia," Jeff said. "We're sorry. We thought it was a good idea. We didn't know..."

"You're still talking about it," Xenia said, not slowing her pace. "Right now we're going to the hospital. This is not the time."

"Sorry," Jeff muttered. He said no more on the subject. Neither did Belinda.

They reached the security checkpoint and the sound of laughter and hundreds of ecstatic voices could be heard coming from just beyond it. Jeff saw that instead of the usual four MP's standing watch there was now a reinforced platoon, all of them armed with police tanners. Beyond them, out on Macarthur Avenue, he could see hundreds of civilians milling about, apparently in the process of partying their asses off. There were women, men, old people, children, many carrying signs that said things like FREE AT LAST! or THANK YOU MPG!! WE WON'T FORGET!! The smell of marijuana smoke was very heavy in the air.

"What the hell's going on?" Jeff asked one of the MPs, a woman in her late twenties whose ID tag on her armor vest identified her as Corporal Twister.

"A celebration of victory, that's what's going on," Twister told him with a smile. "They've been partying out there ever since the official cease fire was announced. They're mobbing everyone who walks out in an MPG uniform."

"Mobbing?" Belinda asked.

Twister grinned. "Not in a bad way," she said. "I think you'll enjoy their gratitude. A lot of the troops that went out are still out there. I've never seen anything like this."

"Anything like what?" Jeff asked.

"Let's just say that a lot of people are exercising their newly won freedom."

Jeff looked a little closer and was surprised to see that acts of open sexuality were taking place all over the place out there. There was a man and a woman lying on the corner of one of the planters, both completely naked, the woman's legs spread wide, the man thrusting enthusiastically between them. Closer to the gate three women, all of them naked, were engaged in a twisted tangle of arms and legs, their faces all licking and sucking various parts of each other's bodies. Just behind them two men were engaged in a lustful sixty-nine with each other while a group of female MPG soldiers cheered them on while kissing on each other. All of this was going on and nobody was trying to put a stop to it. A few groups of Eden Police officers were standing around the fringes just watching with amusement.

"This has been going on for five days now?" Jeff asked.

"Yep," she confirmed. "It's actually pretty sedate at the moment. You should see it at night."

"Damn," he said, his eyes trying to take everything in at once.

"And before you go out," Twister said, "allow me to be the first."

"The first?"

She grabbed his shoulders and turned him toward her. Her head came forward and she planted a huge kiss on him, her tongue sliding deep into his mouth. A cheer from outside accompanied this act. She pulled away and reached down to give his crotch a gentle squeeze. "Thank you for freeing us," she told him. "Now go out and enjoy the fruits of your labor."

"Uh... you're welcome," Jeff stammered.

Belinda and Xenia were each kissed and groped as well — Xenia by one of the female MPs, Belinda by one of the males. When they were released they walked out through the front entrance onto Macarthur Avenue. Immediately all three of them were surrounded by scantily clad Martians and more than a few naked ones.

"Jesus," Jeff said as two women pushed their bodies against his and stuck their tongues in his ears. A third — one of the naked ones — grabbed him from the front and jammed her tongue in his mouth while taking his hand and putting it on her left breast. He dutifully squeezed it. All three of the women thanked him over and over for freeing Mars. A man stepped forward and put a marijuana pipe in Jeff's free hand.

"There you go, my ass buddy!" he yelled over the noise. "The finest AgriCorp green there is. I work in the fields and I picked it myself just for this occasion! Take a hit!"

Jeff put the pipe to his mouth and three more people shoved laser lighters forward to light it for him. Meanwhile, the naked girl who had kissed him had dropped to her knees and was pulling his shorts down. Jeff coughed out the hit as he felt her mouth upon his manhood, slurping at him.

"She's such a cheap slut," one of the other girls said with a laugh. "Don't you just love her?"

"Fuckin' aye," Jeff agreed, letting his head fall back on his shoulders. The two girls took this as an invitation to start kissing and sucking on his neck. He let them work on him for about a minute before gently disentangling himself, explaining that he had to get to the hospital. They pouted a little but let him go. He pulled his shorts back up, covering a turgid and wet erection and didn't make it more than two steps before another woman, this one in her forties, grabbed him and stuck her tongue in his mouth as well, her hands squeezing at his ass.

"Thank you," she told him between kisses. "Thank you for making us free!"

"You're welcome, baby," he said, unable to help but give a few squeezes to her tremendous breasts.

Xenia and Belinda were both getting mobbed as well. Xenia's shirt had been pulled up and a man and a woman were suckling on her breasts. Belinda was tongue kissing with one woman while a man was down on his knees before her, orally servicing her. They finally disentangled themselves as well and put their clothing back in order.

"Now that's what we were fuckin' fighting for!" Belinda said happily as another woman stepped forward and kissed her on the mouth.

"Fuckin' aye," Xenia agreed, giving a squeeze to the crotch of someone who was offering her a marijuana pipe.

They began to work their way toward the MarsTrans station on the next block. It took them almost twenty minutes to reach it because people kept stopping them, kissing them, groping them, allowing them to grope them back, and giving them hits off pipes and joints and even the occasional bong. Every one of them thanked them profoundly and sincerely for what they had done. By the time their train pulled into the station all three of them were stoned out of their minds and brimming with sexual arousal.

The train was about half full. They made their way to the back of one of the cars and every person they passed thanked them, most with just words, a few with kisses and gropes. They found a row of seats and sat down just as the train pulled out of the station.

"That was quite a welcome home," Belinda said. "I think it made everything we went through out there worthwhile."

"You ain't shittin'," Jeff said. "I ain't never had me no blowjob in the fuckin street before."

"I'm fuckin' horny," Xenia said, her eyes a little glassy. "I don't think I've ever been hornier." She looked at her two companions. "Both of you, fuck me, right here, right now!"

Belinda smiled. "What's the magic word?" she asked.

"I love you," she told her. She turned to Jeff. "I love you too. I love both of you deeply and completely. Now fuckin' fuck me!"

"I don't think she's being sincere, B," Jeff said sadly.

"Me either," Belinda agreed. "It's the horniness talking again."

"Are you out of your fuckin' minds?" Xenia yelled at them. "I could get laid anywhere, by anyone right now." She stood up. "Attention, everyone in this car!"

Everyone turned around in his or her seats to look at her.

"I'm extremely horny right now and I want to get fucked! Is there anyone in this car who would be willing to fuck me right here and right now?"

Hands went up from every man on the car and from well over half of the women. Even a few of the children raised their hands.

"Sorry, false alarm," Xenia said. "At least for now. If these two dawgs here don't wanna do the job, then I'll get back to you."

There was some good-natured groaning and a few teasing remarks about teasing thrown back at her. She sat back down.

"You see," she said. "It isn't just sex I'm after. I could get that if I wanted it. I want sex from both of you, the two people I fucking love! Now are you going to give it to me, or what?"

They looked at each other for a moment and then both of them shrugged.

"It wasn't exactly what we were dreaming of I'm sure," Belinda said, "but I'll accept your sincerity at face value on the grounds that I'm hornier than I've ever been as well."

"I'm down with that," Jeff said, standing up and pulling his shirt off his body.

And so their first act of love with each other took place on a half-empty MarsTrans train. It was quick, forceful, and very satisfying. It was also quite entertaining to those passengers who were lucky enough to have picked that particular car to ride in.

Eden General Hospital was a bit of a contrast to the celebrations in the street. It was packed to well beyond capacity, the overflow having spilled out into two adjoining office buildings. Harried doctors, nurses, and other technicians move frantically here and there. Every available floor space was filled with cots in which wounded MPG soldiers or wounded WestHem soldiers were being housed and cared for. Scores of uniformed MPG soldiers — undoubtedly on the same mission as Xenia, Belinda, and Jeff, wandered here and there. A large line of them had formed before a main desk terminal that was staffed by four security guards.

"We'll never find anyone in here," Belinda cried. "Look how many people there are."

"Yeah," Jeff said, looking at some of the soldiers in the lobby cots. He saw people with arms and legs missing, with horrible facial injuries, people on ventilators, with holes drilled in their necks. "I had no idea there were so many."

"Come on," Xenia said, pointing to the line of troops. "Let's get in line. They should be able to tell us where to go."

They waited in the line for more than forty minutes before making it to the front. Once there they gave Zen's name to the security guard. He looked it up on his computer. "He's in the Bangkok Building next door. Second floor, sector Bravo six. The notation says he's able to have visitors."

"How about Matt Mendez?" Jeff asked. "I commed his dad and he told me he was here too."

"You know his date of birth or his social?"

Matt rattled off his date of birth.

"Upstairs," the guard told him. "Fiftieth floor, nephrology wing. He's accepting visitors as well."

"Right," Jeff said. "Thanks."

"You wanna go visit your friend first?" Xenia asked.

"Yeah," he said. "If you don't mind."

"You want us to come with you?" Belinda asked.

"You're my bitches now, aren't you?" he asked them. "Of course I want you to come with me. We'll be quick."

They walked to the elevator and had to wait another twenty minutes before being able to board one of the cars. The trip up to the fiftieth floor took another ten minutes. They emerged into a sterile hallway and followed the signs to the Nephrology Department. It was a small ward that had been designed for perhaps twenty patient beds. Currently it was housing well over a hundred. Most of the patients had visitors with them, adding to the overcrowding. Still the mood seemed more festive than somber and the smell of marijuana smoke could be detected even here.

They wandered up and down the rows for a few minutes until Jeff recognized Andrew and Carla Mendez — Matt's parents — sitting in one of the chairs. He headed over, his two companions trailing behind. Andrew saw him first. His eyes lit up and he stood, rushing over to greet him. Jeff was startled to see how much weight Matt's dad had lost. He looked almost fit now.

"Jeffery Creek, you little punk dust runner!" Andrew said, holding out his hand for the traditional Capitalist handshake.

Jeff gave it to him and then pulled him into a hug. "How the fuck are you, pops?" he asked. "What you been doing? Working out or something?"

Carla came forward and gave him a hug as well. "We've been working in the agricultural fields ever since you two dumb-asses signed up for the MPG," she said. "We figured we might as well see what this whole working thing is all about."

"Goddamn right," Andrew said. "We got almost four hundred of them credits in the bank now. Thanks to you and Matt, they'll still be worth something tomorrow."

"We kicked their fuckin' asses, didn't we?" Jeff asked. He broke the embrace and walked over to the bed, looking down at his best friend since childhood. "What the fuck happened to you?"

"Just a little skin off my ass is all," Matt told him, leaning forward. They hugged, forgoing the Capitalist handshake by unspoken consent. "How the fuck are you? Glad to see you made it. We heard you ground pounders took a hell of a beating out there."

"I'm too fuckin' smart to die out in the field," Jeff said, releasing him. "I'm glad to see you made it too." He stood up. "Let me introduce you to some really static people I met. This is Xenia and Belinda. They were on one of the tank crews in my ACR."

Matt nodded at them and told them he was pleased to make their acquaintance. He then turned back to Jeff. "Are these two the reason you smell like you've been bathed in pussy?"

Jeff actually blushed a little. Xenia answered for him. "We're the reason," she confirmed. "We couldn't contain ourselves on the train ride over here and... well... you know how it is?"

"I know how it is," he said. "The nurses and even a few of the doctors have been real thankful to me since I got here."

"Hell," said Andrew, "I even got a blowjob from one and I'm just his dad."

"No sense in bragging, Andy," Carla said with a frown.

"The fuck there ain't," Andrew shot back.

They talked for a few minutes, telling their tales of their part in the war. Jeff was amazed that such a minor wound had almost killed his friend and had resulted in the death of both of his kidneys.

"So what happens now?" he asked him. "You doing that dialysis thing?"

"Yep," Matt confirmed. "Once every two days for two hours. It sucks ass. They tell me that once things settle down around here they're gonna grow me some new kidneys."

