Greenies

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