had been dead serious up on the stage tonight and that she would grant further interviews once she was settled into office. Finally they slowed to a trickle and she was able to take a breather for a few minutes.
Jackson, sipping out of a bottle of Agricorp apple juice, sat down across her desk from her. He was dressed in his uniform, namely the red shorts and white T-shirt that were the standard interior dress of the Martian Planetary Guard troops. His rank insignia — that of commanding general — was stenciled on his left breast, just above the small emblem of the MPG. He carried no weapons belt and wore no body armor, relying on his squad of special forces bodyguards to keep him safe. He looked at his boss pointedly. 'It's all come down to this night,' he told her. 'All of the secret planning, all of the underhanded deals with the arms makers, and now the wheels are in motion.'
'Everything according to plan so far,' she agreed, opening a bottle of juice of her own and taking a sip.
'You were beautiful up there tonight,' he said. 'Your speech was very moving. Hopefully it will have the results we need. If you get impeached next week, it's all for nothing.'
'The people will do what I ask,' she told him assuredly. 'I know them well and I know how fed up they are with the system we have. They want change; they've wanted it for generations. All they needed was a leader to cling to, one who had the power to get the job done.'
'And now they've got one,' he said. 'Assuming they're not too cynical to embrace you.'
'They voted for me in record numbers, didn't they? They'll embrace me. And once I start giving my weekly speeches on MarsGroup, I'll get them fired up the rest of the way, until they're demanding that we be free — no matter what needs to be done.'
'No matter what,' Jackson said, knowing what it was eventually going to take. 'I know we've been over this before, but do you think that there's any chance at all of WestHem actually negotiating autonomy with us? I mean, after the seriousness of the situation becomes clear to them and they realize what the options are?'
'None whatsoever,' she told him. 'You know that, Kevin. If we're going to be free, we're going to have to fight for it. There's too much at stake for WestHem to even consider the possibility of letting us go. Not even under the terms that I've offered, which are generous indeed.'
He sighed a little. 'You're undoubtedly right,' he said. 'It's a nice dream though.'
'But in the meantime,' Laura told him, 'this planet is rapidly approaching maxima from Earth. In another three months the navy will begin sending the bulk of the fleet here for storage at Triad. Will the MPG be ready by then?'
'In terms of ability, they're ready right now,' Jackson reminded her. 'Our mission is to prevent invasion of this planet and to be able to fully mobilize to that goal in less than twelve hours. Repelling invaders is all that we train for. And over the last three months we've been training particularly hard. The real question you should be asking is whether or not they will obey your orders and repel an invasion by
'They'll be ready,' Laura promised. 'Over the next few months I believe that WestHem's behavior towards us is going to be particularly reprehensible. It's as predictable as the moons. The WestHem way to deal with opposition is to crack down on it, to smear it. Remember the line theory?'
'Oh yes,' he said. 'I remember.' The line theory, advanced by none other than Laura Whiting herself (always in private discussions of course), stated that the way a government such as WestHem remained in power was to identify
'WestHem and the corporations will be forced to step over the line in order to deal with us,' Laura said. 'I don't like deliberately encouraging suffering among our people, but unfortunately it's the only way. And when the time comes, your people need to be ready to do what needs to be done.'
'They'll be ready,' he promised. 'You do your part and we'll do ours.'
Chapter 2
The morning following the inauguration of the new Martian governor was also a Saturday morning in the western hemisphere of Mars, where all of the terrestrial cities were located. Being a Saturday it meant that a regular training rotation for the MPG was scheduled at the base on the southern edge of Eden. Of course all of the Eden area MPG members could not train regularly at one time. There were simply too many of them for that to be feasible on a weekly basis. As such, the MPG volunteers — and they were all volunteers except for a few, select positions — were divided into one of four training rotations. This particular week was B rotation's turn. From all over the city men and women woke up early on what was traditionally a day of rest, donned their red shorts and white MPG t-shirts, and headed for tram stations near their homes. The paid twenty dollars to board the MarsTrans public transportation trains which carried them through a belt line and a serious of spokes to the base, the entrance to which was located in one of the more dangerous parts of town. Once there they waited in line for more than thirty minutes to clear the security checkpoints and worked their way to their assigned buildings.
The base itself consisted of four high-rise buildings, a large hangar complex, an armored vehicle parking area complete with airlock complexes, and more than two square kilometers of enclosed, pressurized and gravitated parkland upon which troops could assemble and exercise. Assembly time was typically 0700, except for a few specialized groups that met earlier. By 0730 the vast majority of the troops were out on the exercise grounds, performing the traditional calisthenics or running on the track that circled the base. As they ran and did their pushups on this morning the normal loose discipline that the MPG practiced was even looser than normal as everyone talked about the events of the previous evening. For the most part they cheered Laura Whiting and her idea, telling each other that it was about goddamn time that someone spoke up to the corporations. Many of them talked of the emails that they had composed and sent to their elected representatives. Only a few volunteered that they had not composed such correspondence. Those that did were quickly chided by their peers to do so and quickly, before the legislature opened an investigation.
'You don't think that will really work, do you?' asked corporal Salinas of the special forces division of his squad leader, Sergeant Fargo.
They were well into their fourth kilometer of the warm-up run and starting to breathe a little heavy. 'It might not,' Lon allowed, wiping sweat from his forehead. 'But then she'll sure as shit go down within a week if we don't. If those prick politicians get enough mail threatening a recall vote if they try to impeach Whiting, that just might make them think twice. And it doesn't take much to compose one either. No real reason not to do it.'
'And it feels damn good to tell off one of them fuckers too,' put in Lieutenant Yee, their platoon commander and a twelve year veteran of special forces. 'I went to bed happy last night after I sent mine off. Give it a shot, you'll like it.'
'I guess I will then,' Salinas said thoughtfully. 'What's to lose?'
After their morning workout, Lon and his squad went into the base operations building for their briefing. They were to participate in yet another field operations drill today, their third in the last four months. The last year had brought a heavier than normal training schedule, particularly for the tank, special forces, and flight crews. No one at the operational level knew why although rumors always flew about a possible EastHem invasion in the works. Tensions had been rather high between the two governments lately since EastHem was stationing more warships at their naval base on Callisto, pushing the limits of a treaty signed as part of the Jupiter War armistice. None of Lon's squad minded the increased training in the least. It meant that instead of staying in the classroom all day learning new techniques, or instead of going to the gunnery range to practice old ones, they would don their biosuits and fly out into the wastelands to do what they did best: attack things and blow things up. Today's mission was going to be a fairly realistic anti-tank drill performed with real tanks from the MPG's first battalion.
After each of the four squads under Yee's command was given their operational area, they retreated to the bottom floor of the building where they drew their weapons and their biosuits from the armory.
'Okay, everyone,' Lon told his men, 'the standard load out will be the M-24 and six hundred rounds per man. Please be sure that you have training ammo instead of the real thing.'
