company sized units, their rifles and SAWs ready for action. Slowly they advanced, expecting to be fired upon at any moment.
Their expectations were not met. When they reached the airlocks, the doors slid obediently open, just as had been promised in the surrender agreement. Inside, all of the marines had been removed from the assembly area and the entire section had been decompressed. The troops passed through the airlocks and into this room quickly, fanning out and covering all of the doors. The airlock doors were then shut again and the assembly room was recompressed, a process that took more than twenty minutes. Only then were the doors to the main part of the base finally opened. The troops began to move onto the base to take it under occupation.
At the main entrance on the Macarthur Avenue side, other troops moved down the corridors to enter from here. At the tunnel where the fighting had taken place they stepped over the corpses of the marines that had fallen in the three breakout attempts.
In all, more than nine hundred MPG infantry soldiers entered the base and took up occupation duties. They found the marines inside to be verbally abusive but otherwise unarmed and docile. They were instructed to return to their dormitories for the time being and they went without question. No shots were fired and the long process of clearing the base of weapons and communication gear began to take place.
At Triad Naval Base a similar process was underway. Here the task was complicated by the limited number of soldiers available and the high number of civilian personnel that worked on the base. It was quickly realized that more soldiers were needed and an order went out to both New Pittsburgh and Libby to send a battalion apiece up. The decision was made to hold all personnel exactly where they were until their arrival.
Meanwhile, the deployment of the MPG continued and by 4:00 that afternoon 98% of the active members had reported to their duty stations across the planet. Each unit that deployed was told of the circumstances of the call- up and offered the chance to forgo participation in what was going on. A few took the offer, removing their uniforms and going home, but the vast majority stayed and agreed to follow whatever orders they were given.
Movement orders were issued to nearly every combat unit that formed up. In every Martian city, armed and armored soldiers took control of control centers and federal offices. Corban Hayes and the remaining agents were in the New Pittsburgh office when a company of troops rolled up outside in APCs and surrounded the building. Though the agents were armed with automatic weapons, they gave up without a fight when an MPG captain in the city control center shut off their power and utilities. Hayes was reportedly in tears as he was handcuffed and led towards the city jail to stew with the rest of his men.
Laura Whiting was still sitting in her office, high above the streets of New Pittsburgh, her attention divided between two Internet terminals, one of which was showing a MarsGroup station, the other of which was showing a big three station. For once the two news services shared a common thread: that of confusion. They reported on the fighting that had occurred on Macarthur Avenue in Eden, and the movement of troops and armor outside the two military bases themselves. They also had a few reporters on scene up on Triad near the tram stations, although they had no idea of what had occurred there except that there had been shooting on the platform between MPG soldiers and MPs.
'The only thing we know for sure,' the MarsGroup anchor told her audience at the hourly recap, 'is that a large scale deployment of the Martian Planetary Guard has taken place and that those soldiers are being used to fight WestHem forces that are stationed on the planet. Heavy fighting was reported at the Macarthur Avenue main entrance to the Eden Marine Barracks, including the use of tanks and armored personnel carriers with heavy weapons. MPG troops in large numbers have been observed entering the base from both the Macarthur Avenue entrances and from the outside airlocks on the planetary surface itself. They did not seem to be under hostile fire as they did this. It is unknown just what their exact intention is but it would seem that occupation of the base is their goal.
'Meanwhile, other elements of the MPG have taken control of federal buildings, including the FLEB offices, in the cities of Eden, New Pittsburgh, Libby, and Procter. We have tried to interview some of these soldiers but they have all refused comment on what their exact mission or intentions are. Governor Whiting, who's indictment and arrest warrant are what apparently precipitated all of this activity, has not responded to requests for interviews but she has released an email announcing that she will address the planet tonight at 1900 hours, New Pittsburgh time. We will of course carry that address live.'
The big three recap was basically the same information, although with a decidedly different slant to it.
Laura sighed as the reporters began rehashing the same information again. Her stomach was knotted and burning from the tension of the day. She took a sip out of her ninth cup of coffee and continued to wait and watch.
Soon Jackson's face appeared on one of her screens. His face was showing the strain of the past few hours as well but he seemed to be happy nonetheless. 'The planet is pretty much secure,' he told her.
'Pretty much?' she said.
'We have TNB locked down tight and all of the MPs accounted for. The same goes for EMB. We're in occupation of the base and more than ninety percent of the weapons there are now accounted for. We're going room to room with scanners to find the rest. In the four cities where we have MPG divisions, all of the FLEB and other federal law enforcement have been captured and are accounted for. Now we just need to get some soldiers over to the other cities and take control of them there. I've already sent battalions out on the inter-city trains for that duty.'
'Could those agents cause problems for us?' she asked, knowing that each of those offices had around a hundred agents.
'Nothing that's going to put our possession of the planet in jeopardy,' he said. 'They could put up a fight if they were stupid I suppose, but it'll be an ultimately losing one. We'll have them all secured or dead within twenty- four hours.'
She nodded. 'Let's hope that it doesn't come to that,' she said. 'What else has been done?'
'Communications with Earth have been virtually shut down,' he said. 'We've assumed control of the com- sats and have shut off all outgoing transmissions except media broadcast. Per your orders, they're still allowed to receive signals and email.'
'Very good,' she said, and then braced herself. 'And the casualties?'
'Relatively light,' he said, offering a crooked grin. 'Since General Sega surrendered all of the WestHem forces once it became apparent that they could not win, we were spared...'
'Numbers, General,' she insisted.
He breathed deeply, casting his eyes upon her. 'Thirty-three dead, forty-seven wounded,' he told her. 'Most of them up at TNB from the force that was pinned in the tunnel.'
'And the enemy?' she asked next.
'We haven't got a firm count just yet but we have a rough estimate,' he told her. 'Including the feds at the capital building and the marines in the C-12, it looks like about 560 dead, 133 wounded. We also lost two civilians and had three of them wounded when those idiots guarding the passenger platform at TNB opened fire on our troops instead of surrendering. For what its worth, the numbers are considerably lower than what was predicted for the operation.'
She nodded. 'I understand. See to it that names are gathered as soon as possible and that the families of those killed are notified immediately after my speech tonight. And as for the WestHem casualties, make sure a full accounting is sent to Earth as soon as possible.'
She seemed morose, and this bothered Jackson. It bothered him greatly. After setting all of this in motion, after all the years of planning and scheming, was she now paling due to the casualties sustained in the successful operation? She should be cheering.
'Laura,' he said carefully, 'we knew we were going to take casualties when we started this thing. Those MPG troops knew when they went in that they might get killed. The all voluntarily went in anyway. They died fighting for Mars. For Mars! Not for some moon that circles around Jupiter that nobody was even using but that our government wanted to deny to EastHem so they could keep selling them fuel. They didn't die in some godforsaken shithole in the southern hemisphere of Earth fighting fanatical nationalists that hate WestHem rule as much as we do. They died for
'I understand all of that, Kevin,' she told him. 'I also understand that you did everything you could to keep