"How much is that gonna cost you?" Jeff asked.

"Not a fuckin' thing, they say. According to Laura Whiting, all healthcare for soldiers is free."

"She's even saying she wants to make it that way for everyone," Andrew put in.

"Free health care?" Xenia said. "Goddamn. She is a fuckin' radical, isn't she?"

They parted ways a few minutes later after much hugging, handshaking, and profane declarations of their fighting prowess. They promised to get together as soon as possible once things settled down. The three of them then made their way back to the elevators and down to street level where they entered the Bangkok Building.

They found Zen Valentine in an equally crowded room on the second floor. He was lying on a sheet, shirtless, a large bandage covering a good portion of his back and chest. Two intravenous lines were dripping into his arms and a tube snaked out from his side. Sitting next to his bed was an elderly woman wearing denim shorts and a cropped half-shirt.

Zen saw them approaching and his eyes lit up. "Xenia! Creek! Belinda!" He leaned forward. "You made it through the war!"

"Fuckin' aye, we did," Xenia said, leaning in and giving him a big hug and then slipping him some tongue in the finest Martian tradition.

"You taste like pussy," he said knowingly. "Does that mean you made your choice?"

"My choice was not to choose," she said. "I'm stuck with both of them."

"No shit?" he asked, raising his eyebrows a bit.

"No shit," Belinda said. She leaned and gave him a hug and some tongue as well.

Jeff gave him a hug. He held back on the tongue portion. Zen didn't seem to mind.

The elderly woman coughed politely. "Not to interrupt this little reunion," she said. "But don't you think some introductions are in order, Zenny?"

"Zenny?" Jeff said with a smirk.

"Not a fuckin' word about that to anyone," he warned, blushing.

Belinda and Xenia chuckled.

"Guys," said Zen, "I'd like you to meet my grandmother, Dr. Marjorie Valentine. Gram, this is Xenia, Jeff, and Belinda. Jeff here is one of the infantry guys we fought with in the gap. X and B were in my tank with me. They're the ones who hauled my ass out of the wastelands and got me to the medics."

"You're the ones," Marjorie said, beaming at the two women. "I thank you for what you did, for the planet and especially for my Zenny." She hugged each of them furiously, kissing them on the lips. She then turned to Jeff. "You're a hot piece of ass, ain't you? Let me thank you for your service." And before he realized what was happening, her lips were on his and her tongue was in his mouth. He was squeamish at first until he realized she was an extremely good kisser.

"Thanks," he said, a little breathless, once she released him.

"Anytime," she said, gazing at him lustfully. "And in any case, I'm not Dr. Valentine anymore. The WestHem fucks took my license away back in 2108. I'm just plain old Marjorie now."

"I heard about how you got fucked," Xenia said. "Just like those corporate assholes, ain't it?"

"It was the way of the solar system," Marjorie replied. "At least until now. Now you youngsters have given Mars a brand new chance. We're free because of you and everyone like you. Free to pursue our own course. I never thought I'd live to see it, but now that I have, I'm determined to live to see what becomes of us next. I think this Laura Whiting bitch has got us on the right path."

"So you don't think she's Queen Laura the First?" Belinda asked.

"Setting herself up to be just like the old bosses?" Marjorie asked.

"Yeah," Belinda replied. "That's what some of the people are afraid of. That we'll end up even worse off then we were before the revolution."

"An interesting question," she said, pondering, seemingly pleased that they were trying to tap into her wisdom. "Why don't we burn one and talk about that?"

"Burn one?" Jeff asked.

"Fuckin' aye," she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a silver case. She opened it and pulled out a fat joint. "I hope everyone likes Libby Lowdown. I've always been partial to that shit." She pulled out a laser lighter, sparked up the joint, and took a tremendous hit of it. While holding the hit in her lungs she passed the joint to Jeff. "Here you go, lover," she squeaked.

"Wow," Jeff said, taking it. He took a hit of his own, drawing deeply of the sweet smoke. Halfway through Marjorie hit him in the shoulder.

"Watch the spit on the end of the joint," she yelled. "If I want your spit I'll suck it off your tongue again."

"Sorry," Jeff squeaked, blushing.

"Youngsters these days," Marjorie huffed. "Always using pipes and bongs to smoke their shit. There's no fucking joint etiquette anymore. They really should teach that in school."

The joint was passed around until it was but a roach. Everyone watched his or her spit at the end, not wanting to incur the wrath of Marjorie. It was very good shit, almost as good as Agricorp Green. All five of them were in the stratosphere.

"Now then," Marjorie said after putting the roach into a separate case full of other such roaches. "You were concerned about the Queen Laura thing. I won't deny it's possible that we're dealing with a potential fascist dictator here. I won't deny that everything she has done to this point could have been an elaborate plan to seize power from the WestHems and set herself up as supreme ruler of this planet. It is possible that we could end up worse off than we were before."

"That's kind of a depressing thought, Gram," Zen said. "I thought you were in favor of Laura Whiting."

"I was and I am," Marjorie said. "My God, what I wouldn't give for a nice glass of Chardonnay right now. Oh well... the price of being free. Anyway, I was just trying to point out the worst-case scenario from this chain of events Laura Whiting has set in motion. I don't think we'll come to that. I can't explain why I feel what I do but I trust our governor. She is different. She actually seems to care about us. If this has all been a power scheme for her, it was an elaborate and far-reaching one. I honestly think that she is exactly what she seems to be."

"That's a relief to hear you say that," Belinda said.

"Well, don't be too relieved," Marjorie said. "Even if Whiting is exactly what she purports to be, we're still in for some rankin times in the next few years."

"What do you mean?" Jeff asked.

"The quest for power and for rule is a very powerful narcotic," Marjorie said. "There is a power vacuum in place on Mars right now. Laura Whiting is the governor of this now free planet. She has twenty-two former legislature members who joined her at the beginning of the revolt. These twenty-three people are all who are running the planet now. Others are going to try to get in on this ruling thing. Many of them will have nothing but their own self-interest in mind. And, if I read my history correctly, those who are the most charismatic will be the ones who are actually the most snake-like. We Martians are going to have to be very careful to avoid letting any of these people obtain positions of high power."

"What can we do to avoid that?" asked Belinda, terrified at the images that Marjorie was invoking.

"You can be diligent, you can use your common sense, and you can speak your mind when you need to," Marjorie replied. "You need to realize that there will be attempts to betray this revolution by small groups of people or individuals who just want to rule. You have to filter through their lies, examine every political person who tries to insert themselves into the power structure in your name. History is full of betrayed revolutions. I hope before all that is holy that you people who won this one for us won't let it be betrayed as well."

Martian Capital Building, New Pittsburgh

September 25, 2146

0900 hours

Governor Laura Whiting — who was technically only the acting Governor — called the meeting of the fledgling Martian government to order. They were in the legislature chambers, which had been designed to seat one hundred members in comfort and had accommodations for up to six hundred visitors in bleacher style seating in the rear. With only twenty-three people present, the large chambers seemed almost empty.

"Good morning," she told everyone from her podium at the front of the room. "The first order of business on the agenda is the reply to our offer to open negotiations for an armistice we received from the WestHem Executive Council early this morning. I'm sure you can all guess what the jest of that reply is."

A chuckle traveled through the seats. Yes, they could all guess. Laura had sent her message to Earth four days ago, offering to open negotiations for a permanent armistice and peace treaty with WestHem. In the request Mars offered to immediately resume food and steel shipments and to begin negotiating a POW exchange. Mars' terms for such actions were public WestHem recognition of Mars as an independent nation and the extradition of General Wrath and General Browning on war crimes charges. Instead of responding right away WestHem had cut and edited the message until it seemed like Laura was taunting the WestHem public, expressing hatred for all things Earthling, and threatening to kill even more hostages. This edited tape had been playing non-stop on all three of the big three for three days now.

"In any case," Laura said, "I'll go ahead and play that reply now for the record. I'll also release a copy to MarsGroup so they can start playing it as well." She tapped a few buttons on her podium screen and the video file opened up, both before her and on the large screen behind her. She pushed the "play" tab.

The face of Loretta Williams appeared, looking years older than it had in the beginning of the conflict. "This is in reply to the offer of negotiation of armistice that was sent to us by the terrorist leader Laura Whiting of Mars. I will make this short and very clear. There will be no armistice of any kind with you thugs that are holding Mars hostage. To even call this conflict a war is insulting to all those brave marines who participated in it. You are illegally holding a WestHem colony against the will of the people who live there and we will not rest until Mars is liberated and its people allowed to live out their lives in democratic peace. All terrorists we captured during Operation Martian Hammer are being returned to Earth where they will be tried for their crimes and executed if found guilty of murder or treason. In addition, when our next task force arrives and liberates that planet Laura Whiting, Kevin Jackson, and any soldier who picked up arms against us will also be tried on charges of murder, treason, and crimes against humanity. You would be well advised to spare your people further bloodshed and surrender yourselves now. Only if you agree to this term and to unconditional surrender of Mars back to WestHem rule will we agree to speak with you in any way."

The screen went blank as the message ended.

"So then," Laura said, sipping from her tea, "the usual WestHem blathering bullshit. I'm afraid that is pretty much what we were expecting all along. It looks like we're going to have to fight them again at some point."

This caused some tittering among the legislature. One of the members, Steve Hotbox of Eden, asked to be recognized. Laura did so.

"Like all of you here, I'm extremely proud of what the MPG did to keep this planet in our hands during the war," he said. "I myself have a son who has been in the MPG for years. He served with the 5th Heavy Artillery Battalion in Eden and was nearly killed when the WestHem air strike took out his gun. We lost a lot of people in this war and we just barely hung in there. As General Jackson said in his briefing, the marines were within thirty minutes of taking Eden from us when they decided to turn back. It was only their loss of morale that saved us."

"That is true, Steve," Laura said. "What is it that you're trying to say here?"

"I'm wondering what's going to happen the next time they send troops after us. We beat them because they underestimated us and because we had some pretty good tricks up our sleeve. I'm not trying to take anything away from the MPG or General Jackson. Both performed brilliantly. But now the WestHems know just how they should estimate our abilities and they know all of our tricks. Won't they send twice as many men and machines next time? Won't they focus on a single city instead of splitting their forces? I'm wondering whether it's wise of us to take such a hard line with WestHem on this armistice."

"I take it that Jack Strough has been visiting your office?" Laura asked.

Hotbox sputtered a little. "Well... yes, but I had my doubts about this long before Mr. Strough entered the picture."

Laura sighed. Jack Strough, the president of the cargo handler's union, the man who had been a constant thorn in the side of the revolution ever since they first took the planet from WestHem, was now expanding his pain-in-the-ass status into Martian politics. In the past two weeks he had organized nearly every labor union on Mars into a loose alliance of laborers and was using this power to project his wishes into the Governor's office and into the offices of the remaining legislature members. "I have listened to Mr. Strough's proposals myself," she said. "He is suggesting that we accept 'de facto' independence from WestHem but that we allow their corporations to retain control of the various industries on the planet."

"That is correct," Hotbox said. "And I believe that Mr. Strough makes a lot of sense. WestHem is never going to accept losing Mars. They are going to keep sending more and more troops here until they take it back and condemn all of us to an ongoing military occupation. Those of us who fomented the revolt will be tried and executed."

"Our troops did not fight and die out there for de facto independence, Steve," Laura said angrily. "They fought and died so we could be free — completely free — of the WestHem system of government. What he is suggesting puts us right back under WestHem control."

"No, that's where you're wrong," Hotbox argued. "We get to elect our own leaders and the MPG gets to stay intact. They won't send any more troops to Mars to try to liberate it. The corporations get to keep their holdings but the Martian Federation of Labor that Strough is proposing will set all wages and working conditions for every Earth based corporation. In addition, we'll be free to continue trading with EastHem, something we were not allowed to do under the previous system. This will allow the expansion of the agricultural fields and the steel fields and open up a prosperity that will last for generations."

