Greenies

bent in specific formations to represent different denominations.

Lon was just about to go get himself dealt in for a few hands when the door to the opposing hanger suddenly slid open and Colonel Bright entered the room. Even at the age of 56, Bright was still an imposing presence, able to outrun and outgun a good number of his younger soldiers in the training fields. He was a stickler for training standards and quite a hard-ass when it came to admission to his elite corps. It was well known that he personally gave final approval on all inductees into the cadre.

Nobody stood up or came to attention when Bright entered the room of course — it just wasn't done in the MPG — but everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and looked up at him as he walked to the front of the room and took up position near a podium that had been set up earlier. A microphone sat on the podium and he tapped it a few times, confirming that it was live. He then began to speak, his voice gruff and self-assured.

'Good morning, men,' he told them. 'I know it sounds very cliché to say so, but I know you've all been wondering just what you've been brought here for. For security reasons I've been forced to be very vague with you in regards to the call-up and your deployment. The time for being vague is now over however. Let me begin by explaining to you all what has been happening on the surface over the last few hours and from there I'll get to the mission that I'm going to ask you to perform.' He paused, his eyes tracking over the collection of soldiers. 'Last night, in Denver, a federal grand jury consisting entirely of WestHem civilians and hearing evidence presented only by the federal attorney general's office, voted to indict Governor Whiting on charges of corruption and misuse of office and several other things.'

Some angry uproar erupted from the crowd. Lon heard several utterings of profanity echoing off the hanger walls.

Bright waited patiently for them to quiet down and then continued. 'This morning, in New Pittsburgh, a group of forty FLEB agents, all of them armed with automatic weapons, attempted to serve this warrant at the capital building and take Governor Whiting into custody. Their intent was to extradite her to Earth for trial and imprisonment, therefore leaving the Lieutenant Governor in control of the executive branch of our planetary government.' He gazed out, seeming to lock eyes with everyone at once. 'The capital security team — which, as I'm sure you are all aware, is made up of MPG special forces soldiers — fired upon the FLEB agents and prevented them from completing their mission.'

Now there was shocked silence in the room as every man tried to contemplate the ramifications of Bright's words. Fired on federal agents? Prevented them from completing their mission?

'The attempt to take our governor into custody on these trumped up charges was unsuccessful,' Bright told them. 'All of the FLEB agents participating in the raid were killed or captured. The New Pittsburgh police department has been ordered to stay out of the situation by their chief. When the second wave of FLEB agents showed up at the capital, they too were taken into custody by regular infantry troops from the New Pittsburgh area division. At this moment the capital building and two blocks around it is secured and being guarded by MPG soldiers. Governor Whiting has issued an order for the rest of the MPG to mobilize for deployment. As we speak, several platoons of our soldiers are fighting a battle with WestHem marines at the main gates to the Eden marine barracks. Their intent is to keep the WestHem soldiers from exiting the base and impeding MPG operations on the surface.'

He let that sink in for a moment and then went on. 'Gentlemen, you're all Martians. You have all grown up on this planet under the rule of WestHem and you know what their system has done to us. We are second class citizens on our own planet. I won't try to duplicate the speeches of Governor Whiting here today because I'm just not up to the task. But I know that all of you have been listening to her words and that most of you agree with what she has been saying. It is time for us to break free of WestHem by whatever means necessary. I want none of you to make any mistake about the gravity of the situation that I have just described to you down on the surface. Our troops have fired upon federal officers, killing several of them. We have defied federal orders to hand over Governor Whiting to them. Our planetary guard troops have initiated firefights with WestHem marines and are using armored vehicles to keep them in check. What has happened today is nothing more nor less than the opening move in an armed revolt by the Planet Mars against the Western Hemispheric Alliance. It is a bid for independence from WestHem by force of arms. A revolution. And I'm about to ask you men here to play a part in it.'

Without giving them time to think too deeply, he continued. 'Now I've been your commanding officer for a long time now. I like to think that I'm the type of CO that makes himself available to his troops. I visit all of the commands regularly and I know most of you by name and by face. I've heard you talk to each other around the dorms and out on the training field. I've seen you all enraptured by Governor Whiting's words when she speaks on Internet. I've heard you rant about those 'fucking Earthlings' and about how Mars needs to be free. I've heard you cuss the name of WestHem and the bastard capitalist corporations that rule our lives.'

He stared at his crowd, his expression now challenging. 'Well, gentlemen, guess what? The vehicle for that change you all want has arrived and you have the opportunity to be it. A plan has been in place for this day for several years now and the day has come to put it into action. If you really want Mars to be free, if you really want to break the bonds of WestHem rule, the time has come to shit or get off the pot. I'm about to ask you men to go into combat against WestHem soldiers, against the institution that rules us. I'm about to ask you to commit high treason, the penalty for which is life imprisonment on Earth.'

'If any or even all of you does not wish to do this you are free to stand and leave the room right now. I have orders direct from Governor Whiting herself that I am not to compel a single soldier to do my bidding. This is a voluntary assignment from this point on and that means more than one thing. If you commit to my plan, you will be doing so of your own free will and you will not have the excuse that you were simply following orders. If we lose, you will most likely suffer the fate I just explained. If we win, you will be heroes for the rest of Martian history.

'If any of you chooses not to be a part of this, I will be disappointed, I will label you as a hypocrite, unwilling to put his money where his mouth is, but you will be allowed to leave this room and go about your lives. You will of course be held until the operation is complete but you have my word and the word of Governor Whiting that you will not be persecuted in any way.

'So...' He looked at his men, wondering if any would fold. A large part of him feared that all 640 would stand as one and move to the door. 'Those that do not wish to participate, please stand and exit the room at the back right now.'

Not a single soldier stood up. The chant started somewhere in the middle of the room and quickly spread. 'Free Mars, free Mars, free Mars!'

Before long the entire room, Colonel Bright included, was shouting it at the top of their lungs.

The Mermaid had docked at Triad Naval base two hours before after its long deployment to the Jupiter system. Though the majority of the crew had been released for three days of shore duty at Triad, Spacer first class Brett Ingram was not among them. He was in charge of a work detail tasked with unloading the unused food supplies left over from the deployment and returning them to the main Owl supply area. It was somewhat insulting work for a skilled computer technician but after nine years in the WestHem navy he was quite used to insulting behavior from his superiors. When Lieutenant Commander Braxton had been faced with the task of forming an unload detail he'd picked the six Martians out of the entire crew to form it, seeming to pick at random but, out of forty-eight enlisted men it was quite a large coincidence that only those of Martian heritage had been chosen.

This was all status quo on the good old Mermaid of the good old WestHem Navy but today it was particularly irritating because Jeff and the members of his detail were burning to monitor the news broadcasts regarding the situation on the surface. Could what they were hearing possibly be true? Had they really indicted Laura Whiting? Had her forces really fired on federal agents? And now new reports were coming in as well, reports about some sort of battle at the entrance to the WestHem marine base. Were MPG troops engaging the marines? What kind of madness was going on down there?

Of course every compartment on the ship had an Internet terminal in it and, since they were docked, they were patched into the base Internet system. They didn't dare turn any of these screens onto anything other than a music station however, nor did they dare monitor things on their PCs. There were security personnel on board the Mermaid too and, as Martians, it would be unwise to show much interest in the goings on down on the surface.

'Do you really think that Whiting is holding the capital building hostage?' asked Spacer third class Fairfield, a young black man in his first year of naval service. He was still young enough and dumb enough to take visible