Greenies

'What kind of steps?'

'We need to pull everyone back to the LZs immediately.'

'What?' Wrath cried. 'Pull back? Retreat? That's impossible! Do you have any idea what the council will do to me if I even suggest such a thing? How would we even explain such a thing to the media? I know they're a bunch of sheep who do what they're told, but this would be too much for them to swallow.'

Wilde sighed. 'Sir,' he said. 'I'm not going to pretend to be an expert in relations with the council or with the media. The politics of this conflict are your field. I'm your aide because I hold a Master's degree from the WestHem military academy in Military Strategy. I only deal with the reality of the given situation and I'm here to tell you there is no hope whatsoever of taking even one of those cities under the plan we have operating now. We need to disengage from the Martians and pull everyone back to the LZs. We then need to launch our landing ships off the surface and pull everyone back into orbit.'

'Leave the planet entirely? Wilde, you should be shot for even saying that! Marines don't run away!'

'We ran away at Callisto,' he said, 'and we need to run away here. We need to regroup everyone back in orbit, re-arm, re-assign, and get some unit cohesion back in this task force and then we need to go back down in full strength on a single target.'

'Send everyone after one target? We can't recapture the planet that way.'

'No sir, we can't,' Wilde agreed. 'No matter what we do, another task force is going to have to be sent here from Earth in order to recapture Mars completely.'

'I can't accept that,' Wrath said. 'I can't do that! I came here with half a million troops to take this planet back from those greenies and that is what I'm going to do.'

Wilde shook his head. 'With all due respect, sir,' he said. 'You've already failed at that task. We're down to two choices here. You can continue to push forward and get a lot more men killed for no gain, or you can do as I suggest and withdraw to orbit and regroup. Once that is done we go after Eden with everything we have and we capture it.'

'What about the other eleven cities?' Wrath asked. 'What about Triad?'

'We're not going to take the other eleven cities or Triad no matter what. More troops, more equipment, more armor, and more fuel will need to be sent here in order to do that. But if we can at least take Eden from them, we'll have their most important city under our control until those additional troops get here. We'll have a sizable portion of their agricultural industry in our hands and, most important, we'll have a fully functional spaceport to which those additional troops can be offloaded. We won't have to land the next wave of marines out in the wastelands. We can land them at Eden, which is the central hub for their entire rail system. Troops can be moved to just outside the air umbrella of New Pittsburgh, assembled, and can then march in force on that city. Or we can head to Libby, or to Proctor, or to Ore City. If we control Eden, we will eventually take everything back under control.'

'Eventually?' Wrath asked. 'How long is eventually?'

'Several years, sir,' Wilde admitted.

'Years? You're suggesting we let those greenies control the majority of this planet for a couple of years?'

'Again, sir, I'm talking realities here. We're not letting them do anything. We're going to have to fight and sacrifice heavily to win this war. What I'm suggesting is the best option we have. The Martians have turned out to be a worthy opponent. If we're going to retake this planet at all, the only way we're going to do it is to hit one city at a time with at least a six to one advantage. If we do anything less, they will defeat us.'

Wrath leaned forward and took a cigarette out of his desk drawer. He lit up despite the knowledge that it was going to make his ulcer flare up within minutes. 'The council will not like this at all,' he said.

'No, sir, I don't think they will.'

'They will remove me from command, probably have me arrested, probably blame this defeat on me.'

Wilde nodded. 'That's a very likely scenario, sir,' he said.

'And yet you still think I should pull the men back?'

'You're going to have to face the consequences one way or another, sir,' Wilde told him. 'If you take my advice and pull them back they might have you arrested. I won't deny that. But if you don't take my advice and order them forward, they will be defeated as surely as I'm standing here, even if they do agree to follow your orders. You will surely be arrested when that happens, wouldn't you say?'

Wrath slowly nodded. 'Yes,' he said, taking an especially deep drag and blowing it slowly out of his mouth.

'So what are we going to do, sir?' Wilde asked.

'The frying pan or the fire, huh?'

'Yes sir.'

Wrath gave a small smile, a cynical, unhappy smile, but a smile nonetheless. 'I guess I'll have to take the frying pan then. Let's get a staff meeting going and start drawing up some withdrawal plans. Once that's done, I'll get on the line with the executive council and tell them what I've done.'

The 17^th ACR, having defended the middle position throughout the entire first line of defense period had finally been pulled off the front line and moved to the rear twelve hours before. Now that the marine units had reached the main line of defense, which was guarded by the 2^nd Infantry Division, the 17^th, along with the other two ACRs, were being held in reserve, their job to respond to any potential breeches in the line as reinforcements when the marines attacked. Their tanks and APCs were spread out in a neat line some two kilometers from the entrance to the MPG base. Most of the men and women were taking the opportunity of this lull in combat operations to catch up on some much-needed sleep.

Jeff Creek had grabbed about six hours or so, stretching out on the ground next to his squad's APC. And now, after a nourishing meal of beef paste and reconstituted water he slung his M-24 over his shoulder and wandered off to the east, towards the tanks.

He knew Xenia was still alive and she knew he was still alive. Though the past three days had been an endless serious of bloody battles in which he'd killed hundreds of WestHem marines followed by frantic retreats from position after position, he and Xenia had still found the time to text message each other during the slow periods. She had told him about Sanchez dying out in the wastelands on the first retreat and about how Zen had been promoted to commander of the tank and she had been promoted to gunner. She had told him that a woman named Belinda Maxely (god how he even hated hearing his wife's name now) had replaced her as the tank driver. But those were just text messages, little thirty word essays that were almost impersonal. He wanted to see Xenia in the flesh — or at least in her biosuit — and talk to her person to person in real time. He only hoped she wanted to see him as well.

It turned out that she did. He found her by asking his combat computer to locate her for him and then followed his mapping software to the little red dot. She was sitting atop the turret of the tank, leaning against the main gun barrel and looking to the east where the flashes from the artillery cannons could be seen firing an endless stream of 150mm shells at the WestHem positions. Lying on the tread guard, seemingly unconscious, was another figure — probably Zen Valentine. Jeff crossed around the back of the tank until he was in Xenia's field of view. It took her a moment to recognize him but when she did she practically leapt off the tank and rushed to him, throwing herself into his arms and wrapping hers around his back.

As far as hugs went, it wasn't the most physically satisfying. They were both still wearing their biosuits, of course, and the body contact just wasn't there. Nevertheless Jeff found himself flushing at the contact in a way he'd never flushed when putting his arms around Belinda.

They broke the embrace and looked at each other through their faceplates for a moment. Xenia then tapped her leg where her radio controls were and held up seven fingers, meaning they should switch to the extremely short-range channel seven so they could talk. They did so.

'It's good to see you,' she told him. 'Especially after the pounding you guys took over the last few days.'

Jeff nodded. The ACRs in the Eden theater of operations had suffered 650 killed, twice that many wounded. His own squad had suffered two killed outright, two injured badly enough to be permanently disabled, and one — Drogan — who had been wounded and returned to the line just yesterday. 'It was pretty bad out there,' he agreed. 'You guys in the tanks didn't exactly have a fuckin' cakewalk either.'

'No,' she said. 'We lost some tanks and... you know... Sanchez.'