"And we would still be on WestHem's system of currency," Laura said, "and subjected to their corporate mentality." She shook her head. "That is not what we were fighting for, Steve."

"I understand that, Laura," Hotbox said. "Honestly I do. But I don't think we're going to be able to hold this planet indefinitely. A lot of the workers out there are in favor of this plan — more every day."

"We will hold this planet forever if we remain unified," Laura said. "As we speak right now, our factories are churning out tanks, guns, APCs, bullets, aircraft, and every other supply needed to fight a war. General Jackson plans to increase MPG manpower by more than two hundred percent in the next six months and to beef up every aspect of our defensive capabilities. If this is allowed to go forth, the WestHems will be soundly defeated out in the wastelands again no matter what they send here. Their one chance to take this planet back from us has come and gone — unless we fail to remain unified and that is exactly what Jack Strough is trying to do. He is pitting our vital labor force against those of us who are trying to keep them free. And when you allow him into your office and bring his seditious drivel into these chambers you are helping him."

Hotbox looked like he'd just been slapped across the face. He literally couldn't come up with the words to reply to her.

"We don't need to open an issue on this or vote on it right now," Laura said. "Strough is out there trying to turn our labor force against us and to give our planet back to WestHem because it suits his needs. I have more faith in our workers than that, however. If it becomes a truly divisive problem, we'll talk about it then. In the meantime, how about we move onto the next item on the agenda?"

Hotbox gave no protest to this suggestion. Neither did anyone else.

"Very well," Laura said, taking another sip of her tea. "You mentioned trade with EastHem, Steve. Coincidentally enough, that happens to be the next item we're dealing with. We received the following message from the EastHem ruling council yesterday regarding a possible expansion of trade. If they are suggesting what I think they are suggesting, some of these shortages we've been experiencing might just be coming to an end. Let me play it for you."

She pushed the play tab and the face of Anthony Billings — the Chief Executive Councilmember of EastHem appeared. Unlike Loretta Williams, Billings was actually looking quite spiffy compared to the first time they'd contacted him, and with good reason. The influx of Martian food products in exchange for fuel had revitalized all of the EastHem corporations and their economy was booming for the first time in generations. "Good evening, Ms. Whiting and honored members of the interim Martian governing council," Billings said, smiling pleasantly. "We have been following the events on your planet and I would like to be the first to congratulate you on your brilliant victory over those who tried to derail your new democracy in its beginning stages. Several members of our joint chiefs have been much impressed by how you fought your military campaign and have expressed a desire to buy your General Jackson a stiff drink if they should find occasion to run into him.

"Now that you are completely free from WestHem tyranny and it appears you will remain so, it is my suggestion that our two nations establish formal diplomatic channels, including the stationing of an ambassador and staff in each other's capitals. With your permission, we would like to make the first gesture of friendship in this regard and send a complete diplomatic team to your planet. All we ask is that you house them in a manner they are accustomed to until such time as an embassy can be built. If you give the go-ahead, this team will leave immediately and be at Triad in four and a half weeks.

"The first order of business this team would like to discuss with the new Martian government is an expansion of the trade agreement we reached after you forcefully removed yourself from WestHem rule. As you are probably aware, our economy and the famine that existed in parts of our nation — particularly the African portion — have improved remarkably since we entered into this agreement for your food products. And I'm sure I don't have to point out that our hydrogen shipments were what allowed you to achieve your impressive military victory.

"Now we believe it would be in the best interests of both of our peoples to expand trade between us. Mars is most assuredly the breadbasket of the solar system and there are many things besides the basic staples you provide that our food distribution corporations would enjoy purchasing from you in order to feed a market for luxury cuisine. Most specifically, we would like to secure a contract for additional cuts of beef that are above the fine staple items you already provide. We would like to purchase veal cuts, lamb and mutton, turkey, and various high end produce items such as mushrooms, asparagus, lettuce, strawberries, and, most valued, those famous Martian artichokes we've heard so much about. We are also interested in another one of your famous agricultural products: cannabis. Currently there is very little cannabis grown in EastHem because all of our agricultural land is being used for more vital items. We used to purchase cannabis from WestHem but, sadly, they invoked a trade embargo with us when we recognized the Martian government as legitimate and began trading with you.

"In order to keep the trade deficit between our two nations on an equal footing, we are prepared to supply you with some luxury items that you are currently doing without due to your conflict with WestHem. In specific, we would be willing to offer you coffee from Java and other parts of Indonesia, tobacco from our Turkish plantations, and, most important, alcoholic beverages of the finest quality from all over our great nation. We could import to you beer from the Germany region, wines of varying type from the France region, and hard spirits from our finest distilleries in Scotland, Russia, China, Japan, and Australia.

"Under the current political situation we would still not be comfortable offering arms, ammunition, or other war materials, but just about anything else is open to negotiation. The diplomatic team we propose to send would have full treaty making and trade agreement authority.

"If this is an acceptable offer to you, please reply as soon as possible.

"In continued friendship, Tony Billings."

Laura clicked off the tape and looked out at the legislature. "Well," she asked. "What do we think about that?"

They were unanimous in their support of negotiating a trade agreement. Despite the surplus food they were already sending to EastHem, the Martian warehouses and holding facilities were literally stuffed to overflowing with excess food products since they were no longer sending any to WestHem. This was particularly true of artichokes, most fruit items, and medium grade marijuana. That had thrown out hundreds of tons of all of this because of rotting from disuse over the past two months.

"Coffee and smokes again," one of the members sighed with pleasure. "The sooner the better, I say."

"And booze," someone else put in. "EastHem always was the best at making hooch."

"Except for wine," someone countered. "There's nothing like a good California Merlot."

Before an argument could get started on the pros and cons of EastHem alcoholic beverages, Laura put the motion on the floor. Should they accept the offer of the EastHem diplomatic team? The motion was seconded and voted upon. There were no nays in the chamber.

"Very good," Laura said. "I'll send off a message to the EastHem council as soon as we adjourn here. Now, there's one last thing I'd like to put out for you to consider. The WestHem citizens that are stuck on this planet."

"The corporate fucks you mean," said Jenny Bongwater, one of Laura's most enthusiastic supporters.

"Call them what you will," Laura said. "There are more than two hundred thousand WestHem citizens here on Mars and most of them would like to go home, I'm sure. I think it's time we started getting them there. I would like to send a message to WestHem inviting them to send ships here to pick up their citizens. Such ships would be stopped at the one hundred thousand kilometer radius by our navy and searched for weapons or spy equipment and then they will be allowed to land at Triad."

"The WestHems will never agree to that," Steve Hotbox said. "It would mean they would be offering some sort of recognition to us if they did."

"We'll try to work it so it doesn't have to be announced publicly, but I think we should make the offer. I for one don't want those people cluttering up my planet any longer than they need to be. All they're doing is sitting in their penthouse apartments and eating our food and making nuisances of themselves. Let's start working towards purging our planet of them once and for all."

This motion was not unanimous, but it passed.

Laura adjourned the meeting shortly after and went back to her office. She had some messages that needed to be composed.

Planet Mars

The weeks went by on the newly independent Planet of Mars and the people who lived on it slowly began to adjust to the fact that they were now the ones in control of their own destiny.

Jeff Creek, Belinda Maxely, and Xenia Stoner spent most of their seventy-two hour pass in Xenia's apartment near the MPG base exploring the possibilities of the triad that had formed. They had sex in every conceivable arrangement and even Belinda began to enjoy the sensation of a phallus inside of her instead of a plastic look-alike. On non-sexual matters, they had their fights and disagreements, some of them quite vicious, as they tried to settle in together and make something of a home. They managed to resolve the bigger issues, or at least come to an amicable cease-fire on them, but left many minor issues still pending when it was time for them to go back to their respective MPG assignments. They, like every other MPG member, then forgot about their domestic squabbles as they undertook the task of collecting their dead from the battlefield.

This collection of those Martians who had fallen in battle was given the highest priority by General Jackson. He allowed no other task to be started until every last MPG member who had fallen was recovered or at least identified. This took the better part of two weeks in which soldiers dug through concrete rubble, pried open destroyed tanks and APCs, and scoured through wreckage of fallen Mosquitoes. Jeff himself asked for and received permission to help excavate a certain trench on the Blue Line of Eden. He found his friend Hicks there, still lying where he'd gone down, his body perfectly preserved in his shredded biosuit. Later, on a day off near the end of October, he paid a visit to Covington Heights, the ghetto adjoining Helvetia Heights. There he met with Hicks' parents and paid his respects. He spent more than two hours there with them, telling of Hicks' exploits in battle, of their adventures in training, of the way he had fallen. All three of them cried and when he left, the elder Hicks' both thanked him profusely, hugging him as he departed.

Following the recovery of the dead was a seven-day period in which many funerals were held throughout Eden and New Pittsburgh. General Jackson saw to it that each memorial service featured a dignified and moving ceremony and a twenty-one-gun salute by an MPG honor guard.

"There will be a memorial for those who gave their lives for our freedom," Jackson said in a speech one night during the midst of this. "I swear this before all that I believe in, it will stand in Capital Park in New Pittsburgh and the name of every man and woman who fell will be carved in it."

After the recovery and cremation of the dead came the even more daunting, though less emotional, task of collecting and trying to identify the WestHem dead. This was a job that seemed overwhelming at first since there were so many of them. There was a path of smashed armor, fallen aircraft, and exploded men that stretched from the site of the landing zones all the way to the main lines of defense. Still, they did it, trudging through the wastelands in biosuits, picking up corpses of their enemy and putting them in trucks or patiently pulling DNA samples from exploded armor. The bodies still intact were transported to agricultural freezers and stored until such time that the conflict was officially over.

During this time period Zen Valentine was released from the hospital with one less kidney than he'd come in with. He was offered a medical discharge for his injury but he refused it, going right back into the ACR as a tank commander. He was promoted to lieutenant and put in charge of a tank platoon. Once the body recovery period came to an end he would begin training his new platoon in offensive operations instead of just defensive. He continued to live with his grandmother in a middle-class apartment.

Matt Mendez was also released but was not returned to flight status due to the dialysis shunt in his subclavian artery and vein. Two brand new kidneys, cloned from his own DNA, were being grown for him but they would not be ready for another eight weeks. Matt did not let this discourage him. He applied for flight training and was accepted with the stipulation that he would not be able to participate until he was fully healed up and his new kidneys operational. In the meantime, he would draw three hundred and twenty credits per month in temporary disability payments.

Brian Haggerty was asked to be an instructor for one of the new flight schools that was being formed in Libby. The anticipation, according to General Jackson, was that ninety-five more Mosquitoes would roll off the assembly lines before the earliest expected return of the WestHems (assuming, of course, that Jack Strough did not get a general labor strike going as he was starting to threaten) and they needed combat experienced pilots to teach them. Haggerty refused the promotion and resigned his commission with the MPG. He had had enough of war. He went back to his position with the Eden Police Department, intending to enjoy the reforms that Laura Whiting was promising for the criminal justice system.

Lisa Wong, on the other hand, resigned her position with the Eden Police Department and signed on for full-time active duty with the MPG. General Jackson was planning to vastly increase the amount of special forces troops for the next deployment and it was strongly suggested that most who had seen action in the first phase of the conflict would be promoted. She wanted her own squad and it seemed well within her reach to get it.

Lon Fargo, recognized as an especially astute special forces member, was offered a position in training new inductees to the force. He accepted the position on the condition that he would stay in Eden. His condition was granted and he was sent immediately to an intense, six-week program in New Pittsburgh to be taught how to be an effective instructor.

