Greenies

'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