Chapter 27B

Eden General Hospital was a bit of a contrast to the celebrations in the street. It was packed to well beyond capacity, the overflow having spilled out into two adjoining office buildings. Harried doctors, nurses, and other technicians move frantically here and there. Every available floor space was filled with cots in which wounded MPG soldiers or wounded WestHem soldiers were being housed and cared for. Scores of uniformed MPG soldiers — undoubtedly on the same mission as Xenia, Belinda, and Jeff, wandered here and there. A large line of them had formed before a main desk terminal that was staffed by four security guards.

"We'll never find anyone in here," Belinda cried. "Look how many people there are."

"Yeah," Jeff said, looking at some of the soldiers in the lobby cots. He saw people with arms and legs missing, with horrible facial injuries, people on ventilators, with holes drilled in their necks. "I had no idea there were so many."

"Come on," Xenia said, pointing to the line of troops. "Let's get in line. They should be able to tell us where to go."

They waited in the line for more than forty minutes before making it to the front. Once there they gave Zen's name to the security guard. He looked it up on his computer. "He's in the Bangkok Building next door. Second floor, sector Bravo six. The notation says he's able to have visitors."

"How about Matt Mendez?" Jeff asked. "I commed his dad and he told me he was here too."

"You know his date of birth or his social?"

Matt rattled off his date of birth.

"Upstairs," the guard told him. "Fiftieth floor, nephrology wing. He's accepting visitors as well."

"Right," Jeff said. "Thanks."

"You wanna go visit your friend first?" Xenia asked.

"Yeah," he said. "If you don't mind."

"You want us to come with you?" Belinda asked.

"You're my bitches now, aren't you?" he asked them. "Of course I want you to come with me. We'll be quick."

They walked to the elevator and had to wait another twenty minutes before being able to board one of the cars. The trip up to the fiftieth floor took another ten minutes. They emerged into a sterile hallway and followed the signs to the Nephrology Department. It was a small ward that had been designed for perhaps twenty patient beds. Currently it was housing well over a hundred. Most of the patients had visitors with them, adding to the overcrowding. Still the mood seemed more festive than somber and the smell of marijuana smoke could be detected even here.

They wandered up and down the rows for a few minutes until Jeff recognized Andrew and Carla Mendez — Matt's parents — sitting in one of the chairs. He headed over, his two companions trailing behind. Andrew saw him first. His eyes lit up and he stood, rushing over to greet him. Jeff was startled to see how much weight Matt's dad had lost. He looked almost fit now.

"Jeffery Creek, you little punk dust runner!" Andrew said, holding out his hand for the traditional Capitalist handshake.

Jeff gave it to him and then pulled him into a hug. "How the fuck are you, pops?" he asked. "What you been doing? Working out or something?"

Carla came forward and gave him a hug as well. "We've been working in the agricultural fields ever since you two dumb-asses signed up for the MPG," she said. "We figured we might as well see what this whole working thing is all about."

"Goddamn right," Andrew said. "We got almost four hundred of them credits in the bank now. Thanks to you and Matt, they'll still be worth something tomorrow."

"We kicked their fuckin' asses, didn't we?" Jeff asked. He broke the embrace and walked over to the bed, looking down at his best friend since childhood. "What the fuck happened to you?"

"Just a little skin off my ass is all," Matt told him, leaning forward. They hugged, forgoing the Capitalist handshake by unspoken consent. "How the fuck are you? Glad to see you made it. We heard you ground pounders took a hell of a beating out there."

"I'm too fuckin' smart to die out in the field," Jeff said, releasing him. "I'm glad to see you made it too." He stood up. "Let me introduce you to some really static people I met. This is Xenia and Belinda. They were on one of the tank crews in my ACR."

Matt nodded at them and told them he was pleased to make their acquaintance. He then turned back to Jeff. "Are these two the reason you smell like you've been bathed in pussy?"

Jeff actually blushed a little. Xenia answered for him. "We're the reason," she confirmed. "We couldn't contain ourselves on the train ride over here and... well... you know how it is?"

"I know how it is," he said. "The nurses and even a few of the doctors have been real thankful to me since I got here."

"Hell," said Andrew, "I even got a blowjob from one and I'm just his dad."

"No sense in bragging, Andy," Carla said with a frown.

"The fuck there ain't," Andrew shot back.

They talked for a few minutes, telling their tales of their part in the war. Jeff was amazed that such a minor wound had almost killed his friend and had resulted in the death of both of his kidneys.

