Greenies

telling.'

They all looked and saw that she was right. The MarsGroup reporter was now explaining that they'd downloaded some clips taken from the Big Three — whose broadcasts could still be caught on any home video screen or PC for those who wished to view them.

'This is a press conference given a few hours ago by WestHem Executive Councilperson Loretta Williams,' the MarsGroup reporter said. 'As you know, Ms. Williams is the representative for the planet Mars on the council and it is she who has acted as executive spokesperson on all Martian matters since Governor Whiting's inauguration day speech. Here she is explaining the removal of General Wrath from command of the Martian task force, his subsequent arrest, and the resulting pullback to space. As you'll see, their version is a bit different from ours.'

The screen changed over to a visibly aged Loretta Williams standing behind an executive podium. The shot was mid-conference, having skipped over all of the preliminaries. '... that General Wrath has been engaged in unprecedented levels of corruption, incompetence, and falsification of reports ever since the task force left Earth for Mars. These crimes against WestHem have grown even worse and more deadly to the troops that placed their trust in this fiend since the landings themselves. It has come to light that General Wrath has cut corners on maintenance and oversight of the armored vehicles under his command to the point that hundreds of them in each theater of operation became disabled by breakdowns and accidents. This has left many of the troops that relied on these armored vehicles for transportation to the battle area and support during battle, exposed to terrorist suicide attacks and artillery fire. This caused many casualties, the true numbers of which General Wrath was then under-reporting in his daily briefings. We are also told that he ordered the marines to attack each greenie defensive area they encountered instead of simply bypassing them and heading directly for the edges of the cities where they could have broken through with ease and left the terrorist forces behind them. While his intentions could perhaps be called admirable — he wanted to kill or capture every single greenie terrorist manning every single position — it was an untenable goal militarily and it cost many good men their lives. It is in the Jutfield Gap outside of Eden and in the Formica Gap outside Proctor that this ill advised and horrible plan took the worst toll. Though the General reported casualties of ninety marines in these two battles investigation has revealed that we actually lost more than two hundred. And since then another ninety-seven have fallen.'

There was a collective gasp from the reporters assembled for the briefing.

'Madam Councilwoman,' asked one of them. 'Are you saying that more than three hundred marines have been killed on Mars to this point?'

'Sadly, the count is three hundred and six killed, two hundred wounded,' she replied, seeming near tears at the admission. 'That is more than twice the expected casualty rate for the entire conflict and we still aren't standing in those Martian cities.'

'Three hundred and six?' Matt scoffed. 'Do their people really believe that shit? I killed more than that myself!'

'Me too,' said Brian's prospect for the night. 'There's twelve to an APC and I've got forty-nine confirmed kills caught on camera.'

'You didn't kill them,' Brian told her. 'Those were the ones that broke down because General Wrath cut corners on maintenance.'

'Of course,' she said, smiling.

'This is exactly what I was talking about,' Surrender told them. 'The WestHem press is not free, it's corporate owned and the corporations own the government. They report only what they're told. Even bad news like a humiliating defeat is twisted and distorted and blamed on a single person. There's no way they could ever release the actual casualty figures or tell what really happened out there because the WestHem public would be horrified and demand an immediate end to the war.'

'But how long can they keep something like that under wraps?' Brian asked. 'They've lost thousands of soldiers out here, literally thousands. All of those soldiers have families who will have to be told they're dead.'

'And each one of those families,' Surrender said, 'will assume that their son or husband or father was simply one of the four hundred their press is admitting to. Without any information to the contrary, without any official list of all casualties printed somewhere, how would the families know any different?'

'Wow,' Matt said, overwhelmed by the level of deception WestHem was capable of.

'Wow is right,' Surrender said. 'Listen to this part. She's going to explain why they had to go back to orbit. This should be rich.'

It was indeed rich. Loretta Williams told the WestHem public — with a perfectly straight face — that the WestHem marines were fearful of causing too many civilian casualties and destruction and of losing any more of their soldiers by continuing with the horrible plan that General Wrath — the incompetent traitor — had come up with.

'In light of the human shield tactics the greenie terrorists are utilizing and in light of the flawed and costly head-on attacks that General Wrath ordered the marines to use, it was thought by General Browning — the new commander of the Martian taskforce — that it would be prudent to pull everyone back up to the Panamas and regroup. This will give them a chance to replace expended munitions, go over every armored vehicle in detail, and, most importantly to draw up a new plan for the marines to foment the liberation of that planet.'

'How long will it be before the marines make new landings?' asked one of the reporters.

'No more than two weeks,' Williams promised. 'General Browning and his staff are already hard at work on the new liberation plan. I expect a preliminary draft on my desk in twenty-four hours.'

The preliminary draft of which she spoke was currently sitting on General Browning's desk — what used to be General Wrath's desk. Browning — now dressed in the Martian red camouflage scheme to impress the viewing audience when he was caught on camera — was going over it in detail with it's author, Major Wilde.

'As you can see, General,' Wilde was telling him, 'the whole thing starts with an extensive air and space campaign designed to cripple Martian communications, supply efforts, and troop transport abilities. Space fighters will begin fanning out throughout high and low Martian orbit, destroying every satellite they can aim their lasers at. That should start in less than forty-eight hours as it will take the better part of a week to get them all.'

'Won't that completely eliminate our ability to use GPS as well?' Browning asked.

'Yes,' Wilde admitted, 'but we don't have that ability now and it appears the hackers in our intelligence unit are not going to be able to ferret out the encryption codes any time soon. We, however, have learned to operate down there without GPS data. The Martians, on the other hand, have been relying upon their ability to accurately know their position. It's how they put their mortars and their artillery on target with such uncanny accuracy. It's how they are able to call in Mosquitoes and get their special forces teams right where they're needed. If we take communications and navigation away from them, they will be helpless out there.'

Browning nodded. 'I see,' he said. 'And then we start strategic surface bombing?'

'We start that simultaneous with the anti-satellite campaign,' Wilde said. 'The first thing that needs to go is the Alexander Industries ammunition plant outside New Pittsburgh. That is where the Martians are getting all of their bullets, mortars, and artillery shells. We need to send no less than six flights after that target and flatten it. It shouldn't be too hard to do. One good hit in the right spot and the plant will blow itself up.'

'I don't want any civilian casualties from this,' Browning said. 'That doesn't look good on my record. The press is on our side but one thing they love to report on is civilian deaths.'

'Civilian casualties would be limited to those who actually work in the plant. The building is located outside the city proper, far enough away that even a catastrophic explosion would not hurt civilian infrastructure.'

'Very good,' Browning said, nodding. He looked back down at the briefing material. 'You have a considerable target list here. Is all of this really necessary?'

'It is absolutely necessary,' Wilde said. 'Most of these targets, as you can see, are to their rail network that runs between their cities. We hit every bridge, every tunnel, every portion that passes over or under something. This keeps them from making easy repairs and getting the system back in operation in a day or two. If these targets are hit successfully — and there's no reason to think they won't be — Eden will be completely isolated from the other cities by rail. The Martians won't be able to move troops or equipment there. Reinforcement would be impossible and the Martians in Eden would have defend against our entire task force and all of its armor with only the troops they have stationed in that city.'

'I like it,' Browning said, already envisioning his triumphant march to the Agricorp Building, which he planned to make his headquarters.

'It's simple and direct,' Wilde said. 'Once the bombing campaign has achieved its goals the landing craft go