Greenies

'Surely you don't think one of the media representatives went back on their word, do you?' Browning asked him. 'It had to have been one of the staff members of the joint chiefs or perhaps some lowly secretary in an Executive Council office.'

'It doesn't matter who leaked,' Wilde hissed, resisting the urge to slap the man across the face. 'Don't you understand that? It doesn't matter! The information is now out there and the Martians are going to start responding to it. We need to begin initiating the plan immediately, before they have a chance to take steps to counter us.'

'But it's not scheduled to start for another twenty-seven hours,' Browning said. 'It begins at midnight with the coordinated anti-satellite missions. The media need to have time to set up their cameras and microphones in the F-22 bays so they can get shots of the fighters heading out on their missions.'

'General,' Wilde said, 'if we wait until the scheduled start time the Martians will be waiting for us out there with their own F-22s. We have to launch within six hours if we want to avoid a slaughter of our pilots and the destruction of the bulk of our ships.'

'Do you really think its that bad?' Browning asked him. 'I mean, even if they do have advanced notice, they're still greenies who only fly part-time. We should still be able to plow right through them.'

Wilde clenched his fists and then his teeth. He took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. 'General, listen to me,' he finally said. 'If we don't launch our anti-sat missions in the next six hours, we might as well not launch at all. They'll kill us!'

Browning sighed. 'All right, Wilde,' he said. 'If you really think things are that bad. Let me get online with Admiral Spears and we'll see if his crews can start launching in six hours.'

'Very good, sir,' Wilde said, relieved. 'And as soon as we get the nearer satellites taken out — that should be about twenty-four hours — we need to get those bombers moving on the rail targets before General Jackson starts shifting his forces to Eden.'

WestHem Capital Building, Denver

September 6, 2146

1430 hours.

The entire WestHem Executive Council — all nine of them — were assembled in their private briefing room atop the capital building. It was Labor Week, technically a seven-day period off from their official duties, but an urgent communication had been sent to each of their private numbers demanding that they assemble for this meeting. Although they liked to think of themselves as the most powerful people in the solar system, all knew that they really weren't. When important sponsors — their most important after Agricorp and the other agricultural CEOs — called and told them to jump, they only asked how high.

The sponsors in question entered the room precisely on time. They were Roger Warling, CEO of InfoServe; Richard Jones, CEO of Internet Communications Systems, or ICS; and Daniel Rupert III, CEO of WestHem Internet Visualizations, or WIV. It could perhaps be argued that these three men really were the most powerful people in WestHem since, between the three of them, they controlled all of the media, television, publishing, Internet sites, filmmaking, private communications, and news reporting on their half of the Earth, the Jupiter colonies, and, until the revolution anyway, Mars (with the exception, of course, of that perpetual thorn in their side — MarsGroup).

Still, protocol needed to be maintained and they feigned subservience to the nine elected members — all of whom one or the other of them controlled in some fashion — bowing respectfully and awaiting permission to be seated.

'Thank you,' said Warling, who, as the CEO of the largest of the big three, had been appointed spokesman for this particular meeting.

They went through the standard round of preliminaries. This took the better part of twenty minutes as each CEO asked about the families and current pursuits of each councilmember and as each councilmember did the same for each CEO. Then they talked about the weather and whether or not the early snow that was predicted would actually materialize. Finally the small talk petered out and Warling was able to move onto the business at hand.

'As you are aware,' he said, 'we've received briefing documents from the military regarding the plans for the next phase of Operation Martian Hammer.'

'Yes,' said John Calvato, Chief Executive Councilperson, judiciously not mentioning that those briefing documents were not supposed to have been made public. 'Is there a problem with the plans?'

'We do have some concerns with the plans,' Warling said. 'Nothing major, however, and nothing that I'm sure we won't be able to work out. You see, we notice that your military leaders have called for the destruction of all of the communications and navigation satellites in Mars orbit as the preliminary phase to the attack.'

'They have,' Calvato agreed. 'The reasoning behind this is that it will hinder Martian communications both during the space attack phase of the plan and during ground operations. One of the reasons for the uh... problems encountered on the surface during the first phase of the operation was that the greenies were able to accurately navigate and maintain communications with each other out in the field while we were not.'

'Yes, we can certainly appreciate that,' Warling said. 'But surely you can appreciate the fact that between the three of us, we own every last one of those communications satellites and we co-own, with the military and intelligence complex, all of the navigation and reconnaissance satellites since most of them are dual purpose.'

'We do understand that,' Calvato said. 'And it is regretful that these assets must be destroyed in order to carry out the plan, but my military advisers all tell me it is absolutely necessary.'

'Ah yes, your military advisers,' Warling said. 'Those would be the same men who assured you of that the greenies would surrender in the face of the armada you sent after them? The men who, when that failed to happen, assured you that the campaign would be quick and painless, over in a matter of days with our victory and with light casualties?'

'Well... yes,' Calvato said, 'but one of the reasons they've cited for their... uh... problems with the first phase of the campaign is the ability of the greenies to utilize those satellites, both to navigate on the surface and to detect the launch of our reconnaissance assets from space.'

'We've been reporting that General Wrath's failures as a commanding general are the reason for the lack of immediate victory on Mars, remember?' Warling asked.

'Well... yes,' Calvato said. 'And that is certainly the case, but the fact of the matter is...'

'Isn't General Browning guaranteeing you a quick victory in his campaign to capture and hold Eden?' Warling asked. 'We've been reporting that as well.'

'Yes, General Browning will capture Eden as reported,' Calvato said. 'But you see, part of the plan to foment that capture involves the destruction of those satellites.'

'We have our own military advisers on our staffs, sir,' Warling said. 'All of them assure us that General Browning's plan is a sound one and will succeed in its goal of taking and holding Eden with or without the destruction of these very expensive assets in Martian orbit. Do you know that Jupiter is now approaching maxima from Earth.'

'Uh... yes, I believe I was advised of that,' Calvato said. 'But what does that have to do with anything?'

'I would think it would be obvious to a man of your education, sir,' Warling replied. 'When Jupiter reaches maxima the sun will be between it and the Earth, therefore blocking all direct communications. When that occurs our software automatically routes communications to satellites in Martian orbit for relay. If we have lost all of our com-sats on Mars and Jupiter is at maxima that would mean there would be no far space communications of any kind available to anyone in WestHem, including the military. This is simply unfeasible.'

It didn't occur to Calvato — or anyone else on the council for that matter — that even if the satellites weren't destroyed they would still lose all communications with far space if the Martians remained in control of their planet. 'That is something we didn't consider,' he admitted.

'We simply cannot tolerate a break-down of our communication chain such as what is being suggested,' Warling said. 'Nor can we be expected to simply absorb the cost of replacing all of those expensive satellites you propose to carelessly destroy simply because your General Browning is trying to be a bit dramatic in his new task.'

'Well, we can certainly understand your concerns,' Calvato said. 'But this plan has already been approved and I'm told that General Browning is going to be pushing for its immediate implementation.'

'You need to stop him from carrying out the anti-satellite portion,' Warling said forcefully. 'You need to stop