Greenies

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.