war has been run so far has been criminal.'
Wilde reviewed what he knew about Browning. He was two years junior to Wrath, a WestHem Military Academy graduate, and the son of a famous pre-Jupiter War General of the Corps. His advancement through the ranks was rumored to be more because of his father's reputation than his own. He was, in fact, a hopeless yes-man who kissed any ass put in his face and stepped on every head below him on the ladder as a matter of course. He probably knew next to nothing about military history and only a little bit more about military strategy. In short, he was a man who would rely on his staff to make decisions for him, just like Wrath.
'I agree with you, General,' Wilde said. 'It was apparent to me from day two or so after the landings that we were in serious trouble. General Wrath tried his best to control this situation but, unfortunately, he did not always take my advice on the best way to conduct this war when things began to turn for the worse. You can call me criminal if you wish, but I am a military realist and I have tried to give the best advice for the situation at all times and I would continue to do so if retained in my position as aide.'
'I already have an aide,' Browning said. 'Major Mitchell Fling. I understand you were a classmate of his?'
'That is correct,' Wilde said. Fling had been an English major of all things — a man who had cheated and backstabbed his way through the academy and had cheated and backstabbed his way up the ladder since. If Browning started taking advice from that clown they might as well just go home now and save all the blood that would be shed as a result.
'Do you think you are better qualified to act as my aide than Major Fling?' Browning asked.
'Yes,' Wilde said. 'If only for the fact that I have been intimately involved with all stages of this war since the beginning and I have already established the communication lines and the trust of the generals on the ground.'
'But you think you know more about warfare as well, don't you?'
'Yes, sir, I do,' Wilde confirmed. 'I have a master's degree in military tactics and have made the subject my life's work. I understand that Major Fling's degree is in English Composition, is it not? He may be able to write prettier reports than I, but I don't think his advice would be quite as sound.'
'You're very arrogant about your experience,' Browning said. 'I like that. So tell me, Major Wilde, what do you think is the best, fastest way to bring this war to a successful conclusion? Major Fling is of the opinion that we should turn those troops around right now, right this moment, and order them to blast through the greenie lines in a lightening fast assault.'
'Major Fling's opinion is as wrong as an opinion could be,' Wilde said. 'As I told General Wrath when I suggested we withdraw to orbit and regroup, we cannot push through any of the lines guarding any of those cities after the losses we've taken to this point. It is flat out impossible. A perfect example of a military unreality. To even attempt it would be to doom thousands more marines to their deaths and to give the Martians a morale boost that later expeditionary forces would have to deal with. We've lost this battle, sir. There's no way to turn things around at this point. All we can hope to do is capture a single Martian city and hold it until the next wave of marines gets here.'
'So you're saying there is no way to achieve the objectives we were sent here to achieve?' Browning said.
'That is exactly what I'm saying, sir,' Wilde said. 'The Martians have proven to be a much more formidable foe than we ever dreamed of giving them credit for. I was as guilty of underestimating them as anyone else in the beginning. But now that I see the reality of the situation, I can state unequivocally that the absolute best we can hope for at this point is to capture and hold a single Martian city — I would suggest Eden — and wait for more troops to come to help liberate the rest of the planet.'
'So you're saying that I cannot fulfill the orders the executive council charged me with when they put me in command?'
'If those orders were to capture the entire planet with the troops we have left, I would have to say yes. That is what I'm saying.'
'But Major Fling tells me that I
'He's either stupid or telling you what you want to hear,' Wilde said.
'That's a very inflammatory proclamation,' Browning said.
Wilde simply shrugged. 'If you want to have a few moments of glory on the Internet cameras and then eventually end up being led away in handcuffs like General Wrath, you just keep listening to Major Fling. If you want to walk away from this war with your rank and career intact, you listen to me. It's your choice, General, although I think those marines down there on the surface would fare a lot better if you chose me.'
Browning thought this over for a few moments. 'Okay,' he finally said. 'Why don't you give me an outline of your master plan? If I agree to retain you and listen to your advice, what would you advise me?'
'We haven't been treating this like a real war,' Wilde said. 'We've been treating it like a pushover. Well, it's turned out that the Martians are not a pushover and I think its time we start treating them with the respect due a worthy adversary.'
'What do you mean?'
'Pull everyone back up to orbit,' Wilde said. 'Get them re-outfitted, re-armed, re-organized into one huge army designed to take a single target — as I said, Eden makes the most sense because it's centrally located, it's a rail hub, and it's their largest agricultural production center as well as their most important city. Before we make our landings we need to send atmospheric craft down and bomb their railheads and rip up their intra-city rail tracks. This will keep them from moving forces from the other cities to help defend Eden and will break their supply lines. We also need to send space fighters out to destroy every communications and navigation satellite we can hit. This will take away their GPS advantage and cripple their ability to talk to each other and send orders out. Once we've done all that we come down and send everything we have through the Jutfield Gap and into the main line of defense. Our numerical superiority should be somewhere in the vicinity of ten to one, maybe a little more since the Martians are not attacking our units as they retreat. We'll capture Eden and occupy it.'
'And from there we can take the rest of the planet?'
'It will take a while,' he admitted, 'but eventually, we will prevail. With the ability to land our forces directly in one of their cities and move them by rail to where they're needed next, we will be able to capture each city one by one until they are all back in our hands.'
Browning paced about the room for a minute as he considered what Wilde was telling him. It was obvious he didn't like the thought that he would not be able to take all of Mars in one fell swoop like the council wanted him to. But it was also obvious that he retained just enough military knowledge from his academy days and his years in the Corps to realize that Wilde was right.
'Okay,' he finally said. 'You've convinced me. I want to have a full briefing for the council by this time tomorrow. You start drawing up your plans and have them on my computer by 0600.'
'Yes, sir,' Wilde said, feeling something like hope for the first time in weeks.
Chapter 19
Eden MPG base
September 3, 2146
The smell in the outside deployment male locker room was horrid, perhaps the worst olfactory sensation Jeff had ever experienced. The thought that he was contributing to it did nothing to ease his disgust. It was the smell of over a thousand combat soldiers who had been outside for eight days, sweating inside of their biosuits, unable to shower or even evaporate the sweat properly. The moment they began to remove the biosuits in the confined space all those layers of perspiration, most of it old, began to permeate the air like a gas.
'I'm gonna fuckin' puke,' said Hicks, who was standing next to Jeff and who did indeed appear to a bit green around the gills.
'Go ahead,' Jeff told him, peeling the main portion of his suit downward as gingerly as possible. 'It can't possibly make it smell worse in here.' He disconnected the urine catheter and eased away from the solid waste tube stuck to his anus. His penis was raw and tender from so many days with a piece of latex on it and he winced