"So what happens now?" he asked him. "You doing that dialysis thing?"

"Yep," Matt confirmed. "Once every two days for two hours. It sucks ass. They tell me that once things settle down around here they're gonna grow me some new kidneys."

"How much is that gonna cost you?" Jeff asked.

"Not a fuckin' thing, they say. According to Laura Whiting, all healthcare for soldiers is free."

"She's even saying she wants to make it that way for everyone," Andrew put in.

"Free health care?" Xenia said. "Goddamn. She is a fuckin' radical, isn't she?"

They parted ways a few minutes later after much hugging, handshaking, and profane declarations of their fighting prowess. They promised to get together as soon as possible once things settled down. The three of them then made their way back to the elevators and down to street level where they entered the Bangkok Building.

They found Zen Valentine in an equally crowded room on the second floor. He was lying on a sheet, shirtless, a large bandage covering a good portion of his back and chest. Two intravenous lines were dripping into his arms and a tube snaked out from his side. Sitting next to his bed was an elderly woman wearing denim shorts and a cropped half-shirt.

Zen saw them approaching and his eyes lit up. "Xenia! Creek! Belinda!" He leaned forward. "You made it through the war!"

"Fuckin' aye, we did," Xenia said, leaning in and giving him a big hug and then slipping him some tongue in the finest Martian tradition.

"You taste like pussy," he said knowingly. "Does that mean you made your choice?"

"My choice was not to choose," she said. "I'm stuck with both of them."

"No shit?" he asked, raising his eyebrows a bit.

"No shit," Belinda said. She leaned and gave him a hug and some tongue as well.

Jeff gave him a hug. He held back on the tongue portion. Zen didn't seem to mind.

The elderly woman coughed politely. "Not to interrupt this little reunion," she said. "But don't you think some introductions are in order, Zenny?"

"Zenny?" Jeff said with a smirk.

"Not a fuckin' word about that to anyone," he warned, blushing.

Belinda and Xenia chuckled.

"Guys," said Zen, "I'd like you to meet my grandmother, Dr. Marjorie Valentine. Gram, this is Xenia, Jeff, and Belinda. Jeff here is one of the infantry guys we fought with in the gap. X and B were in my tank with me. They're the ones who hauled my ass out of the wastelands and got me to the medics."

"You're the ones," Marjorie said, beaming at the two women. "I thank you for what you did, for the planet and especially for my Zenny." She hugged each of them furiously, kissing them on the lips. She then turned to Jeff. "You're a hot piece of ass, ain't you? Let me thank you for your service." And before he realized what was happening, her lips were on his and her tongue was in his mouth. He was squeamish at first until he realized she was an extremely good kisser.

"Thanks," he said, a little breathless, once she released him.

"Anytime," she said, gazing at him lustfully. "And in any case, I'm not Dr. Valentine anymore. The WestHem fucks took my license away back in 2108. I'm just plain old Marjorie now."

"I heard about how you got fucked," Xenia said. "Just like those corporate assholes, ain't it?"

"It was the way of the solar system," Marjorie replied. "At least until now. Now you youngsters have given Mars a brand new chance. We're free because of you and everyone like you. Free to pursue our own course. I never thought I'd live to see it, but now that I have, I'm determined to live to see what becomes of us next. I think this Laura Whiting bitch has got us on the right path."

"So you don't think she's Queen Laura the First?" Belinda asked.

"Setting herself up to be just like the old bosses?" Marjorie asked.

"Yeah," Belinda replied. "That's what some of the people are afraid of. That we'll end up even worse off then we were before the revolution."

"An interesting question," she said, pondering, seemingly pleased that they were trying to tap into her wisdom. "Why don't we burn one and talk about that?"

"Burn one?" Jeff asked.

"Fuckin' aye," she said, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a silver case. She opened it and pulled out a fat joint. "I hope everyone likes Libby Lowdown. I've always been partial to that shit." She pulled out a laser lighter, sparked up the joint, and took a tremendous hit of it. While holding the hit in her lungs she passed the joint to Jeff. "Here you go, lover," she squeaked.

"Wow," Jeff said, taking it. He took a hit of his own, drawing deeply of the sweet smoke. Halfway through Marjorie hit him in the shoulder.

"Watch the spit on the end of the joint," she yelled. "If I want your spit I'll suck it off your tongue again."

"Sorry," Jeff squeaked, blushing.

"Youngsters these days," Marjorie huffed. "Always using pipes and bongs to smoke their shit. There's no fucking joint etiquette anymore. They really should teach that in school."

