Chapter 14A

MPG Base, Eden
August 25, 2146

Jeff Waters took a drag off his cigarette and looked at the five cards in his hand thoughtfully. He was pretty new to poker, had only been taught the basics of it a week ago, but in that week, as he and the rest of the 17^th ACR spent hour after hour, day after day in the interior assembly area near the outside wall of the base, he'd played the game a lot, enough to know he stood a decent chance of taking the pot this hand. Hicks, who had dealt, had chosen five-card draw, jacks or better to open. He'd given Jeff a pair of fours, a pair of eights, and a deuce. Nobody else around the table was looking particularly enthused with what they held. This suspicion was confirmed when Zen Valentine, who was sitting next to Hicks, and Steve Sanchez, who was sitting next to Zen, both checked, unable to open. That brought the first bet over to Jeff.

He licked his lips for a moment as he thought the situation over. His first instinct, his gut reaction, was to throw down the maximum bet — one credit — immediately. He resisted this impulse. It would probably do nothing more than make the entire table fold at once, leaving his pot nothing more than the half of a credit that made up the ante. It would be better if he played them up a little first, drew them in.

"I'll open for two tenths," he said.

His PC, which was open before him and utilizing the standard poker program he'd downloaded when the game was first introduced to him, heard his words and automatically subtracted .2 credits from his bank account and transferred it to Hicks' computer, where it was stored in an escrow folder known as "the pot".

"Fuck my ass," said Xenia Stoner, who sitting next to him. She was dressed in her MPG T-shirt and shorts like everyone else but the lack of a bra beneath it was plainly obvious and quite a distraction to the males at the table. "I'll bump you a tenth."

"Three tenths to me, huh?" said Hicks. "What the fuck? It's only credits. I'm in. What about you, Zen?"

"I'm in this motherfucker too," said Valentine. "Three tenths."

Steve Sanchez, at sergeant, was both the oldest and the highest ranking at the table, the only one among them who had been a member of the MPG prior to the revolution. He made a look of disgust. "I'm out," he said, throwing his cards down. "Somehow I don't think this jack-high I'm holding is gonna be improved much."

This brought it back around to Jeff. "You still in, Waters?" Hicks asked. "Or do you need to call your mommy first to check?"

"Still in," Jeff said. "Another tenth to the pot."

Hicks' PC made the announcement that the pot was now right with one point seven Martian credits in it.

The five of them at the poker table were all members of the 17^th Armored Cavalry Regiment, as was every one of the other 1736 men and 755 women currently stuffed into this particular staging area. It was very crowded, very noisy in here, with a haze of tobacco smoke obscuring the view across the room. The entire regiment had been deployed to their defensive positions the day the first Earthling landings took place but they'd been pulled back into the base as soon as it became clear the Earthlings were following strict doctrine and would have to march to the city to fight. The 17^th ACR had been on what was called "one hour readiness" ever since. This meant that every last one of them could be back in those defensive positions, armed, armored, supplied, and ready to fight, in less than sixty minutes if the call-up came. Unfortunately, the only way to insure this one hour state of readiness was to keep all of the personnel in a holding area close to their biosuits and the airlocks to the outside. They couldn't drink alcohol or smoke marijuana. They were not allowed to make voice or text message or to send any other form of communication out of the base. They could shower and shave but that was only about once every three days at the rate the waiting list was going. To make it all worse, the cigarette supply — which came from Earth and was therefore getting pretty low planetwide — was quickly dwindling to the point that packs of smokes were going for twenty credits apiece or two hundred and fifty dollars.

The sheer boredom was a worse enemy than the marines. About the only thing there was to do was watch MarsGroup on the Internet screens or play poker. Jeff and Hicks had both decided that the latter of these choices was far superior. Their companions at the table — Sanchez, Valentine, and Xenia — were the crew of one of the tanks that provided overwatch to their platoon when they were out in the field.

"Okay... cards?" Hicks asked, picking up the deck. "How many you want, Mr. Jacks or better?"

Jeff took the deuce out of his hand and tossed it down in front of Hicks. "Just one," he said.

