Greenies

Jeff pointed at the still body on the ground. 'He gets to stay here,' he said. 'Medic says he doesn't have a chance.'

They all contemplated that for a few moments, staring at the soldier's wrecked face, at the holes drilled in his leg and neck, at the green light on his suit that suddenly turned a lethal red as he finally, mercifully died.

'I guess he was right,' Hicks said.

'Yeah,' Jeff agreed. 'Is this goin' on all up and down the line, you think? Does every fuckin' hill out here have this many casualties?'

'Not every one,' Drogan said. 'The medics told us the Earthlings hit the hardest in the center of the gap, where we are. A lot of the hills were hardly touched. They just decided to pound on this one because it's guarding the biggest opening.'

'Which means they're gonna pound on it just as hard when they send the infantry after us,' Hicks said. 'We're on prime fuckin' real estate, man and the next time they're gonna be shooting those eighties at us. We'll be the ones laying down here, abandoned with fuckin' holes in our necks.'

'They're not abandoning the living ones,' Drogan said. 'Just the corpses. You stay alive and they'll get you out of here. I watched how hard the medics are working to save those people.'

'That'll make my mom feel real good when she gets the email that the Earthlings blew my face open,' Hicks said. 'She'll also love to know that they left my dead ass out here for all eternity. That she won't even get my ashes to put in a fuckin' jar.'

'So what are you saying, Hicks?' Jeff asked. 'You had enough?'

Hicks breathed deeply, looking around at the controlled chaos of the evac area, watching as two more groups of soldiers brought two more casualties down. 'I didn't sign up for this shit,' he said. 'I mean... I knew I could die out here, but I didn't know... you know... that I could die like this.'

'I'll admit,' Drogan said, 'it ain't as pretty as candlelight glinting off a wet pussy.'

Her attempt at humor fell short.

'I ain't goin' back up there,' Hicks said, looking at the hillside.

'You gonna walk back to Eden?' Drogan asked him.

'If I have to,' he said. 'Or I could hitch a ride on the back of one the support APCs. They're at least going back to the main line. I can get back from there.'

'You're serious about this?' Drogan asked. 'You're gonna leave us right before the battle? Abandon your platoon?'

'It ain't my fuckin' platoon,' Hicks said. 'It's Queen Laura the First's platoon and I ain't dying for her.'

Jeff looked at him pointedly and shook his head in disgust. 'Ain't that just like a fuckin' Thruster?' he said. 'Throwing in the towel as soon as the shit gets a little too heavy.'

'Hey, fuck off!' Hicks told him. 'This don't have nothin' to do with the Thrusters or the fuckin' Capitalists.'

'Sure it does,' Jeff said. 'This is the reason we kicked your asses off Ninety-Second Street and took over one of the finest dust selling locations in the whole city. We went after you and put the heat on you and you all caved like little kids on the schoolyard. The same fuckin' thing you're doing now.'

'I told you, you didn't beat us! We pulled out of there 'cause of the heat, man!'

'You made that excuse to save face with yourselves,' Jeff told him. 'You know as well as I do that you couldn't take the heat from us. A couple ambush attacks, a couple of your main dealers blown away, and you went crying home and tried to say the cops are what made you do it. That's fuckin' bullshit and so is your Queen Laura rationale. You told me you voted for her, remember? You told me you wanted to fight to make Mars free, that you were fucking willing to die for it, but now that the shells have come flying in, now that you've had to look at people who did die for it, you're pussing out and making excuses about it. Go ahead and fuckin' leave, Hicks. We don't need some Thruster pussy up there anyway.'

Jeff could actually see Hicks' face turning red. The increased blood flow showed up quite nicely in infrared. 'I don't want to die, man!' he said. 'Don't you understand that?'

'You think I want to die?' Jeff asked him. 'You think I'm suicidal or something? You think I ain't scared shitless about what's gonna happen when them tanks come rolling on our position the next time? I am, man. I'm fuckin' petrified. But I'm going back up there and I'm gonna fight those assholes until they tell me to stop or until they drag my ass down the hill with half my head blown off. You know why?'

'Why?'

'Because I think we're gonna win this war,' he said. 'I think we're gonna be free. And twenty years from now, when they're teaching kids in school about the Battle of Jutfield Gap and the Battle of Eden, I wanna be able to say I was there, that I killed Earthlings there, that I fuckin' helped win the war. And if I ain't alive to say that, my fuckin' parents and my fuckin' friends will say it for me. What are you gonna say in twenty years, Hicks? You gonna tell people you was at the Battle of Jutfield Gap but as soon as the enemy shot a couple shells at someone else's fuckin' position you ran away like a little girl who saw a rat in the hallway?'

Hicks looked away from Jeff's face and stared up the hillside again. He shuddered a little and then turned back to them. Slowly he nodded. 'You never would let me live that down, would you?' he asked.

'I wouldn't give you a second thought the moment you climbed on that APC and went away,' Jeff told him. 'But it ain't me you gotta worry about. Would you ever let you live it down?'

'No,' Hicks said. 'I guess I wouldn't.'

'All right then,' Jeff said. 'So you coming back up the hill with us, or what?'

Hicks shifted his M-24 on his shoulder. 'Let's go,' he said. 'Maybe we can catch a little nap before they come back.'

They walked back to the trench entrance and started back up. On the way they passed three more wounded being brought down.

'Casualties are higher than expected,' General Jackson told the image of Laura Whiting on his screen. 'We held their tanks at the Jutfield Gap, but only barely. We were actually in the process of withdrawing our forces to the blue line behind the gap when they decided they'd had enough and turned back.'

'I see,' she said, her eyes probing. 'What are the numbers?'

'Two hundred and sixty-three dead at Jutfield,' he recited. 'Half that many wounded and out of action. We lost fourteen tanks and eighteen APCs. A number of the trenches and tank positions got torn up as well and are unsuitable for primary protection in the next engagement. The commanders on scene are shifting units around to plug up those holes.'

'And at New Pittsburgh?' she asked.

'It's not as bad there,' he told her. 'The gap protecting the New Pittsburgh approach is narrower and hillier, allowing us to concentrate more troops in a smaller area. They threw them back after only ten minutes. Seventy- five were killed, ninety wounded. Only eight tanks and twelve APCs lost. We did lose two Mosquitoes and their crews there, however. They apparently crashed into a hillside while making a run. The lead underestimated a turn and went in, the wing followed right behind.'

'Inexperienced pilot?' she asked.

'Yes,' he confirmed. 'That and the fatigue factor is probably the cause of the accident. Some of those guys have done more than a hundred sorties since the invasion started. They're trying to keep the pressure up on the Earthlings and only getting three or four hours of sleep a day.'

'Anything else?' she asked.

He nodded. 'We also had a hover go down while evacuating wounded out of New Pittsburgh. More than likely that was a mechanical malfunction. Everyone aboard is confirmed dead.'

'What about Libby and Proctor?' she asked next.

'It seems General Wrath might have learned from the beating he took at Eden and NP. The tank units were pulled back from Libby and Proctor before they even got in range to engage. That's a mixed blessing. Proctor has the narrowest defensive gap of them all, only fifteen kilometers wide. We would've massacred them in spades there and it's doubtful they would have even got close enough to put accurate fire on our trenches. At Libby, on the other hand, we have the widest first-line defensive corridor. It's almost seventy kilometers wide and there are several places they can flank it if they choose. We're spread extremely thin through that area and we have to keep one of the ACRs uncommitted and in reserve to defend against a flank attack. They more than likely would have been able to push through and open a corridor if they would have concentrated forces on the center.'