staff in each other's capitals. With your permission, we would like to make the first gesture of friendship in this regard and send a complete diplomatic team to your planet. All we ask is that you house them in a manner they are accustomed to until such time as an embassy can be built. If you give the go-ahead, this team will leave immediately and be at Triad in four and a half weeks.
'The first order of business this team would like to discuss with the new Martian government is an expansion of the trade agreement we reached after you forcefully removed yourself from WestHem rule. As you are probably aware, our economy and the famine that existed in parts of our nation — particularly the African portion — have improved remarkably since we entered into this agreement for your food products. And I'm sure I don't have to point out that our hydrogen shipments were what allowed you to achieve your impressive military victory.
'Now we believe it would be in the best interests of both of our peoples to expand trade between us. Mars is most assuredly the breadbasket of the solar system and there are many things besides the basic staples you provide that our food distribution corporations would enjoy purchasing from you in order to feed a market for luxury cuisine. Most specifically, we would like to secure a contract for additional cuts of beef that are above the fine staple items you already provide. We would like to purchase veal cuts, lamb and mutton, turkey, and various high end produce items such as mushrooms, asparagus, lettuce, strawberries, and, most valued, those famous Martian artichokes we've heard so much about. We are also interested in another one of your famous agricultural products: cannabis. Currently there is very little cannabis grown in EastHem because all of our agricultural land is being used for more vital items. We used to purchase cannabis from WestHem but, sadly, they invoked a trade embargo with us when we recognized the Martian government as legitimate and began trading with you.
'In order to keep the trade deficit between our two nations on an equal footing, we are prepared to supply you with some luxury items that you are currently doing without due to your conflict with WestHem. In specific, we would be willing to offer you coffee from Java and other parts of Indonesia, tobacco from our Turkish plantations, and, most important, alcoholic beverages of the finest quality from all over our great nation. We could import to you beer from the Germany region, wines of varying type from the France region, and hard spirits from our finest distilleries in Scotland, Russia, China, Japan, and Australia.
'Under the current political situation we would still not be comfortable offering arms, ammunition, or other war materials, but just about anything else is open to negotiation. The diplomatic team we propose to send would have full treaty making and trade agreement authority.
'If this is an acceptable offer to you, please reply as soon as possible.
'In continued friendship, Tony Billings.'
Laura clicked off the tape and looked out at the legislature. 'Well,' she asked. 'What do we think about that?'
They were unanimous in their support of negotiating a trade agreement. Despite the surplus food they were already sending to EastHem, the Martian warehouses and holding facilities were literally stuffed to overflowing with excess food products since they were no longer sending any to WestHem. This was particularly true of artichokes, most fruit items, and medium grade marijuana. That had thrown out hundreds of tons of all of this because of rotting from disuse over the past two months.
'Coffee and smokes again,' one of the members sighed with pleasure. 'The sooner the better, I say.'
'And booze,' someone else put in. 'EastHem always was the best at making hooch.'
'Except for wine,' someone countered. 'There's nothing like a good California Merlot.'
Before an argument could get started on the pros and cons of EastHem alcoholic beverages, Laura put the motion on the floor. Should they accept the offer of the EastHem diplomatic team? The motion was seconded and voted upon. There were no nays in the chamber.
'Very good,' Laura said. 'I'll send off a message to the EastHem council as soon as we adjourn here. Now, there's one last thing I'd like to put out for you to consider. The WestHem citizens that are stuck on this planet.'
'The corporate fucks you mean,' said Jenny Bongwater, one of Laura's most enthusiastic supporters.
'Call them what you will,' Laura said. 'There are more than two hundred thousand WestHem citizens here on Mars and most of them would like to go home, I'm sure. I think it's time we started getting them there. I would like to send a message to WestHem inviting them to send ships here to pick up their citizens. Such ships would be stopped at the one hundred thousand kilometer radius by our navy and searched for weapons or spy equipment and then they will be allowed to land at Triad.'
'The WestHems will never agree to that,' Steve Hotbox said. 'It would mean they would be offering some sort of recognition to us if they did.'
'We'll try to work it so it doesn't have to be announced publicly, but I think we should make the offer. I for one don't want those people cluttering up my planet any longer than they need to be. All they're doing is sitting in their penthouse apartments and eating our food and making nuisances of themselves. Let's start working towards purging our planet of them once and for all.'
This motion was not unanimous, but it passed.
Laura adjourned the meeting shortly after and went back to her office. She had some messages that needed to be composed.
Planet Mars
The weeks went by on the newly independent Planet of Mars and the people who lived on it slowly began to adjust to the fact that they were now the ones in control of their own destiny.
Jeff Creek, Belinda Maxely, and Xenia Stoner spent most of their seventy-two hour pass in Xenia's apartment near the MPG base exploring the possibilities of the triad that had formed. They had sex in every conceivable arrangement and even Belinda began to enjoy the sensation of a phallus inside of her instead of a plastic look-alike. On non-sexual matters, they had their fights and disagreements, some of them quite vicious, as they tried to settle in together and make something of a home. They managed to resolve the bigger issues, or at least come to an amicable cease-fire on them, but left many minor issues still pending when it was time for them to go back to their respective MPG assignments. They, like every other MPG member, then forgot about their domestic squabbles as they undertook the task of collecting their dead from the battlefield.
This collection of those Martians who had fallen in battle was given the highest priority by General Jackson. He allowed no other task to be started until every last MPG member who had fallen was recovered or at least identified. This took the better part of two weeks in which soldiers dug through concrete rubble, pried open destroyed tanks and APCs, and scoured through wreckage of fallen Mosquitoes. Jeff himself asked for and received permission to help excavate a certain trench on the Blue Line of Eden. He found his friend Hicks there, still lying where he'd gone down, his body perfectly preserved in his shredded biosuit. Later, on a day off near the end of October, he paid a visit to Covington Heights, the ghetto adjoining Helvetia Heights. There he met with Hicks' parents and paid his respects. He spent more than two hours there with them, telling of Hicks' exploits in battle, of their adventures in training, of the way he had fallen. All three of them cried and when he left, the elder Hicks' both thanked him profusely, hugging him as he departed.
Following the recovery of the dead was a seven-day period in which many funerals were held throughout Eden and New Pittsburgh. General Jackson saw to it that each memorial service featured a dignified and moving ceremony and a twenty-one-gun salute by an MPG honor guard.
'There will be a memorial for those who gave their lives for our freedom,' Jackson said in a speech one night during the midst of this. 'I swear this before all that I believe in, it will stand in Capital Park in New Pittsburgh and the name of every man and woman who fell will be carved in it.'
After the recovery and cremation of the dead came the even more daunting, though less emotional, task of collecting and trying to identify the WestHem dead. This was a job that seemed overwhelming at first since there were so many of them. There was a path of smashed armor, fallen aircraft, and exploded men that stretched from the site of the landing zones all the way to the main lines of defense. Still, they did it, trudging through the wastelands in biosuits, picking up corpses of their enemy and putting them in trucks or patiently pulling DNA samples from exploded armor. The bodies still intact were transported to agricultural freezers and stored until such time that the conflict was officially over.
During this time period Zen Valentine was released from the hospital with one less kidney than he'd come in with. He was offered a medical discharge for his injury but he refused it, going right back into the ACR as a tank commander. He was promoted to lieutenant and put in charge of a tank platoon. Once the body recovery period came to an end he would begin training his new platoon in offensive operations instead of just defensive. He