There was a murmur around the table at his actions, a few disquieted looks. Jeff did a good job of keeping his poker face neutral, especially when he looked at the new card he'd been given and saw it was another four. He had a full house! A full fucking house!

But Xenia only took one card as well. What did she have? Had she just pulled down a full house as well? If she had, odds were that it would be higher than the paltry fours over eights he was holding. He looked at her, trying to read her emotions but it was impossible. She had been playing the game longer than Jeff.

"Could be I have straight flush," she told him sweetly when she saw his perusal. "Or it could be I have a broken straight. That's what makes the game interesting, isn't it, Waters?"

Jeff returned her smile, an expression he'd rarely offered to anyone in the past, particularly people of the female persuasion. He, like all of the other men at the table, was strongly attracted to her although he held very few illusions about actually having a chance with her. In the first place, he was still married to Belinda, the woman who was still sitting back in their one bedroom apartment in the Heights, living off welfare money, contributing nothing to the revolution, her ambition in life to pump out her one child so she could score the extra bedroom and the extra welfare allotments that came with it. Jeff had no problem with the thought of cheating on her, in fact he planned to never touch her again, to dissolve their blessed union as soon as the fighting was over and he had a chance to take a little breather, but the most significant barrier between himself and Xenia was their upbringing. Xenia had been brought up in an employed family living in the Casting Meadows section of Eden — a solid, middle-class neighborhood. Her father had been a mid-level manager for MarsTrans, one of the highest positions a Martian could hope to rise to in the Earthling corporate system. Xenia herself was an educated woman, the holder of a bachelor's degree in agricultural engineering. She had been working for AgriCorp as a planting supervisor when the revolution came. She was articulate and well spoken, everything Jeff fancied he wasn't. He knew there couldn't possibly be anything she would see in a multi-generational ghetto dweller five years her junior, but still, she was always friendly to him, always had a kind word to say to him, and genuinely seemed to like his company despite their differences. In the back of his mind there was a part that always seemed to be wondering if there was some spark there.

"This is startin' to look really bad," said Hicks. "Dealer takes two. How bout you, Zen? What do ya, want?"

"Three," Valentine said in disgust. He slapped his discards down hard enough to send one flying off the table. Hicks picked it up wordlessly and then dealt him three more.

"Okay," Hicks said after giving everyone a minute or so to peruse their cards, "the bet's to you, Waters. What do ya say?"

"Half a credit," he said.

"Hmmm," said Xenia, casting a wary eye upon him. "Someone seems to think he has something going on here."

"Could be," Jeff said. "You in?"

"I'll see your half and raise you another quarter credit," she said.

"Fuck this shit," Hicks said, tossing down his cards. "Dealer folds."

"I'm out too," said Zen. His cards joined Hicks'.

"Well?" Xenia asked Jeff. "You gonna put up?"

Just what did she have? Was she bluffing? Or did she really have his full house beat? Did she think he was bluffing? He decided to push the envelope a little. "I'll see your quarter and raise you another half," he said.

She hardly blinked. "Call," she said. "Let's see what you got, tough boy."

He took a deep breath and laid his cards on the table. "Full house," he said. "Fours over eights."

Her poker face collapsed, turning to a frown of disgust. "Oh fuck me raw with an apple picker," she said. She put her cards down. They were the eight through queen, all in a nice order but of multiple suits. "I thought you were bluffing. I finally fill in a goddamn straight and your scraggly ass gets a full house. I hate this game."

"Its kind of a microcosm of life, wouldn't you say?" Sanchez asked, giving her a meaningful look. He was on the prowl for her as well and seemed to be hoping that his status as a semi-educated man would help make a connection with her. Sometimes it seemed like it was working, sometimes, like now for instance, it didn't.

"What the fuck's a microcosm?" Hicks asked. Like Jeff, he was a product of the ghetto school system, which was to say he had dropped out shortly after ninth grade and was barely literate.

"A small example that symbolizes a larger concept," Xenia replied, flashing her warm look, her smile at Hicks now.

"Huh?" he asked.

"It's like this poker game, this hand we just played," she said. "You can look at it as a microcosm of the war."

"How's that?" asked Jeff.