And then there was Belinda Creek, the ex-wife of Jeff Creek. While her former husband was enjoying his new life and newfound respect, she sat alone in the apartment they'd once shared most of the time. She had long since run out of money. Some of it had been blown by buying bogus alcohol and coffee shipments, most had been stolen by her former partner in her lucrative black market venture. She had also run out of alcohol and there was no way for her to get any more. Over a period of a week or so, just after the cease-fire was announced, while the rest of the planet was celebrating victory, she had stayed in her bed, suffering through a vicious case of alcohol withdrawal that had nearly killed her. She had had no less than twelve grand mal seizures in a six-hour period at the worst point. She had urinated and defecated upon herself and gone without food for almost six days. Slowly she had recovered and managed to get some nourishment from the welfare mart but she was blackly depressed all the time now.

Her husband was gone and with him, her hope of getting pregnant and obtaining that larger apartment. Divorce bureaucracy moved quickly on Mars and hers was final before the WestHems even left orbit. Most of her former friends had gone. They had taken jobs in the agriculture fields, in the factories, in the MPG. She had no desire to follow in their footsteps. She had been raised like her parents, believing that life owed her a handout and that the overriding concern was to avoid employment of any kind.

On October 25 she found herself sitting on her bed with a pistol in her hand. It was the tiny 3mm pistol that Jeff used to carry in his gang days, before Laura Whiting had filled his head with visions of independence and grandeur. She caressed it, touching it's cheap plastic handle, fingering the magazine protruding from the bottom.

She was very stoned. Marijuana was the one intoxicant that was still readily available on Mars since it was actually produced there and she had smoked nearly two grams of it on this evening. Instead of cheering her, however, it only made her more depressed. She hated weed, hated the way it made her feel. She wanted to be drunk, to experience the blissful nothingness of a three-day binge of Fruity.

She put the pistol against her head, her finger caressing the trigger. She did not quite have the nerve to pull it just yet but she was working that way.

The computer screen was on, showing a MarsGroup soap opera that she used to like but had lost interest in as of late. The show ended while she was contemplating suicide and a brief top-of-the-hour news report came on.

"This is Jenna Cocksman reporting on the latest news of Mars," the middle-aged news anchor said. "In New Pittsburgh today, union leader Jack Strough blasted Laura Whiting again on what he called her 'unrealistic dreams' for the future of our planet. Strough, the leader of a growing number of citizens who advocate conditional reconciliation with WestHem, was particularly contemptuous over Whiting's vague plans for resuming trade if and when an armistice is ever signed."

"What exactly are we going to trade for?" Strough's image asked in a reasonable manner. "Whiting is proposing that we remain completely separate from the WestHem economic system, that we do not accept their money nor give them these so-called credits that she has come up with. So what are they going to pay us in? How are we going to compensate the workers who pick all the food and produce all of the profits? She has no answers for that. While I respect her for the stand she's forced us to make for independence the simple fact of the matter is that we need WestHem in order to survive as an economy. They are the market we sell our goods to."

"Whiting had little to say about Strough's statement," Cocksman continued. "The only effort she made to defend her proposed policies was to state that Strough and the growing number of those who follow him, 'just don't get what the revolution was supposed to be about'."

"I got what it's about," Belinda said contemptuously, grabbing her crotch a few times. "I got it right fuckin' here."

"In other news," Cocksman went on, "the delegation of diplomats from EastHem are now less than a week out and the prospect of increasing trade with them is looking more and more hopeful."

"Fuckin' EastHem," Belinda spat, putting the gun back to her head. "Who gives a fucking shit?"

"As we've been reporting over the past two weeks," Cocksman said, "the EastHems are requesting luxury agricultural items such as prime meat cuts, prime vegetables, and marijuana. In return they are offering to trade Indonesian coffee, Turkish cigarettes, and, perhaps most welcome to a whole lot of thirsty Martians, beer, wine, and other spirits from throughout their empire. Now interestingly enough both Laura Whiting and Jack Strough agree that this is a lucrative and..."

Belinda stared at the screen, not hearing anything after "beer, wine, and other spirits". Booze! her mind yelled at her happily. They're talking about bringing booze here!

The report ended a few moments later and the next soap opera — Return of the Dark — started. Belinda ignored it, her mind still locked onto those magical words: beer, wine, and other spirits. She put the gun down on the bed and walked over to the computer terminal.

"Computer," she said, "display all MarsGroup print stories regarding beer, wine, and other spirits being brought to Mars that were generated over the past two weeks."

"Displaying," the computer said. "There are one hundred and twelve such articles, sorted by date and relevance."

The soap opera went away and newsprint appeared in its place. Belinda had rarely read news stories throughout her life and was, in fact, barely literate at a functional level. But she read them now. And all said the same thing. The Martian government was preparing to negotiate for the shipment of booze to Mars in return for agricultural products. Booze!

"How long?" she wondered, trying to delve deeper into the articles. It took her a few minutes but eventually she found that negotiations would commence as soon as the EastHem diplomats arrived in one week. Once an agreement was reached, it would be maybe six weeks before the hooch started flowing once again.

Seven weeks! I could be back to normal again in seven weeks!

It was a long time to wait, of course, but she thought she could stick it out. She smiled for the first time in two weeks. She got up and picked up the gun, putting it back in the bedside drawer.

Suddenly she had something to live for again.

The negotiations on the EastHem trade agreement actually took the better part of five weeks to hammer out. The sticking point was the matter of compensation for the goods. EastHem wanted Mars to convert to their system of currency — the EastHem pound. They wanted to pay Mars for the agricultural products they purchased in pounds and then have Mars pay them in pounds for the alcohol, cigarettes, and coffee. Laura Whiting absolutely refused to budge on this manner.

"This will be a strict exchange of commodities for commodities," she said time and time again. "We give you a certain amount of agricultural goods and you give us a certain amount of addictive drugs. We will not convert to your currency or allow you to accept ours. That is non-negotiable."

EastHem listened to her but didn't want to believe her. They tried as hard as they could. They offered ridiculously low prices on their end and offered ridiculously high prices on the Martian end just to get Laura Whiting and her legislature to agree to convert to pounds. The Martians refused. They threatened to withhold fuel shipments if an agreement could not be reached.

"Then we would be forced to end all agricultural shipments to EastHem," Whiting calmly countered. "We would eject all of you from our planet and we would be easy fodder when the WestHems returned. You would never again enjoy the boost to your economy that we are responsible for."

Eventually, the diplomats agreed to Laura Whiting's condition. They had been ordered to push as hard as they could for conversion to pounds but not to go under if the greenies were insistent. The next phase of the negotiations concerned the amounts of each commodity. Again the EastHems started off with patently ridiculous demands. They were suggesting the equivalent of two hundred kilos of marijuana for each pack of cigarettes, six hundred kilos of beef for each kilo of coffee, one hundred kilos of vegetables for each liter of alcohol. The weeks ground on and eventually the two sides were able to meet in the middle and put their signatures to a formal trade treaty.

On December 8, 2146, Laura Whiting called a press conference in order to announce the terms of the new agreement. There was something else she intended to announce as well, something that she had discussed with the planetary legislature and even with Jack Strough. All had given their agreement to the plan, although Strough had his own reasons for doing so. It was something that would be a considerable shock to a mostly silent minority of people on the planet.

"We have hammered out a trade agreement with EastHem," she happily announced that night at 1800 hours, New Pittsburgh time. "All cargo will be transported in their ships, loaded and unloaded at Triad by Martian dockworkers. The actual amounts of the agreement will be posted on the MarsGroup text sites but we have gotten all we've asked for and more. Within eight weeks our planet will once again be able to enjoy fine coffee, alcoholic beverages, various tobacco products, and... for the first time in our history (except for those corporate WestHems who had it specially imported), seafood consisting of crabs, lobsters, shrimp, oysters, clams, and various types of ocean and freshwater fish. This last was an added inducement suggested by EastHem as a measure of good faith and accepted by the negotiation team. So have faith, Martians, soon most of you will be swimming in intoxicants, tobacco, and coffee once again and you'll be able to sample seafood."

She could not hear it but she had a feeling a cheer was going up around the planet. She smiled in silence for a few moments, waiting for it to die down.

"Now the distribution of these trade goods is something that myself and my advisors have thought long and hard on. They will be sold at a fixed price in the various retail establishments and bars until such time that we hammer out a new constitution and a new economic system. (Jack Strough frowned mightily from his seat in the audience at this point — he and his cohorts were planning on going back to the old constitution with a few modifications). There will be no need for profiteering or hoarding of these supplies. In the amounts we've negotiated there will be enough for everyone. So have faith, Martians, your vices will be arriving soon."

She paused again, allowing what she assumed was another planetwide cheer to die down. She then turned her face serious.

"This brings us to a subject that seems unrelated but that really is not. It is the subject of welfare reform. For dozens of generations we have had a system in place in which the needy, the jobless, the infirm among us have been supported by the government so that they may continue to be housed and fed. This is a system that many of you who fought in the revolution, who toiled in the factories to supply the revolution, lived under when WestHem rule was in place. It is a system in which the government paid you a certain amount of money each month for expenses. It was a system that was necessary when we had better than twenty-five percent unemployment on this planet. But it is a system that was and is rife for abuse by many of those who partake in it. It is time for that system to change and it is with the influx of these luxury items that we must act to avoid further abuses. It is time for what our ancestors used to call 'tough love'."

"We have reached a point now in Martian history where there are many more jobs available than there are workers to fill them. Our war efforts have opened up positions in every conceivable field. We need police officers, dip-hoes, factory workers, agricultural workers, janitors, soldiers, miners. We need people to work in order to make this new reality we are forging continue on. In short, there is no reason why everyone who is capable of working should not be working. 'I can't get a job' was a very legitimate excuse under WestHem. It is not a legitimate excuse today. What I'm about to suggest may sound harsh to those accustomed to the WestHem way of doing things, but it is a necessity for our new system. From this point on if you do not work, you will not get any money."

From all over the planet people gasped as they heard this. Some in surprise, many in approval, some, like Belinda Creek, in surprised shock.

"Now I'm not talking about cutting everyone off from government assistance," Whiting continued. "I wouldn't dream of such a thing. It is my belief that just by virtue of being born you are entitled to certain basic needs of life. If you are capable of working but choose not to, that is your right as a citizen of Mars. The government will continue to provide you with basic food items, with basic shelter in public housing buildings, with basic clothing, with an education in public schools, with basic Internet access and a personal computer. But that is all we will provide you with and from here on out these things will be provided for you by vouchers. Those on public assistance will no longer receive any money of any kind from the government of Mars.

"Now as to how that relates to these luxuries we have just negotiated for our planet, you will have to have money in order to obtain them from a store. There will be no vouchers for cigarettes, for coffee, for alcohol, or for marijuana. If you want some of those things, or if you want premium cuts of beef, or if you want food from a restaurant, you will have to have money — namely credits, which I've named in that they represent a credit you have received for some sort of contribution to society. Those who contribute will be given credits. Those who do not will be fed, housed, and clothed in basic format and will have no credits for luxuries.

"For those of you sitting in your homes accustomed to receiving your monthly marijuana and alcohol vouchers and your one hundred credits of spending money, those days are at an end as of now. We're not doing this because we hate you. We're doing it to encourage you to get up and make something of yourselves.

"That is all I have to say. Good night. Let's keep Mars free."

Belinda Creek was shocked beyond belief. She had watched the Whiting bitch's speech with initial glee as she talked about all the wonderful and cheap booze that would soon be pouring in from EastHem. True there had been no mention of Fruity — her favorite — but surely the EastHems had some sort of similar concoction for their own vermin. Her elation had turned to horror, however, as Whiting had explained the welfare reform. No money of any kind? Vouchers for food, housing, and clothing? What kind of shit was that? That wasn't fair! There was no way the people of Mars would stand for that, was there?

