Greenies

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 9^th, and the 14^th. 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 9^th ACR will be deployed in defensive zone two on the southern end of the gap. The 14^th will be deployed in defensive zone three on the northern end. And we, the 17^th 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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 2^nd 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