She looked at him. "You're a beginner to this game," she said. "Someone that a more experienced player like me would assume an easy target, a walkover. You bet high and risked a lot while I assumed you were trying a half-assed bluff to try to rook me out of the pot. However you weren't really bluffing. You were sitting there with a full house to my straight. I let you draw me in because of my underestimation of your knowledge and abilities and I got my ass kicked. You represent us greenies. I represent the Earthlings. The hand was a microcosm of what's going on outside in the wastelands. Do you understand now?"

"Whoa," said Hicks, his eyes showing awe. "That is fuckin' static, Xenia. Damn, I wish I had me some AgriCorp green to think that one over with."

"No shit," said Jeff. "I think I fuckin' love you."

She giggled and actually blushed a little. "I'm sure your wife wouldn't be too thrilled to hear your proclamation, but I'm glad I could help explain the concept to you. Now then, shall we deal?"

"Oh... right," Hicks said. He looked down at his PC. "Waters takes the pot. Valentine deals."

"Four point two credits transferred to Waters' account," the PC replied. "Deal transferred to Valentine."

"Right," Valentine said, picking up the cards. "I guess this is a microcosm of tomorrow, right? A shuffle of the cards, a new hand, a new set of circumstances to symbolize what is going to be thrown at us next."

"Exactly!" Xenia said, delighted, giving him the warm look now. "Very well put."

Valentine shrugged, feigning shyness. "Not bad for vermin, huh?"

"I wish you guys would stop calling yourselves that," Xenia said. "It's such an offensive word."

"It doesn't offend us," Valentine said, "so why should it offend you if we call ourselves what we are?"

"Because a vermin is a parasite, something that leaches off of society," Xenia said. "To apply it to a human being is... well... wrong."

"Is that what it means?" Hicks said angrily. "Motherfuck! Now I am pissed!"

"I gotta say," Jeff said, "that I never really knew the exact definition of that word either, but now that it's pointed out to me, I guess you employed people had it right on the money, didn't you?"

"I never used that word," Xenia said, perhaps a little defensively.

"I did," Sanchez admitted, "but I know now that I was wrong to."

"You guys ain't gotta get all politically correct on us about it," Valentine said. "I was vermin and I admit it. My grandmother was a doctor, you know, a fuckin' doctor pulling in the big dollars but the Earthlings took her medical license away back in 2102 when my dad was just twelve years old. They did that 'cause she was pushin' for better medical care for the vermin. Ever since then, our family has been vermin too, doing just what the definition of the word means, living off of society, using society's resources, and not giving anything back in return. Why should I argue about what I am? Why should I be offended for being called what I am?"

"Yeah!" Hicks said, righteously. "It ain't like it was by choice we're vermin."

"It's just the way things are," Jeff said. "Zen's right. You don't have to worry about offending us."

Xenia and Sanchez looked at each other for a moment and then at their companions. "I understand," Sanchez said. "And that too was very well put."

"Fuckin' aye," said Xenia, "but you can't call yourself that anymore."

"What?" Hicks said.

"Didn't you hear what we just said?" asked Jeff.

"You are contributing to society now," Xenia told them. "You're making the most important contribution possible. The definition no longer applies to you."

Valentine nodded agreeably. "I suppose you have a point," he said.

"Fuckin' aye," agreed Jeff.

"We gonna play some more, or what?" said Hicks. "This shit is getting a little deep."

"Right," said Sanchez. He had been shuffling the cards during the entire conversation. Now he began throwing them down on the table, face down. "Seven card stud. Lowball. Deuces are anti-wild. Ante up."

"Deuces are fuckin' anti-wild?" Xenia said as everyone else anted up. Anti-wild meant that a two would be considered a higher card than a king in a game where getting the lowest cards was the goal.

"You don't like it, deal yourself out," Sanchez said.

She shook her head. "I'll beat your ass anti-wild or no anti-wild. Ante up," she told her PC. It anted.

"Look at it this way," said Jeff. "An anti-wild deuce in lowball is another microcosm of the war."

Everyone looked at him, interested.

"In what way?" Xenia asked.

Jeff looked back at them for a moment and then laughed. "Fuck if I know," he finally said. "It just seemed like some cool shit to say."

