Out the west side of the greenhouse the first foothills of the Sierra Madres mountain range could be seen. Beyond that, the higher peaks of the range were poking up above the horizon, dust devils and plumes of red being blown from their summits. This section of agricultural land was among the oldest on Mars, the first to be cultivated in Eden's earlier days. It was also the furthest west the greenhouse complexes stretched — most of them were off to the north and the east of the city on the vast flatlands known as The Plains of Eden. The two greenhouses the tanks were assembling in were the very last ones built in the westerly direction before the land began to rise into the foothills.
Xenia sat atop the turret of her tank, her legs dangling down into the commander's hatchway. Since they were in a pressurized environment she, like most of the rest of the tank crews, had removed her helmet, unzipped the top of her biosuit, and pushed it down into a bunch around her stomach. Her braless breasts jiggling beneath her tight and sweaty MPG t-shirt had become a point of distraction for most of the males — and many of the females — within visual range of her. She pretended not to notice as she munched on a tomato she'd picked from one of the surviving plants and chatted with Belinda who was poking out of the driver's hatch, also unprotected to the waist and also eating a tomato. Belinda's large breasts created some distractions as well, although not quite as much since they were firmly encased in a cotton sport bra beneath her t-shirt.
'So what do you think?' Belinda suddenly asked, breaking a lull in conversation that had gone on for the past fifteen minutes.
'What do I think?' Xenia responded, looking at her with a sparkle in her eyes. 'I think I'd love to come down there right now and lick that tomato juice off your pouty lips.'
Belinda flushed with arousal at these words but she refused to take the bait. 'I mean what do you think about all this?' she asked, pointing at the formation of tanks all around them. 'What in the hell are we doing out here, fifteen kilometers away from where the action's gonna be? What are they gonna do with us?'
'I liked my thought better,' Xenia grumbled. She sighed and tried to take her mind off how fucking horny she was right now. She was ordinarily quite amorous in her pursuits of pleasure but combat seemed to wrench this up by a factor of four or so. She wasn't able to completely banish the erotic thoughts from her head but she was at least able to push them back to their own red line. 'I heard a few rumors when I was out picking these tomatoes.'
'Yeah?' Belinda asked. 'What are they saying?'
'They're just rumors,' she qualified. 'Probably based on nothing but speculation, but the consensus seems to be that we're going to be used for some kind of surprise flank attack.'
'A surprise flank attack?'
'That's what they're saying,' she confirmed. 'They pulled 250 or so main battle tanks off the line where we're desperately needed and moved us up here to the north, well beyond where any fighting could conceivably take place. They cut all outgoing communications from our combat computers and our tank computers — Jeff must be worried sick about me by now.'
Belinda frowned at the mention of Jeff Creek, a stab of black jealousy piercing straight into her heart. 'Uh huh,' she said, just barely maintaining a civil tone. 'What else?'
'I was talking to one of the 2nd Infantry guys out there. He said his battalion was split in two when they sent out the movement orders. He doesn't know where the other half got sent — they cut off the com link before he could talk to one of his butt-buddies assigned to the other half — but he saw them heading south from the main line. He seemed to think there's another group of tanks teaming up somewhere south of the city.'
'Hmmm,' Belinda said thoughtfully. 'What the hell kind of flanking maneuver do they think we're gonna be able to do? The marines have more than six thousand tanks out there. They're stretching them all across the valley from the Sierra Madres to the Overlook Mountains. How can you flank anything if you can't get around it?'
'I don't know,' Xenia said. 'As I said, it's just a rumor.'
'What if that's not what they're planning?'
'What do you mean?'
'What if they mean to have us blast straight through their line?' Belinda asked. 'That would be suicide.'
'Yes,' Xenia said, nibbling on her bottom lip a little. 'The strength of our tank forces is our fixed positions. If we go mobile we lose our advantage and they outnumber us twenty to one — or at least ten to one if there's another 250 of us assembling to the south.'
'That's still nowhere near enough for a head-on confrontation,' Belinda said. 'I'm sorry, but if that's what our orders are they can count me out. I'm willing to risk my ass out here but I'm not gonna throw my life away for nothing.'
'Me either,' Xenia agreed.
The four tanks in front of them finished up their loading and moved off, heading for the tunnel. The loading bosses waved the next four forward.
'About fucking time,' Belinda mumbled. She dropped back into her hatch and disappeared. A moment later the tank's engine started up with its distinctive turbine whine. Xenia held onto the barrel of the commander's machine gun as they moved forward nine meters and stopped next to the supply cars. The engine shut down and Belinda popped back up again, climbing completely out. Xenia climbed out as well and waked across the top of the right tread guard where she opened the main hatch to the turret.
The ammo supply technician, a greasy, dangerous looking type of about nineteen or so, walked over to her. He was shirtless, his skin shimmering with sweat in the early morning light, his gang tattoos (he had honorably retired from The Dust Devils of 44th Avenue) showing prominently.
'Hey there,' he said as he unabashedly looked Xenia up and down. 'You are one sweet looking piece of ass, darling,' he told her.
Xenia smiled at him. There had been a time when she would have been deathly afraid of such a person but that time was now gone forever. Her exposure to Jeff and to the horrors of the battlefield had burned such fears right out of her. Instead, she wondered if there was a way to take advantage of his lustful infatuation for her. 'Thank you,' she told him, giving a deliberate bounce to make her breasts jiggle.
The loader groaned lasciviously. 'Damn, bitch,' he told her. 'Those are the juiciest fuckin' melons I ever seen. I been scopin' on them titties since you was six tanks back.'
'I thought I felt them burning,' she said sexily, giving a little shoulder shrug.
'Mmm hmmm,' he said. 'You gotta let me check them things out, baby,' he said. 'I won't be able to sleep tonight if I don't.'
'Well... we'll see what we can arrange maybe,' she said.
'Fuck yeah!' he yelled enthusiastically.
'But first,' she said, 'business before titties. Aren't you supposed to be laying some ammo on me?'
He sighed in mock consternation and then turned businesslike himself. 'The fuckin' war effort must go on,' he said. 'What you be needing?'
Xenia turned businesslike as well. 'Six eighties and a hundred twenties,' she said.
'Fuckin' aye,' he said. 'You good on four millimeter?'
'Haven't fired a round of that yet. We could use some extra food packs and waste packs though.'
'Coming right up, sweet tits,' he told her. He walked over to his car and disappeared inside.
Meanwhile, a prim and proper woman in her early thirties, wearing a wedding ring with a huge diamond on it on a chain around her neck, had attached a fueling hose to the inlets at the front of the tank.
'What do you need?' she asked Belinda.
'Eighteen K hydro, twenty-one K O2,' she replied.
'Fuckin' aye,' the woman said. 'It's loading.'
'You look very familiar,' Belinda said. 'Do I know you from somewhere?'
The woman smiled. 'Everyone says that,' she said. 'But no one can ever figure it out when they see me dressed like this and pumping fuel into their tanks. I'm Callie Hashbar.'
'Callie Hashbar?' Belinda said in surprise. 'No shit?' Callie Hashbar was a longtime news anchor for one of the primary MarsGroup video channels. She was married to one of the upper echelon executives for MarsGroup.
'No shit,' she said. 'Back when the war started I figured I could serve Mars better by signing up for service instead of reading off a teleprompter in front of a camera. I asked for combat duty but... well, I wasn't in good