She went to bed that night convinced that the press would crucify Whiting the next morning, that popular outrage would quickly overturn this fascist edict. In this she was partially right. There were many questions about her unexpected welfare reform law the next morning, most having to do with what those who were unable to work because of disability would do. As the days went on and Whiting explained that her reform only applied to those who were able to work but chose not to, much of the questions faded away. In fact, it was determined that the majority of the planet, including those who had grown up as vermin but were now working, approved of Whiting's reform. Some of them were even of the opinion that she was being too generous.

Jack Strough and his growing number of followers were one such group. Strough was all in favor of denying credits or dollars or pounds (whatever they ultimately ended up going with) to those on welfare but he was opposed to the idea of giving them even basic vouchers.

"Why should we house them if they refuse to work?" Strough asked a group of reporters interviewing him on the subject. "Why should our hardworking field hands have to feed them if they refuse to work? Why should we give them free clothing and free education if they refuse to work? Working is what keeps the economy rolling. Everyone capable of it should contribute to the cause. If you choose not to, I say you can go naked and homeless and starve in the street."

After a week of excited talk about the welfare reform rules it was apparent to Belinda and everyone like her that public opinion was not in their favor. If anything they stood to lose the meager handouts Whiting was offering them.

"This is a bunch of fuckin' bullshit," Belinda told the computer screen one night after smoking the last of her marijuana supply. She had just received the first of her monthly vouchers via email and, as promised, there was no credits or dollars listed in them.

She longed for the way things used to be, when the booze was free, the asshole that lived with her was fucking her on a regular basis, and no one expected her to go out and find a fucking job.

The fervor over the welfare reform act died down quickly the last week of December when the subject of "the vote" was raised for the first time. It was Jack Strough who raised it and once it was brought to the public's attention it would only be called "the vote" when discussed.

"It's obvious that myself and Governor Whiting have very differing views on the direction this planet should take in the post-revolutionary phase," Strough announced at a press conference. "I represent an organization that a good portion of our blue collar workers now belong to — the Martian Federation of Labor — and I speak to you now as their voice. We have achieved what Ms. Whiting set out to do. We have beaten the WestHem marines and chased them from our planet. Now it is time for us to reconcile with them in the interest of all Martians.

"Governor Whiting's idealistic plans of an isolated planet, independent from the economies of EastHem and WestHem sound good after smoking a few bowls and bullshitting with your buddies over artichokes and cheesecake, but they hardly hold water in the real world. We cannot exist without WestHem. They are our mother country and they are the ones who must purchase the majority of what we produce here. We must establish diplomacy with them, negotiate a permanent armistice, exchange our prisoners, and, most of all, trade with them in the great tradition of democratic capitalism. It is a nice pipe dream that we can be fully independent but it can't happen in real life. It simply can't!

"If we do not negotiate now, from a position of strength, WestHem is going to send more troops here and forcibly take Mars back from those who fought so hard to keep it. They are going to take over the labor rolls again and cut everything to the bare minimum, bringing us back to the unemployment levels we had before. They are going to sever the ties we recently established with EastHem and force us back into the monopoly of buying only their coffee, only their alcohol, only their tobacco. Did we sacrifice so much these past months just to have it all taken away from us? Just to subject ourselves to occupation by the very WestHem marines we just ejected from this place?

"I say that is not an acceptable answer. We are in the position of strength now and it is time to start negotiating an acceptable peace with WestHem. We can give them back their corporate holdings but regulate how they are allowed to run them on Mars. We can keep our government intact and insure that the majority of this planet's wealth stays here. This is the only answer, people. Becoming a communistic, isolated planet that does not accept WestHem money for the goods we provide is Governor Whiting's way. Being realistic in our goals and ambitions is my way. Now I want to know what you, the Martian people, think about all of this.

"We must pick one path or the other and we must do it soon. For this reason I am challenging Governor Whiting to put our respective ideologies to a vote. I suggest we schedule it for the second Tuesday in January. The question will be a simple one. Do we remain committed to complete independence — which would entail fighting for this planet's freedom again and again until the WestHems either give up or defeat us — or do we open negotiations for the peaceful reconciliation of our two planets in such a way that guarantees us de facto independence?

"I'm awaiting Governor Whiting's reply."

He ended the press conference a moment later, not staying to answer questions.

Laura Whiting's reply was an angry one.

"Did we not already vote on this?" she asked the public the next day. "In the very beginning, after the MPG secured this planet from WestHem, we voted on this issue. I don't think the wording of that particular ballet was ambiguous in any way. It read: Will the Planet of Mars declare independence from the Federal Alliance of the Western Hemisphere and enforce this declaration by any means available? Yes or no. The vote was overwhelmingly 'yes'. We did not vote for 'de facto independence'. Our soldiers did not fight and die for 'de facto independence'. Jack Strough is trying to divide this planet at a time when we most need to be unified."

But Jack Strough remained persistent in his insistence on a new vote. The other labor union heads in his federation — of all whom had long been on record as opposing Martian independence — added their voices to his. They bombarded their members with emails, speeches, and video files, stating their position over and over. Eventually much of the blue-collar work force began to respond to their words, began to believe that maybe Jack Strough's way really was the better way. These workers began to send emails to Laura Whiting and the legislature demanding that the vote take place "in the interests of all Martians".

"Things have changed," was the most common quote in these emails — a quote supplied to them by Strough and the other labor heads. "We have achieved the respect we were looking for and can regulate our own destiny now. There is no more need for bloody battles out in the wastelands to keep corporate influence minimized. Now is the time for good old-fashioned diplomacy and negotiation to have its turn."

Interestingly enough, the MPG soldiers who had actually fought the WestHems were almost unanimously opposed to the vote or to settling for anything other than complete autonomy from WestHem.

"Those fuckin' factory workers, agricultural workers, miners, and dock workers are trying to throw away everything we just fought for," Jeff Creek complained to Belinda and Xenia one night. "And they're doing it in our name! They want to throw everything away so that we in the MPG don't have to fight the WestHems anymore? Bring those fuckin' marines on, I say! Bring 'em the fuck on!"

But the MPG, as popular as it was among the Martian populace, was outnumbered by the blue-collar workers by more than fifty to one. Their voice was not powerful enough to be heard, their vote unimportant to people such as Jack Strough. Eventually, Laura Whiting was forced to call another special election, scheduled — as requested by Strough — for the second Tuesday in January. The wording of the ballet was simple and straightforward. The voter was asked to make one of two choices.

The first read: I wish for Mars to remain an autonomous and independent planet, free of all WestHem influence and control, and that we will use any means at our disposal, including the use of our armed forces, to keep this planet out of WestHem hands.

The second read: I wish for Mars to be reconciled with WestHem on Martian terms and authorize immediate negotiation by a committee of government representatives and organized labor representatives with WestHem authorities to bring about such a reconciliation.

Golden Tower Housing Complex, New Pittsburgh

January 3, 2147

0255 hours.

The buzzing of his Internet terminal awoke General Jackson from the fitful sleep he'd been engaged in. He pulled himself out of bed, grumbling under his breath, and walked naked to the terminal, seeing that the call was from Captain Warren, the head of Laura Whiting's security detail (which had been reduced to little more than a surveillance detail since the governor refused to have anyone guard her anymore).

Jackson sighed and told the computer to answer. Warren's worried face appeared. "Sorry to wake you, General," he said.

"That's okay," Jackson said. "Where is she now?"

"She's on a train to Eden," Warren said. "She boarded the red-eye less than an hour ago. One of the men I have following her managed to make it on board with her. He reports she's talking to the passengers that are awake, telling them why they should vote for continued independence."

"Eden?" he said, looking up at the ceiling. "What in the hell is she doing now?"

"We looked through the planner on her computer," Warren said. "Apparently she's going to meet personally with members of the Agricultural Workers union as they go on shift in the morning. She's alerted MarsGroup so they can have a crew down at the deployment docks for the morning shift."

"Damn that woman," he said. "She's going to give me a fucking ulcer yet. Is it public knowledge what she's doing?"

"Not as far as I can tell," Warren said. "It sounds just like the same deal as with the miners and the manufacturing union members she met with here in NP."

He nodded. "Very well," he said. "See if you can scare up a few special forces members from Eden to go in plain clothes and keep an eye on things. That's about all we can do."

"Right, General," Warren promised. "I'll get right on it."

Warren signed off and Jackson, knowing that further sleep would be impossible, got up and walked to his pantry. He opened it and removed a small box full of Agricorp Greenbud. He walked to one of the kitchen cabinets and removed an electric bong. He filled it with fresh water, cut a slice of lemon and dropped it into the water, and then carried it to the seat by his window, which looked out over two other housing buildings. He took a few hits and tried to relax, his mind spinning with worry over several different things.

The vote was only a week away. It was anyone's call how it would turn out. Jack Strough, in the tradition of WestHem special interests dating back to the late twentieth century, had used a large portion of his organization's available funding (which came from the dues paid by the workers) to produce slickly done commercials touting his side of the ballet issue and then buying up hundreds of hours on every MarsGroup Internet channel to air these commercials. Jackson had seen many of these productions personally. One could hardly turn on any show on MarsGroup without seeing one at every break.

Strough's commercials were very reasonably worded. He took care to never insult Laura Whiting in any way, knowing how the populace revered her. Instead, he chose to combine graphic war images and cold WestHem military figures with the implied threat that worse would follow if Mars did not vote to come to terms and take advantage of the position of strength it now held.

The commercial that had been playing over the past two days was a perfect example of this. It opened with images of wounded men and women — all Martians — being brought in from the field and treated by medics. It showed shots of the dead lined up in neat rows. Jack Strough's voice would then begin speak.

"The battle we just fought for this planet was an honorable one, a just one, but a bloody one, costing us over three thousand Martian lives and wounding more than six thousand. We have achieved our goal of freeing ourselves from the tyranny of WestHem domination and influence. We have sent a very powerful message to the corporations of our mother planet.

"But the time for the sword is at an end. It is now the time for healing, for reconciliation. We stand in a position of strength right now but that will change if we do not take steps to come to terms with our former masters. They have a population of more than five billion. They have more than thirty million men under arms. They have vowed this planet will never achieve autonomy from them.

"These images you see are from a conflict in which they vastly underestimated us, in which they failed to send enough men to complete their mission. And even so, we barely scraped through without losing Eden to them. If they have to come back, they will send many more men, many more machines, they will cause many more deaths, and they will take that position of strength we now enjoy away from us.

"Governor Whiting is a great person. She will go down in history as the woman who freed our people. But if we continue on the course she suggests, we will not remain free. We cannot stand up to the face of WestHem military might indefinitely. Let's stop the killing before it can begin again. Vote for reconciliation with WestHem. We will deal with these corporations under our own terms and we will enjoy peace with honor.

"I'm Jack Strough and I represent the Martian Federation of Labor. Vote for reconciliation. Vote for peace."

Jackson had asked Laura if they could make their own commercials. He volunteered to appear in them himself, to explain to the populace that the MPG was going through a massive increase in forces, that tanks were now rolling off the assembly lines, that he had plans for even more formidable defensive positions outside of every Martian city. Laura refused.

"We will not sink down to that level," she said. "In the first place, the legality of using Martian credits issued by the government to purchase Internet advertising time is questionable at best. In the second place we would be seen as spewing propaganda to counter propaganda. That is not what a common sense government should do."

She was right, of course, but that only served to frustrate him more. He couldn't help but think that they were losing the support they'd enjoyed for so long. The working Martians were turning against them, grasping at the straw of peace that Jack Strough and his cohorts were waving before them. They were becoming convinced that Mars really couldn't exist without WestHem and that reconciliation on Martian terms really was the best solution.

"We'll lose everything eventually if they vote this in," Jackson had told Laura the day before. "It might take awhile, but as sure as I'm standing here, we'll be right back where we were a year ago at some point."

