Greenies

She was nagging me at end of watch last night to compose that friggin email to my legislature, just like she asked us to do. Like it's really gonna do any fucking good.'

'You heard Whiting last night, didn't you?' asked Colton, who was a flight engineer on a MarsTrans surface to orbit craft. 'Did that sound like typical political rhetoric to you?'

'That was quite an eye-opening speech,' he said. 'I'll give you that. And I'll even go so far as to admit that maybe Whiting really is trying to push for independence. But if she really thinks that WestHem is ever going to let us go under any circumstances, she's fucking schizo. Why should I waste my time threatening that dick-wipe politician that fucking Agricorp has assigned to my district? He doesn't give a shit what I say or what I think. All he gives a shit about is what his sponsors, those rich prick Earthling corporate assholes, want him to do. And what they want him to do is impeach Whiting. I'll be surprised if she makes it through the week.'

'I'll be surprised if she makes it through the week too,' Colton told him. 'Believe me, I have as much common sense as any Martian. I know how the fucking system works. But would you agree that it would be better for us to keep Whiting in office than it would be to get rid of her.'

'Well... sure,' he said. 'Anything that pisses off those corporate fucks is all right in my book.'

'And since it only takes five minutes to tell your legislature member that you'll sign a petition to have him recalled and that you'll then vote to do it, why shouldn't you take the time? It's not like it costs you anything.'

'I just don't think it'll do any good,' Brian said. 'They don't listen to anyone who doesn't command a corporation.'

'Who cares whether it does any good or not?' he asked, a little exasperated. 'If he does vote to impeach Whiting and someone does put a petition screen in front of you to recall him, would you put your print on it?'

'Shit, I'd do it now,' Brian said.

'And if there were enough signatures to recall the bastard and there was a vote scheduled on that very issue, would you log on and vote to oust him?'

'I suppose I would,' he said.

'Then compose an email and tell the prick that,' Colton said. 'Tell him. Whiting got up on that stage last night and she showed some fucking huevos. Can you imagine what it took for her to do that? The least you could do in return is stand in front of your fucking terminal tonight and compose a little email. If enough people do that today maybe, just maybe, those fucks will be forced to make a decision. And just maybe enough of them will make the decision that we need: to keep Whiting in office. What can it hurt?'

Brian had to admit that he had a point. 'What the hell?' he said with a shrug. 'I guess I could do it to pay her back for the sheer entertainment value of that speech.'

'See?' Colton said, reaching forward and patting him on the shoulder of his suit. 'You do have some damn common sense in there.'

'Here they come,' Lon said, looking at the cloud of dust that was approaching from the eastern horizon. A complete armored battalion was impossible to move from one place to another undetected. It was not the sort of thing that just slipped by while you weren't looking.

'Fuckin aye,' said Jackson, who was all the way over on the next hill, maybe a half kilometer away, but who was connected via the UHF radio link. 'Right down the old poop shoot.'

Lon and those with him were sequestered among a group of fairly large boulders near the crest of the hill. The ancient lava rocks were nice and solid and had been in place here for perhaps that last billion years or so. They would make good cover for the coming fight, especially since the 20mm cannons on the tanks and APCs would be loaded with training rounds. These rounds would hit hard enough to knock a man clean off his feet if impact occurred, but they would not penetrate or cause damage to the biosuits themselves. The rule was that once a man was hit in a vital area such as the chest or head, he was deemed to be dead. His suit, the computer controlling it having been placed in training mode, would then cut off all communications with the other team members unless an emergency override code was given (the utilization of which would automatically cause a cease-fire to be called in the simulated battle) and would render his weapons unable to be fired. Thus the 'killed' team member could no longer be of assistance in the battle but could tag along with them as they moved in order to avoid being left behind. The same principal applied to the OPFOR equipment. If a man was hit, his suit computer would take him out of the action. If a tank were hit with the low yield training laser charges, that tank would be shut down and not allowed to participate further in the battle. If an APC took a lethal hit on the sides or top while troops were on board, all of the troops would have their communications links and weapons shut down. If the anti-air vehicles were hit, they too were rendered incapable of firing any further. All of these computer enhancements, be they to the biosuits, the weapons, or the vehicles themselves, were Martian adaptations available only on MPG equipment and designed specifically to make training missions more realistic. The regular WestHem forces, by contrast, exercised mostly in computer simulations to save money and wear and tear on their equipment.

Lon set his M-24 down for a moment and adjusted the magnification of his combat goggles. Instantly, with the help of infrared enhancement, he was able to pick out the individual tanks of the column even though they were still nearly twenty kilometers distant. 'Looks like an armored cavalry column of battalion strength,' he reported to his men. They had not been privy to what the strength of the OPFOR was going to be. 'They have fifty plus APCs, we're talking five hundred troops if they're fully loaded. I also have three... no four SAL-50 anti-air vehicles in the front, middle, and rear of the column.'

'I'm reading the same,' said Jefferson from his perch. 'Moving at about forty KPH.'

'That gives us an ETA to contact of about thirty minutes,' Lon said. 'I'm gonna get hold of the Mosquitoes.' He flipped another switch on his computer panel and dialed into the encoded laser frequency. 'Striker flight one,' he said, keying the radio link. 'This is Shadow team six. Are you there?' In order to avoid giving themselves away by leaking radio emissions, his words were converted to digital pulses, which were shot upward 18,000 kilometers by a laser beam to a communications satellite in geosynchronous orbit. The suit computer used GPS data to keep a constant fix on the satellite's location in the sky. If Lon had been in a position where the laser was blocked by an obstacle, an indicator in his goggles would have lit up, telling him this.

The delay from talking to reception was about three seconds. 'Shadow six, this is striker one,' came the voice of Brian Haggerty, one of the many pilots they worked in tandem with on a regular basis. 'Go ahead. I'm tracking your current position.'

'Copy that you're tracking us,' Lon said. In addition to providing secure communications, the laser system also carried placement data, allowing support units to have an accurate fix on friendlies. 'We have a visual on an armored column of battalion strength moving eastward through the cut. We count thirty plus ETT-12s, fifty plus APCs, and four SAL-50s. The SAL-50s are at the ends and middle of the column. They're moving west at approximately forty klicks. Estimated time to our position, thirty minutes. I repeat, three zero minutes.'

'Copy thirty minutes,' Haggerty said. 'Get back with us five minutes to strike time with an update and we'll wake them up for you.'

'Will do,' Lon said. 'Shadow six out.'

They watched mostly in silence as the column drew closer and closer. The dust cloud that it raised expanded and continued to blow off to the south, carried by the prevailing seasonal winds. Though the sound of the advance did not reach them — sound did not travel very far or very well through the Martian air — the vibration and the rumbling of the ground did. The movement of nearly ninety armored vehicles was enough to shake loose small rocks. It was as they began to come into view without magnification assist that Lon began to notice something different about their formation. It took him a few minutes to pin down exactly what it was. Usually the APCs traveled in a protective ring of tank platoons, all the better to cover the soldiers within. Now the tanks were mostly forward and to the rear, with only a few token pieces covering the flanks.

'Look at how the APCs are formed up,' he said when it finally came home to him. 'That's not a standard marching formation.'

'No,' Jefferson said. 'It sure ain't. Why do you think they're doing that?'

'That crafty little fuck Chin is up to something,' Lon said. 'He's trying to screw us out of our beer tonight.'

'What's he planning?' asked Gavin. 'Why would he leave the APCs bare like that? It doesn't make sense.'

'It does if he wants them free for a charge,' Jefferson opined. 'You think he's trying to spring a little trap on