A high-pitched tone suddenly sounded throughout the room, loud enough to be heard by everyone over the background noise of the overcrowded staging area. This was the attention signal, its purpose to let everyone know that something of importance was about to come over the video system. Five meter high-resolution screens were mounted on the walls at just above head level, their spacing every twenty meters. Additional, smaller screens hung down from the ceiling every fifty meters in the interior of the room. At the tone everyone stopped whatever they were doing and looked at the screen nearest them. A few people had to shuffle around and change position but by the time the logo of the MPG appeared, the entire regiment was able to see the view.

The face of Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Martin, commanding officer of the 17^th ACR, appeared on the screens. Colonel Martin had been known as Captain Martin prior to the revolution and it was his company that had rolled on the southern flank of the WestHem marines and pinned them into their barracks from that side. He had been promoted and placed in charge of integrating a motley collection of new recruits, non-combat assigned MPG members, and veteran combat unit members into a cohesive fighting unit with a hope in hell of taking on a superior force of marines. Like most MPG commanding officers his means of doing this was brutal, realistic, and repetitive training.

"Good evening, men and women of the 17^th," he said now. "I'm coming to you live from a room not four hundred meters away, and, like all briefings, this one is being transmitted to you on the closed circuit system only. Unlike our WestHem friends, we prefer to keep our operational briefings confined to the troops who will be operating under them and not broadcast to the general public as popular entertainment. In other words, what I'm about to say here needs to stay here."

"As if we could get out to tell anyone about it anyway," Hicks said, half jokingly, half contemptuously.

"Shut the fuck up," Jeff told him. "This sounds like some important shit he's gonna be spouting."

"You shut the fuck up," Hicks returned. "You're just a fuckin' private like me. You can't be telling me..."

"I'm a fuckin' sergeant," Sanchez interrupted. "So I can be tellin' you and I am tellin' both of you, shut your asses."

They shut their asses even though technically Sanchez — since he wasn't their sergeant or in their unit — wasn't allowed to tell them what to do.

"As you know from last night's briefing," Martin continued, "our special forces units and our air wing put a major hurt on the marine units yesterday, particularly upon their air cover. Our most conservative estimates are that better than thirty percent of the WestHem combat hovers deployed from the Eden LZ were put out of action, our more realistic estimates put that number at our about fifty percent."

Cheers erupted from the ACR troops as well as a considerable amount of profanity and contemptuous crotch grabbing. Martin, who was being fed an audio link to the room, waited until it died down a bit before continuing.

"As for enemy casualties," he said, "we're estimating that the mortar attacks and the sniper attacks alone put better than two hundred marines out of action. That number includes a significant amount of their officers and squad leaders. They were stung and quite badly, just as our doctrine predicted."

Another symphony of cheers, jeers, and general sneers erupted, this time lasting a bit longer.

"But that was yesterday," Martin said. "Today is another story. There are still a shitload of WestHem marines out there and they spent the bulk of today readying themselves to perform the task they came here to do. All day long they've been unloading their armored vehicles from the landing ships, fueling them, supplying them, and getting themselves ready to start their march towards Eden. Now I know you all saw this on the big three channels today since the Earthlings were kind enough to broadcast their preparations for us and transmit them out..."

There were chuckles at his words. The big three had indeed spent the day showing the marines readying for their march with video clips and even live reports from several of the landing ships. Nor was that all. General Wrath had actually gone on live at one point and drawn out on a computer screen the actual formation his units would assemble in and the route they would take to get to both Eden and New Pittsburgh. He had even been kind enough to show the approximate location they planned to set up their fueling and resupply points halfway to their objective.

"... but," Martin continued, "it is still my duty and obligation to give you an official briefing on what is facing us out there and to show you our intelligence department's best guess on their overall intentions. So... with that in mind, let me show you some satellite overheads of the Eden LZ. These were taken just before sunset tonight." The screen changed to show a high-resolution image of the ten square kilometers around the landing zone. The large shapes of the landing ships were plainly visible. Gathered all around them were the tinier shapes of various armored vehicles — a lot of armored vehicles.

