Greenies

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