"You are more correct than you know," Laura replied.

"Then what are we going to do about it?" he'd pleaded. "Your speeches are good, Laura. The people still love you, but they're listening too much to that asshole Strough. They're letting themselves be seduced by him."

"I know," she said. "I'm very worried about that. I knew something like this would happen, of course — there is always someone trying to take advantage of new circumstances — but I was hoping that by now..." She'd trailed off, sighing again.

"By now what?"

"Never mind," she'd said. "It's in the hands of the Martian people now. I'm hoping for some divine intervention."

"Divine intervention?" he asked. As far as he knew Laura was an agnostic at best.

"Hopefully you'll find out soon," she said. "Time is running out on us."

Laura Whiting met with hundreds of agricultural workers at the Eden AgriCorp deployment center. They were thrilled to be in her presence and they swarmed around her, posing for pictures with her, shaking her hand, hugging her, and listening to what she had to say. All were members of Jack Strough's Martian Federation of Labor — the very people Strough was trying to get to carry the vote for him. Most expressed a seemingly sincere worry about being invaded again, about losing what they'd already fought for.

"All these people here," said one of the crew leaders, "are going out to help harvest and care for the vegetables and the marijuana that we're trading with EastHem. We've been going full-blast for the past three weeks to get that order up to Triad and onto those ships when they arrive. Most of us were unemployed before the revolution and had been for generations. We're all working and making good money now and we're worried that it will come to an end if we don't negotiate peace with WestHem."

"Don't you understand what you're doing?" Laura responded to him. "You're glad for the revolution because it gave you a job and allowed you to make money. In the same breath, however, you're telling me that we shouldn't fight anymore to keep what we fought for."

"Not if we can negotiate a suitable settlement with WestHem," he replied.

"If we let WestHem back in here, if we allow them any sort of control over our industries or our agriculture, we will go right back to where we were within a generation no matter how favorable the terms they've offered us are. They will be using their wealth to bribe our politicians again, corrupting our government, passing laws that will slowly, one by one, take away everything that we could hope to gain by negotiating with them. Use your common sense, Dawg. You have to know that what I'm saying is true. Deep down inside you have to know that."

The crew leader did know that what she said was true. He just didn't want to face it. He had been given a comfortable existence right here and right now and his self-interest would not allow him to think about might happen in the future.

"What about your children?" Laura asked him.

"Children?" he chuckled. "You mean child, right? And what about him?"

"No, I mean children," she said. "The legislature is right now working on a document that will officially repeal the birthing restrictions on Mars. Starting as early as next week, any woman can have as many children as she wishes. We're going to bring back brothers and sisters to the planet. We're going to bring back aunts and uncles. So what are your children going to have to endure if you piss away our revolution because you're afraid of losing your union scale wages? Do you want them to have no hope of college education? No hope of having a job when they grow up? Do you want them to be called vermin like the employed class used to call you?"

The crew leader was shocked by her words, as was everyone in earshot. Laura did have a way of putting things into perspective. She knew that most of these people that she talked to would be voting against reconciliation. She knew that her trips were doing a lot to change the minds of the workforce. But it could hardly be enough. There were millions of workers on the planet and there was no way she could talk to them all. She could make speeches on MarsGroup every few days — and she was doing that — but her words were not carrying the same power in the mass media format as they once had, in part because of the equally powerful words of Jack Strough. He was promising a quick end to the conflict, an easy out. The fact that his words were misleading, possibly even an out and out lie, just wasn't getting through. The people were enjoying the taste of their new life, of their new freedom, and they were desperate to preserve it: so desperate that they didn't want to continue gambling for fear of losing it — although by listening to Strough, that was exactly what they were doing.

She knew what needed to be done in order for the people to listen to her again, to pay attention to her words, to feel them with their hearts and souls. She knew, she was willing to accept the consequences of it, but it was something she could not put into motion herself. She would have to wait for salvation from without. She had thought it would have come by now but it hadn't. If it didn't come before the vote, it might be too late.

MarsTrans Intercity Passenger Terminal

January 3, 2147

1123 hours

"Look at all these fucking people," said Lisa Wong as she stared at the crowd that had gathered to see Laura Whiting off. "This is a goddamn security nightmare."

"I can't believe she actually announced on MarsGroup what time she was leaving," said Horishito, who was standing next to her, posing as her husband on this particular assignment.

Both of them were wearing frumpy civilian clothes — Lisa a pair of loose fitting blue shorts that hung nearly to mid-thigh and a looser-fitting tan shirt that covered her stomach and did little to display her respectable physique. Hoary was wearing similar clothing. The effect was to make them look like God-freaks — those ultra-religious Martians who still subscribed to the ancient Earth myths. This was just the cover they were looking for on this assignment. God-freaks were a small minority in the Martian population but could be seen through all walks of life. They were hardly noticed by the live-and-let-live Martian majority, usually uncommented on if they were noticed. The frumpy clothing of their disguises served two purposes. One, it hid the bulging muscles, ultra-flat stomachs, and toned thighs that marked them as special forces members. Two, it hid the communications gear and the 3mm pistols that were strapped to their waists.

They had been pulled out of their training regiments in order to act as a secret service of sorts for Governor Whiting, who was apparently in the habit of walking around in public without her own security detail. Governor Whiting did not know they were here. She did not know the other twelve special forces members — commanded by newly promoted Lieutenant Lon Fargo — were here, some disguised as other God-freaks, some disguised as terminal janitorial staff. The numbers had seemed adequate when they'd come out, this despite the fact that Whiting, in an interview on MarsGroup after her meeting with the agricultural workers, had actually announced she would be taking the 1150 train to Proctor, staying overnight there, and then meeting with the Proctor agricultural workers as they went on shift the next day. Fargo had figured that a crowd would show up to see the Governor in person but he had not figured on the more than five thousand that had actually arrived. After all, it was a workday and most Martians these days were employed, weren't they?

"This is insane," Lisa said, trying to squirm her way forward through the crowd toward the departure platform, Hoary hanging onto her left hand. They were still over thirty meters from where Whiting now was, and aside from Lon himself, who was disguised as a MarsTrans customer service technician and had worked his way to within actual sight of her, the closest of the operatives. "None of these people have been screened for weapons, not even superficially. They just walked right in. Any one of them could be carrying anything on them."

"It's like Governor Whiting has a fuckin' death wish or something," Horishito agreed. "Is Eden PD still on their way to augment us?"

"Lon said they have some of their own undercover officers already here," Lisa said. "They've got more on the way. They at least have some experience with this sort of thing since they protect the mayor."

"They need to find some way for us to coordinate with them and let us know where their officers are and visa versa. We might end up shooting at each other if we spot weapons."

"Shit," said Lisa. "I didn't even think of that. Why don't you call Lon about that while I keep pushing us through the crowd?"

"Right," Horishito said. "I'm on the motherfucker. Maybe we can all get on the same channel."

Lisa pushed forward, using her strength to squirm between groups of Martians, to twist in and out, to propel herself toward the loading platform where Laura Whiting was being mobbed. Horishito, holding onto her hand and speaking circumspectly on his radio, followed close behind, slipping into the gaps she created. The Martians gave way reluctantly, many of them saying things like, "go read your bible, freak!" or "we don't need to be saved, Laura's already saved us". Lisa uttered a few Jesus loves you's in order to maintain their cover and kept on pushing on.

Meanwhile, less than twenty meters away, another person was pushing forward as well, just as intent — if not more — to position herself close to Laura Whiting. That person was Belinda Creek and she had watched the news broadcast of Whiting meeting with the agricultural workers earlier this morning because it had pre-empted her soap operas. She had seethed with hatred as she'd gazed upon the face of the person she blamed for all of her recent woes. Laura Whiting had started this so-called revolution, putting an end to the lifestyle she'd grown up with. Laura Whiting had seduced her husband into military service to support her revolution, changing him from the man who would give her a child and a larger apartment to a man who had divorced her, who had turned her in to the police for profiteering, who had contemptuously thrown her away like a piece of garbage. And then the booze and the cigarettes — Belinda's main focus in life — had dried up because of Laura Whiting's revolution, leaving her twisting and seizing on her bed, sending her through the hell of withdrawal, nearly killing her. And now Laura Whiting had done the most hated thing of all. She had secured a fresh booze supply for Mars, had secured high-grade tobacco, but she was denying it to Belinda just because she didn't want to get a job! That was the cruelest, most vicious thing she'd ever imagined. Belinda couldn't even get marijuana anymore, all because of that cursed welfare reform law Laura Whiting had come up with.

She pushed forward, not gaining ground as quickly as Lisa and Horishito but moving relentlessly closer all the same. Finally she got to within ten meters, was able to see that hated face in person for the first time. Her resolve solidified as the fury surged through her. Until this moment she had not really been sure she was going to carry through with her plans. Now she was sure. Laura Whiting had to die. She had to die for everything she'd done to Belinda's ordered and structured life.

She felt the cheap pistol that was in her pocket, reassuring herself it was still there. She checked to make sure the safety was off. She then pulled her hand out of her pocket so she would not arouse suspicions. She pushed on again. A line of people had formed before Whiting, their purpose to shake her hand and say a few words to her. Belinda pushed herself into the line and began to move with it. She was thirty people back, moving forward at an average of one person every fifteen seconds.

Lisa and Horishito had managed to work themselves to within sight of Laura by this point. They stood hand in hand on the forward edge of the surging crowd, their eyes tracking over everyone within ten meters of the Governor. There were just too many people for them to give any one person more than a cursory examination. Both of them looked at Belinda Creek, but neither lingered on her for more than a second. Neither had time to notice the way her eyes were flitting back and forth, the way her teeth were chewing nervously on her lower lip, the way she was wringing her hands over and over, trying to keep them from reaching into her pocket prematurely.

"This is a fuckin' joke," Horishito said. "There are too many people here. How in the hell are we supposed to do anything? What are we even looking for?"

"Her luck has held this long," Lisa said. "Hopefully it'll hold through today as well."

"Fuckin' aye," Horishito said, looking at his PC to get the time. It was 1130. "Boarding for the train has already started. She'll probably wrap this shit up in another minute or two."

Laura Whiting was, in fact, planning to wrap this shit up even as they spoke. She had shaken hundreds of hands, talked to hundreds of people, been hugged and mobbed and even kissed a few times. She was weary and knew it was time to get on the train and hopefully catch an hour or so of sleep on the trip to Proctor. She had actually opened her mouth to tell the crowd that she was sorry for not talking to all of them but she had to go. And then she spotted the woman in the handshake line. She was a dirty blonde, her hair unwashed, her eyes bloodshot, her nose with the scattering of burst capillaries that denoted a chronic alcoholic. Laura did notice the flitting of the eyes, the wringing of the hands, the nervous, determined look on her face. She also noticed the slight bulge in the woman's right pocket — a bulge that could have been a make-up case or a PC or a marijuana case. Laura suspected, however, that it was neither of these things. She suspected it was a gun. She decided to stay a bit longer, smiling at the next person in line, receiving his thanks and his gratitude graciously, just as she'd received everyone else's.

The woman moved closer, person-by-person, her eyes locked looking everywhere but at Laura's face, her posture becoming more and more tense. Finally she was the next in line. Laura talked to the person in front of her, accepted a kiss on the cheek, and then wished him a good day. She told him to vote for independence. He promised her that he would. The man stepped to the side, allowing the woman to step forward. Her eyes were now locked onto Laura's face, a mask of hatred plainly showing now. Her hand dropped into her right pocket.

Laura smiled at her. "You're doing your planet a great service," she said. "And you don't even realize it."

The woman actually paused, confusion furrowing her brow as she tried to digest these words. Laura actually feared for a second that she wasn't going to go through with it. But then the hatred came back. The woman opened her mouth. "I got your fuckin' revolution right here, you cunt!" she yelled. The hand came out of her pocket. There was a gun in it.