"This is what we're going to be facing, people," Martin's voice said. "There are three thousand tanks down there, more than seven thousand armored personnel carriers, six hundred mobile artillery pieces, four hundred anti-air vehicles, and almost three hundred supply train units capable of carrying hydrogen fuel, liquid oxygen, extra ammunition of all types, food, water, and portable air packs for the troops. In short, we're looking at a full-scale ground invasion of anywhere from ninety to one hundred thousand troops."

An uncomfortable silence suddenly enveloped the room as everyone pondered those numbers. One hundred thousand troops? Three thousand tanks? Seven thousand APCs?

"I know what you're all thinking," Martin told them. "That's a fuck-load of WestHem marines and armor coming at us. I'm not denying this. But I'm also here to tell you that I don't think it's enough to take us."

There were some murmurs, many of them disbelieving in tone, some of them downright hostile.

"Look, people," Martin said, "I know what you're thinking. You're thinking that all this patriotic bullshit is easy for me to say since I'm going to be sitting nice and safe in the command center while you guys are out there in the wastelands facing down these marines and their armor. And since we're an armored cav unit our job, of course, is to be out in front. The ACRs advance to contact on offense and stand on the first line on defense. You'll be forty kilometers out there, in the Jutfield Gap, waiting for the marine ACRs to come marching in. You're thinking that I don't give a shit whether you live or die, as long as you kill enough marines before they take your position." He looked hard into the camera, making it seem like he was addressing each soldier personally. "Well you're wrong about that. I do give a shit about each and every one of you and I wouldn't have agreed to send you out there if I thought you were going to be slaughtered. That is not what MPG doctrine is about and that is not what I am about. My first goal — even before repelling the marines and keeping them from taking our city — is the welfare of the soldiers under my command. MPG doctrine commands that this be my goal. We will take casualties out there — unfortunately there is no way to avoid that — but I swear before Laura Whiting herself that they will be as minimal as possible. If it starts looking bad out there, if it starts looking like the marines are getting the upper hand, you will be pulled back. And if it starts looking like they're going to rout us, I will order surrender. General Jackson agrees with this strategy himself, he insists upon it, and he is prepared to surrender Eden to the marines if it looks like the cost of repelling them will be too high. We're not out here to sacrifice ourselves, people. We're out here to make those Earthling motherfuckers sacrifice themselves. If we can't do that, we give up. That is our doctrine and it always will be. Does everyone understand that?"

Everyone seemed to understand it. There were some more murmurs, some more disquieted talk, but no open dissent.

"All right then," Martin said. "Having beaten that point into the ground, let me offer you some concrete strategic information." The screens changed, showing a breakdown of the main MPG forces assigned to the Eden theater of operations.

"As I said before," Martin told them. "The ACRs will be out in front, the first units to make major contact with the OPFOR. There are three armored cavalry regiments based in Eden, ourselves, the 9^th, and the 14^th. All three of us will be spread through the first line of defense in the Jutfield Gap, the very same area we've been training in all these weeks. We know every inch of this ground, every rock, every boulder, every grain of sand. We have defensive positions dug atop every single hill out in this gap and our tank and APC drivers know every route through and around those hills. The 9^th ACR will be deployed in defensive zone two on the southern end of the gap. The 14^th will be deployed in defensive zone three on the northern end. And we, the 17^th ACR, will be covering zone one, right smack in the middle of the gap, covering the most likely avenue of advance the OPFOR will take.

"As you are aware, each one of our armored cavalry regiments consists of three infantry battalions, one tank battalion, and one support battalion consisting of mortar teams, medivac units, vehicle repair and rescue units, and re-supply units. The infantry units will dismount and man their hilltop positions. This will give us approximately six thousand soldiers spread throughout the gap from one end to the other with overlapping fields of fire. The APCs that transported you will provide heavy machine gun support and sixty millimeter cannon support. The tank battalions will be deployed to the flanks of their respective regiments to keep the WestHem tanks at bay and to cover your retreat when it comes time to fall back to the next position. Artillery and air support will be provided by the 2^nd Infantry division, who will be holding the main line of defense, and the Eden air wing, which will be operating on rapid turn-around deployment.