Greenies

train was clear. The commander of the train — a member of the MarsTrans Transportation Engineer's union whose leader had negotiated them a hefty hazard pay rate of four and three quarters standard hourly rate — pushed his throttle level forward slightly and the two locomotives began to pull from the front and push from behind. Slowly the massive train began to move forward. It crept through a serious of switches and junctions until it was on one of the outgoing tracks, moving at a soft, sedate ten kilometers per hour. At the end of the yard an access door had already been opened. The train passed through it to the unguarded outside and sped up a bit to forty kilometers per hour. When it passed the last switch and turned west, towards Eden, the commander upped the speed to maximum, a blistering 124 kilometers per hour. The train moved along the elevated tracks, passing between two sets of greenhouse complexes, moving over a few bridges, through a tunnel, and finally, after clearing the last of the greenhouses, into the Casa de Gatos mountain range. Inside the APCs the infantry soldiers sat in their cramped conditions, already bored with the trip, already fearing what was to come. The other two trains bulled out ten and twenty minutes behind the first.

It was 1168 kilometers to Eden, a trip that would take a little over nine hours to complete. Before they'd even cleared the greenhouses the next three trains were already being assembled. After they were done, the tanks, ammunition carriers, fuel carriers, and the rest of the support vehicles would be loaded up — their personnel riding in them as well. And after that, they would begin moving the equipment from the 4^th Infantry Division over as well. In all, nearly twenty-eight thousand troops and everything needed to support them would make the trip. It would take more than forty-eight hours of non-stop work to accomplish this. But before the first three trains even entered the mountains the WestHem Panamas up in orbit began to launch their landing ships for their own trip to the battle area.

General Jackson was going over status reports on the troop movements when Major Sprinkle called. 'It's on,' he told him. 'Recon birds are showing multiple landing ship separations.'

Jackson looked at the time display on his monitor. 'They're earlier than I thought,' he said. 'Much earlier.'

'Yeah,' said Sprinkle. 'At least we can be pretty much assured that they weren't laying disinformation on us about the landing sites. Most of the troops are still in Libby and Proctor, aren't they?'

'Most of them,' Jackson said. 'The first trains just left, although the bulk of the 12^th and the 16^th's APCs are on them. There's not really a way to turn a train around in transit unless it stops and backs up all the way, which would cut the speed down to an eighth or so.'

'What if they're going after Ore City,' Sprinkle said, 'or maybe Viscal?'

'Those are secondary cities, only connected by rail to one other city. Though they'd be easy pickings there's not much value in taking them. They're too isolated from the other cities and all we'd have to do to keep them pinned there indefinitely is to cut our own rail line. That's why we never stationed any significant MPG units there. The four principal cities and Triad are what we've always had to worry about.'

'I suppose that makes sense,' Sprinkle said.

'What I'm more worried about is that they're not really going to attack Eden and New Pittsburgh, that they're just going to pick one or the other. If they were distributing disinformation for the purpose of rooking us that would have been the best ploy. They get us to divide up their forces and then they slam us on a single target.'

'Doesn't their early departure somewhat preclude that option as well?' Sprinkle asked. 'As you've pointed out, the bulk of the troops being shifted are still in their home cities.'

'It does tend to preclude it,' Jackson agreed. 'But then nothing is absolute in warfare, is it? I'll feel a lot better when I see that those landing ships are going exactly where we expect them.'

This took another hour to determine. The ships formed up into two distinct lines and then, one by one, they moved off into a departure corridor and began their deceleration burns. Once the first four were on their way down it was fairly easy to plot their destination. Half were on a path that would take them in over Eden, the other half were on a path for New Pittsburgh.

'Okay then,' Jackson said, relieved. 'I'll call Strough and tell him to keep the movement going full throttle ahead. Is MarsGroup still down their photographing the loading process?'

'They are,' Sprinkle confirmed. 'And they've promised not to broadcast any information about the movements until either the landing ships are all on the ground or the movement is completed. So far they're keeping their word.'

'Good for them,' Jackson said.

'Although it doesn't really matter that much,' Sprinkle said. 'You do realize that don't you?'

'Yes, of course,' Jackson said. 'I'm aware that Mars is rife with WestHem spies and that WestHem marine intelligence has probably been informed about the troop and equipment movements already. But at least we're not actually broadcasting the information and making it official. There's always a little bit of doubt with information from spies.'

'That is true,' Sprinkle agreed.

'Now that we know where they're going, I need to start mobilizing the ACRs and the artillery forces. I also need to get Colonel Bright's special forces teams ready to launch out there as soon as they touch down. Keep me updated on developments. I want to know exactly when and where they touch down.'

'Fuckin' aye, General.'

Jackson raised his eyebrows a little at this last statement.

Sprinkle flushed a little bit. 'Sorry,' he said. 'I've been talking to a lot of the new recruits lately and I guess their sayings are starting to brush off on me.'

'No worries,' Jackson said. 'I actually kind of like the way that sounds.'

They ended the call and Jackson immediately began contacting the various commanders in each city under threat, ordering them to initiate their plans. 'Remember,' he told Bright, 'if they keep in our range, I want it done just like before. I want your forces on the ground within an hour of them touching down and I want mortars falling on any exposed troops an hour after that. Let's remind them that they are not welcome here.'

'My teams are already assembling, General,' Bright said. 'They'll be in the air as soon as we get information on the landing site.'

'You'll get it as soon as I have it,' Jackson promised.

Another hour ticked by. Jackson spent much of it reviewing maps and satellite views of the Eden and New Pittsburgh area and checking on the status of the loading of his reinforcements. Finally Sprinkle called him back. He looked worried.

'What is it?' Jackson asked him.

'Both landing forces are approaching the optimum zones according to their doctrine. Both are still over ten thousand meters above the ground, moving fast.'

'They're coming in closer?' Jackson said. Browning's initial briefing on the second phase had said they were going to land further out. Though Browning hadn't explained himself to Jackson it was clear that he'd wanted to put his forces beyond the range of the Hummingbirds and Mosquitoes, thus allowing them to secure their area and assemble in peace.

'That's what it looks like, General,' Sprinkle said. 'If they keep to their current rate of descent they're going to come down awfully close to the range of the 250s, not to mention our tanks.'

'They couldn't possibly be that stupid, could they?' Jackson asked. 'If they land in gun range those 250s will take their landing ships apart piece by piece.'

It turned out they weren't that stupid. The ships began to make their landings, one by one. At the Eden site they touched down directly in the middle of Knoxville Bed — a large, flat area that had once been a shallow lake back in the days when Mars had featured surface water. Located only seventy-five kilometers west of the Jutfield Gap, it was only about twenty kilometers out of range of the MPG heavy guns. At New Pittsburgh they began to land in another large, flat area — this one a wide valley surrounded by tall mountains. Again, they were less than twenty kilometers out of range of the 250s.

'Get this information to special forces command and to air command at both cities,' Jackson said. 'They have my orders to start planning their deployments as soon as they get it.'

'Shipping it now,' Sprinkle said. 'What do you think they're planning? It's completely against their doctrine to land that close.'

'Give me a second to look this over,' Jackson said as he flipped back to his map page. It had now been updated with the red dots that indicated confirmed landings. As he watched, two more appeared as two more