The gunshots were shockingly loud on the crowded platform. Belinda had time to fire three times before the shocked bystanders surrounding her tackled her to the ground and stomped on her wrist, forcing the gun from her hand. All three of the hyper-velocity, hollow-point bullets struck Laura Whiting in her unprotected torso. They tore through her flesh, one ripping a hole in her ascending aorta, one destroying her left lung, the last exploding her liver and her hepatic artery. She staggered two steps backward and collapsed, the smile still on her face.

"Motherfucker!" Lisa Wong screamed, her own gun instantly in her hand. She rushed forward, pushing members of the crowd aside until she was kneeling next to the fallen governor.

Laura Whiting's eyes were still open. She was still aware. She looked at those around her and then, loudly and plainly, she said: "Keep Mars free, people. Keep Mars free."

She took a few more ragged breaths and then she faded. By the time the first dip-hoes got there four minutes later, she was dead.

No less than a dozen people heard her final words. Every one of these people reported these words to the MarsGroup reporters who wanted to know every last detail from every last witness. These words were broadcast across the shocked and mourning planet in every possible medium. They appeared on MarsGroup news sites, were told by weeping anchors during news shows, were repeated person to person.

"'Keep Mars free, people, '" General Jackson quoted as he cried for his friend during a press conference just twelve hours after her death. "'Keep Mars free.' With her very last breath in this life, she spoke those words plainly and for all to hear. That was her dying wish, her dying decree to the people of this planet. I don't think I have to tell anyone what she meant by that."

But Jack Strough thought that he needed to tell everyone what she meant. "It seems obvious to me," he opined — with a straight face no less — "that our revered governor, a woman we all respected deeply and loved passionately, in her dying moment, realized that a negotiated peace is the only way we can truly keep Mars free. That is the only explanation for why she uttered those dying words. One seriously doubts that a woman dying of multiple internal hemorrhages would have wasted the last of her energy telling us to 'Free Mars, people... ' if it did not indicate a sudden and perhaps divinely inspired reversal of her previously stated position on the matter — a position that she was, in fact, out campaigning for at the time of her death."

Jackson, sitting alone in his office, full of grief, in the preliminary stages of trying to plan a state funeral for the fallen governor, went into a near-murderous rage when he heard Strough's words broadcast over MarsGroup. Of all the sleazy, slimy, self-interested things Strough had pulled in the past, this was undoubtedly the sleaziest, the slimiest, the most horribly self-interested. He was actually trying to pervert Laura's dying words — that profound and heartfelt declaration — and make it seem she meant the exact opposite of what anyone with common sense would know she really meant.

Would the working class Martians believe Strough? Probably not, at least not in their hearts. But would they pretend to believe him? Would a sizable portion perhaps convince themselves in their own minds, out of a subconscious self-interest of their own, that Strough was right? Jackson thought that just might be the case. He needed to counter Strough in some way, to let the population know, in no uncertain terms, that Laura Whiting had died in stern, immovable disapproval of Strough's reconciliation goals. He needed to give a speech. He had only two days before her funeral but he needed to come up with something moving, something inspirational, something that would keep public opinion and the upcoming vote clearly on the side of righteousness. He needed to convince the Martians that Laura Whiting wanted them, needed them to be free and that to do anything less would stain her memory and lay waste to all she had accomplished for the planet.

He spent more than two hours trying to compose such a speech. He kept starting and then ultimately rejecting his efforts. He was either coming across too strong or too weak, either overstating his case or understating it. He could not seem to find the proper middle ground to occupy.

"Damn," he said, as hour number three rolled around. This was frustrating. He was a decent enough speechwriter — he generally wrote all of his own speeches — but for something of this magnitude, when the course of an entire people lay in the balance, he needed someone a little better at carving with words. He needed someone like... well... someone like Laura Whiting. Unfortunately, Laura really had no equal.

He computer terminal suddenly chimed, indicating an email had just arrived. As a public figure and the commanding general of an entire planet's armed forces, Jackson received hundreds, sometimes thousands of emails every day. He had two staff members who did little else besides sorting through this influx. Very few people, however, had his private email address, the one that delivered directly to his computer terminal in his office or to his PC. He called up the email program, mostly to give his mind something else to think about for a few minutes. He figured the email was probably from Zoloft or one of his other generals inquiring about the funeral plans he was supposed to be working on.

He looked down at the name on the sender line and his breath caught in his throat. A chill ran down his spine.

The email, sent just seconds ago, had come from Laura Whiting.

Jackson licked his lips a few times and tried to think of an explanation for this. His confusion was quite valid. Unlike in the twenty-first century, when email first became a primary method of communication, it was almost impossible in the twenty-second century for a person to use another person's email account to send a message. Every outgoing email required a voiceprint and a fingerprint verification from the sender in whose name it was being sent. Virtually the only way he could have an email from Laura Whiting was if Laura Whiting had sent it. But Laura Whiting was dead. She had been positively identified by the Eden office of the coroner using DNA matching. An autopsy had been performed on her. Currently her body was in the baggage section of a MarsTrans train somewhere between Eden and New Pittsburgh. Jackson knew that because he had made the return arrangements himself.

With a finger that trembled slightly he reached forward and touched the email icon on the screen, opening it. It was a text file with a video file attached to it. He looked at the date and saw the message had been composed on September 3, 2146, exactly three months ago. His eyes dropped to the text itself.

Dearest Kevin,

If you are reading this message then I am dead, undoubtedly taken down by an assassin's bullet. I'm writing this note now, as WestHem marines are planning to make another landing and with the ultimate outcome of the coming battle still in question, at least among most of our people, including those of you in the MPG. I, however, know that we will be ultimately victorious in this struggle. I know we will prevail on the battlefield. I am as certain about this as I am that the sun will come up in the morning, as I am that there will be dust storms in the winter. We will beat the WestHem marines without losing any of our cities and we will send them back to Earth in humiliated defeat.

I also know that a new struggle will begin after the marines are defeated, probably within days. There will be those who will attempt to destroy the unity of our planet for their own means. What is worse is that there will be a segment of our own people — weary of war and shortages — who will be willing to listen to these people. This cannot be allowed to follow its natural course. We must keep Mars free and committed to the ideals that launched this revolution in the first place.

Sadly, and with fear, I foresee my own death as well. I will not live to see the fruits of my labors. This too is as inevitable as those yearly dust storms I mentioned. I refuse to spend my life hiding behind a dense layer of MPG security forces who follow me to every errand I run, who plan out my every move in advance. I refuse this security for my own freedom even though I am a woman who has made many enemies on a planet where nearly every man, woman, and child owns a handgun. My death is coming and I accept this.

Attached to this email is a video file I made just an hour ago. It contains my final words to the Planet Mars and I want you to play it at my funeral, to let me have one last say before I'm committed to the ashes of the crematorium. I will program the computer to scan MarsGroup news files on a continuing basis. When it begins to detect news stories announcing my death then, and only then, will this email be sent to you.

Goodbye, my friend and don't grieve for me too long. I can guarantee you I died happy if I died on a free Mars.

Jackson had tears in his eyes as he read and then re-read the email. Of all the things Laura had done in the past to amaze him, this was perhaps the most amazing. She had spoken to him from beyond death. And now she wanted to speak to the planet from there as well.

He brought his finger down and touched the video file icon. The video player program automatically opened it up and began to play it. Jackson watched it all the way through, his mouth hanging open most of the time.

"My God," he whispered and then broke into a grin. "Laura... you're brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."

He quickly saved the email and then the video file. He made several copies of the video and distributed them to different portions of the Internet where he could easily retrieve them. He then told his computer to contact Diane Nguyen, CEO of MarsGroup.

Diane appeared on the screen almost immediately. "Hi, Kevin," she said, her own eyes a little swollen and reddened. "How are you holding up?"

"I'm doing better all of a sudden," he said. "I just got an email from Laura."

"Excuse me?" she said.

He explained it to her and even sent her a copy of the text portion. "You can print that up whenever you want. The video will remain in my possession until her funeral."

"Can you give me at least a summery of what's in it?" she asked hungrily, itching for more of the story.

"No," he said. "I won't breathe a word of it until her funeral. Then the whole fucking planet can watch it."

"Can I quote you on that?" she asked.

"Fuckin' aye," he told her.

Jack Strough did not know what was in the video Laura Whiting had made three months ago, the video that was to be played at her funeral, but he knew he didn't want anyone to see it. He tried to use his influence on the legislature members who were now in charge of the planet in Laura Whiting's absence. Well over half of them had been converted to his way of thinking about things (as he liked to term it). He asked them to declare the video an unfair influence on the upcoming election and to order it suppressed, hopefully forever but at least until after the special election.

Though the legislature seemed to be seriously considering such a declaration Jackson was able to counter this thrust with a quite skillful parry of his own. He went on live MarsGroup the night before the funeral and made a short but effective speech.

"Jack Strough is trying to corrupt the legislature into suppressing the video of Laura Whiting," he said. "He is trying to keep you, the Martian people, from hearing her last words because they scare him. He's afraid that the speech she planned in the event of her death will make you change your mind, will make you lose faith in him.

"Don't let him get away with this. Laura Whiting wanted you to hear her words; she needed you to hear her words. I have seen this speech and it is moving and inspirational, a credit to the woman we all loved, that we all stood behind during our darkest hours. I implore you, start sending those emails to the legislature again. Let them know that they cannot silence Laura Whiting."

The emails poured in. Millions upon millions of them in the two hours following Jackson's speech. The legislature voted unanimously to not suppress the video. Jack Strough, knowing that further attempts to suppress her voice would be ineffective and counter-productive, kept silent on the matter and simply hoped that a three-month-old recording would not be relevant to the events going on today.

He was wrong.

Capital Park, New Pittsburgh

January 6, 2147

The funeral started at 0900 hours. Laura Whiting's body lay in a simple casket made of cellulose, closed, as was Martian custom. The casket lay atop a platform before the capital park rose garden just outside the entrance to the Capital Building itself. Thousands upon thousands of grieving Martians from all walks of life gathered in the park to witness the ceremony. News cameras from MarsGroup were set up everywhere and broadcast the entire thing live.

It was short and to the point, as was also the Martian custom. General Jackson, in traditional MPG shorts and T-shirt, hosted. He gave a short speech about Laura's life and about her dream of making the planet free one day. He did not push the issue in any way. He knew that Laura herself would do a much better job of that then he could.

"I promised you all that I would play the video she sent me at the service today," he announced. "It is now keyed up and ready. My PC is linked to the MarsGroup broadcast equipment and when I tell my computer to play it, it will be seen on all MarsGroup channels as well as the large video screen behind me. And so, with no further ado..." He pulled out his PC and spoke a few commands to it. The screen behind him flickered and came to life. At the same time every PC and every video terminal that was tuned to MarsGroup — ninety-nine point seven of them according to later statistics — lit up as well. Laura Whiting's face appeared, looking tired but elated. A hush fell over the crowd, over the planet, as she began to speak.

"My fellow Martians," she said. "I am making this video in my office on September 3, 2146, between phases one and two of the first invasion of the Martian Revolutionary War. You are watching this at some point in the future, probably not more than a few months at most. I am dead, felled by an assassin. I have foreseen my own death and I have foreseen what will happen in these next few months. I make this video so I may share with you my hopes, my dreams, for the future of our planet and of our species.

"We will win our battle with WestHem. I know this to be true. As you are watching this, we might already have achieved that victory. There is no precognition at work here. I am not a psychic, not a prophet. General Jackson is the best military mind alive today. In the annals of history he will someday be included with the likes of Sun Tzu, Rommel, Macarthur, Patton, Li Chang, and Jacob Hornsby. Those WestHem marine commanders operating under a corrupt and flawed system are no match for General Jackson and the Martian spirit he has fighting for him. Military victory will be ours. It is only common sense.