The joint was passed around until it was but a roach. Everyone watched his or her spit at the end, not wanting to incur the wrath of Marjorie. It was very good shit, almost as good as Agricorp Green. All five of them were in the stratosphere.

"Now then," Marjorie said after putting the roach into a separate case full of other such roaches. "You were concerned about the Queen Laura thing. I won't deny it's possible that we're dealing with a potential fascist dictator here. I won't deny that everything she has done to this point could have been an elaborate plan to seize power from the WestHems and set herself up as supreme ruler of this planet. It is possible that we could end up worse off than we were before."

"That's kind of a depressing thought, Gram," Zen said. "I thought you were in favor of Laura Whiting."

"I was and I am," Marjorie said. "My God, what I wouldn't give for a nice glass of Chardonnay right now. Oh well... the price of being free. Anyway, I was just trying to point out the worst-case scenario from this chain of events Laura Whiting has set in motion. I don't think we'll come to that. I can't explain why I feel what I do but I trust our governor. She is different. She actually seems to care about us. If this has all been a power scheme for her, it was an elaborate and far-reaching one. I honestly think that she is exactly what she seems to be."

"That's a relief to hear you say that," Belinda said.

"Well, don't be too relieved," Marjorie said. "Even if Whiting is exactly what she purports to be, we're still in for some rankin times in the next few years."

"What do you mean?" Jeff asked.

"The quest for power and for rule is a very powerful narcotic," Marjorie said. "There is a power vacuum in place on Mars right now. Laura Whiting is the governor of this now free planet. She has twenty-two former legislature members who joined her at the beginning of the revolt. These twenty-three people are all who are running the planet now. Others are going to try to get in on this ruling thing. Many of them will have nothing but their own self-interest in mind. And, if I read my history correctly, those who are the most charismatic will be the ones who are actually the most snake-like. We Martians are going to have to be very careful to avoid letting any of these people obtain positions of high power."

"What can we do to avoid that?" asked Belinda, terrified at the images that Marjorie was invoking.

"You can be diligent, you can use your common sense, and you can speak your mind when you need to," Marjorie replied. "You need to realize that there will be attempts to betray this revolution by small groups of people or individuals who just want to rule. You have to filter through their lies, examine every political person who tries to insert themselves into the power structure in your name. History is full of betrayed revolutions. I hope before all that is holy that you people who won this one for us won't let it be betrayed as well."

Martian Capital Building, New Pittsburgh

September 25, 2146

0900 hours

Governor Laura Whiting — who was technically only the acting Governor — called the meeting of the fledgling Martian government to order. They were in the legislature chambers, which had been designed to seat one hundred members in comfort and had accommodations for up to six hundred visitors in bleacher style seating in the rear. With only twenty-three people present, the large chambers seemed almost empty.

"Good morning," she told everyone from her podium at the front of the room. "The first order of business on the agenda is the reply to our offer to open negotiations for an armistice we received from the WestHem Executive Council early this morning. I'm sure you can all guess what the jest of that reply is."

A chuckle traveled through the seats. Yes, they could all guess. Laura had sent her message to Earth four days ago, offering to open negotiations for a permanent armistice and peace treaty with WestHem. In the request Mars offered to immediately resume food and steel shipments and to begin negotiating a POW exchange. Mars' terms for such actions were public WestHem recognition of Mars as an independent nation and the extradition of General Wrath and General Browning on war crimes charges. Instead of responding right away WestHem had cut and edited the message until it seemed like Laura was taunting the WestHem public, expressing hatred for all things Earthling, and threatening to kill even more hostages. This edited tape had been playing non-stop on all three of the big three for three days now.

"In any case," Laura said, "I'll go ahead and play that reply now for the record. I'll also release a copy to MarsGroup so they can start playing it as well." She tapped a few buttons on her podium screen and the video file opened up, both before her and on the large screen behind her. She pushed the "play" tab.

The face of Loretta Williams appeared, looking years older than it had in the beginning of the conflict. "This is in reply to the offer of negotiation of armistice that was sent to us by the terrorist leader Laura Whiting of Mars. I will make this short and very clear. There will be no armistice of any kind with you thugs that are holding Mars hostage. To even call this conflict a war is insulting to all those brave marines who participated in it. You are illegally holding a WestHem colony against the will of the people who live there and we will not rest until Mars is liberated and its people allowed to live out their lives in democratic peace. All terrorists we captured during Operation Martian Hammer are being returned to Earth where they will be tried for their crimes and executed if found guilty of murder or treason. In addition, when our next task force arrives and liberates that planet Laura Whiting, Kevin Jackson, and any soldier who picked up arms against us will also be tried on charges of murder, treason, and crimes against humanity. You would be well advised to spare your people further bloodshed and surrender yourselves now. Only if you agree to this term and to unconditional surrender of Mars back to WestHem rule will we agree to speak with you in any way."

