'We think that three and a half times their base hourly rate would be reasonable compensation during this state of emergency.'
'Triple time and a half?' Jackson said, raising his eyebrows.
'That's for normal working hours, of course,' Strough said. 'After hours would continue to compensated by an additional half of the base total after the three and half has been factored in. And, naturally, anything over forty hours per week would continue to be compensated at an additional half of the higher rate as well.'
'Naturally,' Jackson said, shaking his head. 'So what you're saying is that some of your people, working at night and over forty hours, would be making somewhere in the vicinity of six times their normal hourly rate?'
'Yes,' Strough said with a straight face. 'It does work out to be something like that. Remember, they are performing a vital function for you.'
'Yeah,' Jackson said, 'and since the amount of union dues your organization takes in is a straight percentage of each member's gross pay for the period, they're performing a vital function for you as well, aren't they?'
'I'm shocked you would even suggest that I'm doing this for financial gain,' Strough said. 'I don't even believe in the validity of those so-called credits you're paying my people in. My concern is and always will be for the health and well-being of the workers who belong to this union.'
'Of course,' Jackson said. 'In any case, I agree to your demands. Your union members will be compensated as requested for the duration of this crisis.'
Strough seemed a little shocked. 'Really?' he asked.
'Really,' Jackson said. 'You're profiteering quite shamelessly here and pleading the welfare of your workers to justify it but I need those forces moved as quickly and efficiently as possible and I've got a lot of other things I should be doing besides spending all afternoon arguing with you. As long as you stay within two hours of the time schedule estimates for loading and unloading period, I agree to your terms. Write all this up on a document with the salary upgrades plainly spelled out. Make it clear that this is for the duration of this crisis only, that you must maintain the timeline, and don't try to slip something funny in. I'll be sending it to Governor Whiting for approval and she's a lawyer. She'll catch it and she'll be rankin' pissed off if you try to screw us in some way.'
'I would never do such a thing,' Strough said huffily. 'I'm offended that you would even think that of me.'
'Uh huh,' Jackson said. 'I'll be expecting that document within the hour, Strough.'
'What if Whiting disapproves it?'
'She won't,' he said. 'In the meantime, please make sure your people are working as hard as they can. The future of this planet kind of depends on them.'
Proctor, Mars
September 13, 2146, 0600 hours
The 12th Armored Cavalry Regiment of the Martian Planetary Guard — one of the two ACRs that had stopped the WestHem marines cold at the first line of defense during the first phase of the battle — were the first slated for movement to Eden. Their infantry soldiers put on their biosuits and took their weapons and climbed into their armored personnel carriers at the Proctor MPG base, which, like all MPG bases, had been deliberately built in close proximity to the main rail yard just for such occasions. The APCs left the staging area outside the base and drove overland for two and a half kilometers, arriving at the south side of the yard.
The Proctor primary rail yard was not the largest on the planet — that distinction belonged to the Eden primary facility — but it was still a pretty big place. It was not artificially gravitated and it was not pressurized or oxygenated so all who worked on loading or unloading freight had to wear biosuits in order to do his or her job. The facility was surrounded by a one hundred meter concrete wall and had a ceiling of plexiglass reinforced with steel support beams above. This was to keep out the wind and the Martian dust — the two of which occasionally combined in such a way that blinding, planetwide dust storms sometimes developed. The inside of this large building contained more that ten square kilometers of ground, most of which was covered with a system of magna- tracks where trains were assembled, loaded, unloaded, and maintained, where spare boxcars and flatcars and fuel carrying cars were stored. In all there was more than three hundred kilometers of track in the facility stretching out like an intricate spider's web and then narrowing down to the two elevated tracks that left from the north end and then split into two, either curving west toward Eden or continuing north toward Ore City. Cranes and cargo lifters were attached to the ceiling supports and traveled on their own overhead tracks to where they were needed. The facility employed two thousand people during peacetime and had hired six hundred more since the revolt.
The first 180 APCs of the 12th ACR entered the facility through a door on the south side that had been installed there long ago just for this purpose but that had never been used (it, in fact, had taken a maintenance team almost two hours just to get it open). Biosuited cargo handlers directed them one by one toward a section of tracking on the east side of the yard where three separate trains — each to carry sixty APCs — were being assembled. In each of the three assembly and loading areas a massive freight locomotive was attached to the first of twenty-one flatcars. The other twenty flatcars were off on adjacent sections of tracking.
Most of the men and women working in the facility (some of whom were getting paid an incredible thirty-five credits per hour thanks to Jack Strough) had loaded and unloaded armored vehicles before. After all, the vehicles arrived in the facility all the time from New Pittsburgh, where they were manufactured, and had to be shipped back on occasion for major repairs. Special equipment had even been developed by the MPG to facilitate this process. However they had never been asked to load up armor on the scale they were now being asked to. Though plans had been formulated for the mass movement of equipment and personnel ever since the inception of the MPG, and though these plans were complete with timetables and specific instructions on how to accomplish it, they had never been rehearsed before. General Jackson had often asked and even begged for a few dress rehearsals of the process over the last fifteen years but had been consistently shot down by MarsTrans management on the grounds that they couldn't suspend normal operations for the two to three day period required.
Still, the cargo handlers did their best to work with efficiency. Most were patriotic Martians despite the self- interest of their union and all knew that if they lagged too far beyond the timetable that had been established they would lose the lucrative hazard and overtime pay and be reverted back to normal hourly rate. A loader — as it was called — had been mated to the first of the flatcars. The loader was a steel structure that was basically a ramp that allowed an APC or a tank to drive up onto the flatcar while it was on the track without running over the track itself. The first APC pulled up and crawled on its treads up the ramp portion, which curved to the right onto the back of the flatcar. A cargo handler directed it forward, to the very front, and then had the driver stop at a pre-determined point. The second APC followed and then the third. Once all were aboard, the loader's ramp portion folded up hydraulically and was moved backward, out of the way. The loader was disengaged from the flatcar and the entire thing was picked up by one of the cranes and moved backwards. The next flatcar was then moved into place by a yard locomotive that connected to it from behind and pushed it along the tracking until it was coupled. While the loader went about the process of being attached to the second flatcar six cargo handlers threaded steel straps through ports on the three already loaded APCs and cinched them down to the side of the car. By this time, the flatcar behind was ready to receive the next three APCs.
This process continued at all three train assembly sites, on average taking about twenty minutes per flatcar. When they reached the eleventh flatcar two mobile surface-to-air laser vehicles were loaded instead of the APCs. This was MPG doctrine. The two SALs would have their passive systems operating, their active systems on stand- by, and their lasers charged for the entire trip, ready to shoot down any enemy hovers that tried to attack their train. Though there were currently no enemy forces on the ground this was expected to change at any time.
By the end of the process of loading the first train the time per flatcar had been cut down to only twelve minutes by sheer repetition. When the last flatcar was loaded and the last APC secured, the loader and the cranes all withdrew allowing another huge locomotive to move in and couple with the last car. Thus this first train was complete.
The magna-track itself was basically a huge electro-magnet, charged positively by means of power supplied by two fusion plants in the Proctor industrial section. The trains were charged positively as well on the bottom by fusion reactors within the locomotives. The powerful repelling nature of the two charges allowed the locomotives and all of the cars attached to them to float half a meter above the track, able to move with minimal propulsion because the only friction they had to overcome was from the air resistance and the slight drag caused by the magnets themselves. The propulsion was provided by alternating positive and negative fluctuations generated by the locomotive engines acting against the magnetized rail of the track.
Clearance for departure was granted and the traffic control computer made sure that the path before the