"There is one other thing I foresee and again there is no divine influence involved here, only my common sense and my own knowledge of human behavior. What I am about to describe is as true as our assured victory and may already be underway by the time you view this video. This is something that is just as lethal to Martian freedom as a military defeat, only more gradual, more insidious.

"This is what I know. There will be those who will attempt to take advantage of our newly won freedom for their own purposes. These people will be fellow Martians, not Earthlings from EastHem or WestHem. They will be men and women with legitimate claim to citizenship on this planet but they will be those upon whom Martian values were lost at some point. They will be people in positions of power of some sort, people who know how to speak to large groups, who know how to get others to do what they want them to do, to believe what they want them to believe. I could name names of such people if I wanted to — there are ten or twelve right off the top of my head I consider most likely to do what I'm about to describe — but that is not necessary for my purposes here today.

"What these people will attempt to do is form a society that benefits them and those like them to the detriment of everyone else. They will attempt to form this society out of the fear, chaos, and confusion that will follow the withdrawal of the marines from this planet. It may be one person who tries this or it may be several, acting either independently or in conjunction with each other but their ultimate goal will be to usurp power for themselves and deny it to where it should go: to everyone. They will use your fear of further war, your hopes of prosperity, and your needs to put a quiet and painless end to the conflict against you in order to achieve their goals.

"The most likely scenario I foresee is an attempt to prematurely negotiate a peace treaty with WestHem and to keep Mars tied to WestHem and EastHem economically."

There was a gasp from the crowd at Capitol Park, from most of the other inhabitants of the planet who were watching electronically. She was talking about Jack Strough! She was describing his actions months before he even began to take them!

"My greatest fear, fellow Martians, the thing that keeps me awake at night, that has put these bags you see beneath my eyes, is that you will start to listen to such a person, that you will be tempted to take what seems an easy way out of the scary, free-floating, adrift sensation you will all feel in the immediate post-revolutionary phase of our history. If you succumb to this fear, if you stray from the ideals that drove this revolution, if you allow this planet to remain tied to either WestHem or EastHem in any way other than a strict trade of goods for goods, you will eventually end up right back where we started — under corporate control, with your very lives ruled by their sacred profit margins. It may take a generation to return to this point, it may take two, but if you allow any group to take advantage of your freedom for their own means it will reinforce the negative human value of brutal self-interest and allow it to continue flourishing in human nature.

"People, this revolution was not simply about improving conditions on Mars, about getting more jobs out there, about increasing wages, or even about ending the disparity of our people. It is about freeing our people from the constraints of greed, corruption, and corporate servitude for all time! It is about coming up with a system of government, a culture, in which life is fair and just for everyone. It is about casting off the old system we've slaved under for so long and developing a new system, something unique that will ensure that fairness forever. We must develop a new way of living, adopt a new human nature, and set a course that our people can follow forever, not just for a generation or two. We must make life fair and equal and in order to do that we must disdain completely all aspects of the EastHem and WestHem system. We must remain completely independent!

"I envision a Mars in which EastHem and WestHem money is useless to us and therefore has no value to corrupt our people or influence our economic system. Our mission on this planet is to grow and produce food for the people of Earth and we must continue to do that. We must not use our food as a weapon against them, must not withhold food from them unless — as is the case now — they make war upon us. This food must be given to both EastHem and WestHem in amounts dependent upon their population and their own food production capacities, not upon what they give us in return — at least not on the basic level. Luxury item trade can be arranged but it also must be strictly goods for goods. We will pay the workers who produce this food in Martian credits at pre-determined rates.

"Right now we rely upon EastHem for hydrogen fuel — a basic staple of society in this age. That must change as quickly as possible. Within five years we must build, operate, and protect our own fuel gathering operation in the Jupiter system, or, more feasibly, in the Saturn system. This will make us completely self-sufficient for all basic needs and will remove the influence that EastHem could potentially wield over our planet. Again, we will pay the construction workers, the engineers, the ship crews, and the people who staff such an operation in Martian credits issued by the Martian government.

"Once we are completely free of both EastHem and WestHem holds on our planet we are, at that point, completely free as a people. They will have nothing they can withhold from us and we would be able to carry on without them if need be. The most important thing, however — and I don't think I can stress this enough — is that we must never accept WestHem or EastHem money and we must never let them accept ours. In order for our new government to work, in order for it to remain free and committed to its values, we must remain completely separate economically.

"That is the most important part of my vision for Mars, the part in which there can be no compromise and, unfortunately, the part that those self-centered people I mentioned will want most desperately to change. If you refuse to allow them to change this, if you stand your ground and demand complete autonomy we can have, for the first time in human history, a government that truly is for the people, a world that truly is a paradise.

"Image a world in which education is the most important, most sacred thing. This is a world where schools can be built and staffed whenever and wherever they are needed, where institutes of higher learning are free and available to whoever meets the academic qualifications to attend them. Within a generation we will become the most educated people in history. Medical advances, physics advances, transportation advances, computer advances, agricultural advances would all leap forth since — as a free and autonomous people — our scientists and researchers would no longer be held back by corporate concerns or by profit margin concerns. These advances would be made in the name of humankind, not in the name of the dollar or the pound or even the credit.

"Imagine a world where everyone who wishes will have a job, will make a decent living, will be paid in a manner that reflects their skills and experience but in which no multi-millionaires, no billionaires can exist to corrupt the government with their donations and bribes.

"Imagine a world where the government representatives themselves are scrutinized for bribes, campaign contributions, or any other form of favoritism or influence peddling, where no one has the kind of money that would even make a bribery attempt worthwhile. Imagine government representatives that stay true to the ideals of public service because they are uncorrupted, because those who are prone to corruption would not seek out the job in the first place.

"Imagine a world where there are no more corporations, where we go back to the concept of the small business owner who runs his or her own shop, his or her own restaurant, his or her own intoxicant bar, his or her own pornography distribution service. This is where those paid in Martian credits will spend them, where they will buy the luxury items that working for a living entitles you to.

"Finally, imagine a world where you can have as many children as you wish, a world in which there are brothers and sisters again, in which children grow up knowing aunts and uncles and cousins — terms that have been obsolete since the beginning of the Cold War would be commonplace again. In that world your children would have the best education in history delivered to them even in the lowliest of the public schools and then they could go on — if they qualify academically — to a free advanced education up to and including a PhD at the finest colleges in history.

"This world I am describing is within your grasp, Martians. The hard part has already been done. You have freed yourselves from WestHem. Please, I beg of you with all that I am made of, don't take the easy road now. Don't let human nature and selfishness and an ingrained belief that life is not fair turn you from your path in history at this most critical juncture. You've made yourselves free, Martians. Follow through now and make that freedom matter. Make it last. Make it an example for all humankind to live by.

"I have some basic outlines for a common sense constitution that incorporates the ideas I have just mentioned and many more. I've been working on them for most of my life. They, like the message that contained this video, have been compiled into emails and injected into the Martian Internet with specific delivery directions and dates after my death. These emails will be sent to General Jackson, and three of my most trusted legislature members who stood behind me through thick and thin since the revolution. I trust these four people to present my ideas to you, the Martian people, in my name without distortion. They will begin appearing in inboxes very soon. Please, look them over, evaluate them, consider them, and, if they seem to hold water — and I sincerely believe they do — set up a constitutional committee of legal experts, business experts, economic experts, and just plain normal people. Get these people together so they can start working to polish these ideas and then implement them.

"Don't do this for me, Martians. I gave my life to this revolution, to the hope of creating a just and prosperous and, most of all, a fair society, but don't do it for me. Do it for yourselves. Do it for your children. And do it for all the children that will follow so that they may live and grow in an existence of fairness, where common sense rules.

"Keep Mars free, people. Keep Mars free."

The video ended, fading to a blank screen. The planet remained silent for the better part of five minutes. Finally, General Jackson stepped back to the microphone.

"I have nothing to add to that," he said. "I believe the Governor made her wishes quite clear. We will proceed with the funeral now."

They proceeded. Six pallbearers, including Generals Jackson and Zoloft, picked up her casket and began to carry it. They took it through the streets, a huge crowd surging around them, most of them crying, some uncontrollably. There was very little talking. They went six blocks from the capital until they came to a small industrial building that housed a Walker's Funeral Home and Crematorium. Like most pre-revolutionary businesses on Mars, Walker's had been owned by a corporation and was the largest funeral and cremation service in WestHem with more than twenty-eight percent market share of the "death benefit insured" business. Since the revolution, all of the Walker's had been taken over and run by the fledgling Martian government.

Laura Whiting's casket was carried inside and placed on a tastefully decorated conveyer belt that ran along one wall. Per instructions in her will no Martian flag was draped over it and only one MarsGroup cameraperson was allowed inside to record her final journey.

General Jackson stepped up to the casket and saluted it, tears running freely down his face. "I swear to you, Laura," he said, "that I will do everything in my power to carry out your wishes. I swear to you."

He nodded toward the crematorium technician and a button was pushed. The conveyer belt began to move. The casket was pulled inside a slot in the wall, into the cremation chamber. The combustion chamber closed. Another button was pushed. A high intensity laser flooded the chamber, vaporizing the cellulose casket in an instant, leaving Laura Whiting's naked body exposed. She was burned to nothing but a small pile of ash in less than ten minutes. These ashes would be removed and placed in an urn. Per instructions by Laura herself in her will, the urn would be placed on display in the lobby of the Martian Capitol Building "for as long as Mars remains free".

Jack Strough tried his best. He was on MarsGroup within an hour of Laura's funeral, explaining to the populace that Whiting's ideas, while admirable, were simply not feasible in the real world. "There is a precedent for the sort of economic system she is suggesting," he said. "It's called communism and it has already been proven not to work."

He expanded upon this thought over the next twenty-four hours but not many people were listening to him anymore. Not the common Martians, not the former vermin, not the current vermin, and not the working class that he'd counted as his best allies just days before. MarsGroup computers were now recording less than five percent of prospective viewers whenever he came on. Diane Nguyen, responding to a virulent stream of angry emails, was even forced to stop airing his commercials. What did show record levels, on the other hand, were downloads of the Laura Whiting video file. An incredible forty-nine million of them were requested in the hours after the funeral. For the first time in more than sixty years the Martian Internet actually slowed to a crawl it was so clogged with downloads.

January 10th arrived — the second Tuesday. Martian voter turnout was 98.7 percent. The measure for continued autonomy received 88.9 percent of the vote.

Mars would remain free.

Author's note

This has been an epic novel that has taken me more than seven years from the time I typed the first words to the time I typed the two words below this "Author's note". Based on the emails I have received, most of you have enjoyed my efforts. I thank you for taking the time to let me know that. I've tried to respond to as many of you as I could but to those of you I didn't respond to, please accept my apologies and know that even if I don't respond, I do personally read each and every email and I appreciate them all.

My special thanks to the dozens of people who found my minor grammatical, spelling, punctuation, and continuity errors in each chapter and took the time to email them to me (particularly you, Roxanne — I hope you're feeling well today). Again, I did not always have the time to thank you individually but I did appreciate the help.

Most of all, I'd like to thank my wife for putting up with my constant clattering at the keyboard while she was trying to sleep, for her understanding of my hobby, and for giving me the time I need to write, particularly this last month as I've frantically increased the pace toward the end.

My tale is told now. I have no plans at the moment to re-visit the Greenies universe as I intend to begin work on Intemperance II with my next writing session. There is, however, at least one more novel's worth of story between the end of Greenies and the beginning of A Perfect World. There is also an infinite amount of novels after the end of A Perfect World. There's a good chance I will feel compelled to return to this universe one day.

Peace to all,

Al Steiner

August 28, 2006

Content

Greenies
by Al Steiner

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Author's note