The screen went blank as the message ended.

"So then," Laura said, sipping from her tea, "the usual WestHem blathering bullshit. I'm afraid that is pretty much what we were expecting all along. It looks like we're going to have to fight them again at some point."

This caused some tittering among the legislature. One of the members, Steve Hotbox of Eden, asked to be recognized. Laura did so.

"Like all of you here, I'm extremely proud of what the MPG did to keep this planet in our hands during the war," he said. "I myself have a son who has been in the MPG for years. He served with the 5^th Heavy Artillery Battalion in Eden and was nearly killed when the WestHem air strike took out his gun. We lost a lot of people in this war and we just barely hung in there. As General Jackson said in his briefing, the marines were within thirty minutes of taking Eden from us when they decided to turn back. It was only their loss of morale that saved us."

"That is true, Steve," Laura said. "What is it that you're trying to say here?"

"I'm wondering what's going to happen the next time they send troops after us. We beat them because they underestimated us and because we had some pretty good tricks up our sleeve. I'm not trying to take anything away from the MPG or General Jackson. Both performed brilliantly. But now the WestHems know just how they should estimate our abilities and they know all of our tricks. Won't they send twice as many men and machines next time? Won't they focus on a single city instead of splitting their forces? I'm wondering whether it's wise of us to take such a hard line with WestHem on this armistice."

"I take it that Jack Strough has been visiting your office?" Laura asked.

Hotbox sputtered a little. "Well... yes, but I had my doubts about this long before Mr. Strough entered the picture."

Laura sighed. Jack Strough, the president of the cargo handler's union, the man who had been a constant thorn in the side of the revolution ever since they first took the planet from WestHem, was now expanding his pain-in-the-ass status into Martian politics. In the past two weeks he had organized nearly every labor union on Mars into a loose alliance of laborers and was using this power to project his wishes into the Governor's office and into the offices of the remaining legislature members. "I have listened to Mr. Strough's proposals myself," she said. "He is suggesting that we accept 'de facto' independence from WestHem but that we allow their corporations to retain control of the various industries on the planet."

"That is correct," Hotbox said. "And I believe that Mr. Strough makes a lot of sense. WestHem is never going to accept losing Mars. They are going to keep sending more and more troops here until they take it back and condemn all of us to an ongoing military occupation. Those of us who fomented the revolt will be tried and executed."

"Our troops did not fight and die out there for de facto independence, Steve," Laura said angrily. "They fought and died so we could be free — completely free — of the WestHem system of government. What he is suggesting puts us right back under WestHem control."

"No, that's where you're wrong," Hotbox argued. "We get to elect our own leaders and the MPG gets to stay intact. They won't send any more troops to Mars to try to liberate it. The corporations get to keep their holdings but the Martian Federation of Labor that Strough is proposing will set all wages and working conditions for every Earth based corporation. In addition, we'll be free to continue trading with EastHem, something we were not allowed to do under the previous system. This will allow the expansion of the agricultural fields and the steel fields and open up a prosperity that will last for generations."

"And we would still be on WestHem's system of currency," Laura said, "and subjected to their corporate mentality." She shook her head. "That is not what we were fighting for, Steve."

"I understand that, Laura," Hotbox said. "Honestly I do. But I don't think we're going to be able to hold this planet indefinitely. A lot of the workers out there are in favor of this plan — more every day."

"We will hold this planet forever if we remain unified," Laura said. "As we speak right now, our factories are churning out tanks, guns, APCs, bullets, aircraft, and every other supply needed to fight a war. General Jackson plans to increase MPG manpower by more than two hundred percent in the next six months and to beef up every aspect of our defensive capabilities. If this is allowed to go forth, the WestHems will be soundly defeated out in the wastelands again no matter what they send here. Their one chance to take this planet back from us has come and gone — unless we fail to remain unified and that is exactly what Jack Strough is trying to do. He is pitting our vital labor force against those of us who are trying to keep them free. And when you allow him into your office and bring his seditious drivel into these chambers you are helping him."