"Yes, sir," Wild responded. "They've been advised and the hover teams are already getting ready."
"Good," he said, nodding. "And intelligence is certain the FLIR units on the hovers will be able to pick up those damn invisible suits from altitude?"
Wild hesitated for a second before answering. "That's uh... what they tell me," he said. Of course he could not discount the very likely possibility they were simply telling him what they thought he wanted to hear. As an aide to a top general he had had such a thing happen more than a few times in the past, including several times on this very mission.
"Good," Wrath said, either not noticing the hesitant tone or pretending not to. "And I want the rest of the hovers running escort duty for the evac shuttles. Every available shuttle is to head down to the planet the moment the hovers are ready. I want every one of those wounded men on the hospital ship by 1800 tonight. Every last one."
"I'll see that it's done, General," Wild responded. "And what about the media? They've been asking that a pool group be sent over to the hospital ship to interview some of the wounded. We've been delaying them ever since day two of course since they don't know that none of the wounded have made it to the ship yet, but we really should set something up before they get too antsy."
"Go ahead and assign someone to that as soon as the first wounded start arriving," Wrath told him. "Make sure whoever you assign finds someone reliable to tell our media friends what its like down there on the surface." By "reliable" he meant someone who would spout the official line instead of what was really happening. It simply wouldn't do for a WestHem marine to start going on and on about invisible soldiers and heavy casualties.
"I'll give it to Captain Hovel," he said after a moment's thought. "He's bucking for Major pretty hard. He'll handle it with the discretion it deserves."
"Good man," Wrath said. "And how many correspondents went down on the landing ships?"
"A little more than half, sir. They were shuttled over to the transport ships this morning and distributed pretty evenly among the landing ships. Most of them went down to the Eden LZ since that's where the heaviest action is anticipated."
"And my orders to keep them inside the landing ships were understood?"
"Yes, sir," he replied. "They'll be shut inside the VIP quarters until the greenies are completely eradicated on the perimeters."
"What kind of bullshit story did we give them for why we have to do this?"
"Possible problems with the biosuits we reserved for them," he answered. "We told them a manufacturer recall has been issued and we haven't been able to determine if it applies to that model."
"Nice," Wrath said with a smile. "I like that one. It has class. Give an attaboy to whoever came up with it."
"Yes, sir," Wild said. Of course Wrath didn't ask if the reporters had believed the excuse that was being offered to them. It went without saying that they would know it was nothing but a pretext to keep them inside. But, of course, none of them would question it, at least not publicly. Not if their corporate bosses told them not to.
"Major Wild?" a young communications officer suddenly spoke up from a nearby terminal, his voice timid, as if he was hesitant to interrupt the discussion Wild was having Wrath.
"What is it?" Wild said, somewhat impatiently.
"I have an urgent communications request for General Wrath, sir," he said.
Wild gave him an annoyed look. "Refer it to the mail system like all of the other requests," he barked. "Why are you even bothering us with this?"
"Sir, its from the Martian Planetary Guard command facility in New Pittsburgh," he said. "He says he's General Jackson."
This got the attention of both Wild and Wrath. "Oh really?" Wrath said, raising his eyebrows. Jackson had attempted no communication with Wrath or any other Earthling since his infamous "flying fuck at Phobos" statement just before the first landings. Of course Marine intelligence was monitoring and recording his daily briefings to the Martian public, mainly for the purpose of splicing them up into inflammatory, out of context statements for distribution to the WestHem media, but there had been no direct talks of any kind.
Wrath turned to his aide. "Surrender terms perhaps?"
Wild nodded wisely. "They may very well be," he said. "After all, the rest of the landing ships are coming down. They have to know things are almost over for them."
"Put it on the main screen," Wrath said. "Be sure to record it for intelligence."
"Yes, sir," the officer said. He spoke a few words to his terminal then turned back to Wrath. "On screen now, sir."
Wrath looked up at the large screen at the front of the room and saw the face of his counterpart on the planetary surface, the man he had grudgingly accorded a small amount of respect to for the surprises he'd pulled so far, but a man he still saw as a clear inferior. As always he was dressed in his MPG t-shirt. His eyes had bags under them almost as large as Wrath's.
"Mr. Jackson," Wrath said, his words picked up by the microphone near the desk and transmitted, along with his image, to the open broadcast link. "Rather interesting timing you have, communicating with us right now, while our ships are about to touch down on the surface."
Jackson offered a slight smile. "It seemed appropriate under the circumstances," he said. "Besides, there's not a whole hell of a lot going on at the moment, is there?"
"I assume that you called this conference to talk surrender terms," Wrath said. "If that's the case, you can save your breath. Any surrender will be without dictated terms. Unconditional is all we will accept. I believe I've made that clear from the start."
Jackson smiled wearily. "You assumed wrong, Wrath," he said. "My forces have no intention of surrendering to you. We're dug in for the long haul and we have every intention of repelling you from the surface."
"Jackson, as a military officer you have to know that's simply not possible. Simple math will tell you that. My forces are highly trained, professional soldiers, and we outnumber your thugs four to one. Do the honorable thing and stand down. Don't sentence those misguided men to death."
"Look, Wrath," he said wearily. "I know you're just posturing for the media right now, trying to talk tough to impress your citizens when they see this clip in their daily briefing. Any chance we can drop that now and talk as two commanding generals should? I know and you know that my forces have hit yours quite hard. You don't have to give me a rebuttal on this, since that is not what I wanted to talk to you about. You go ahead and keep telling your citizens that terrorist attacks are what are causing the deaths of your soldiers. There's no point in my disputing you because all you do is chop up my statements anyway."
"What is it that you want then?" Wrath said. "And please keep in mind that my patience for your rhetoric is very limited."
"We need to discuss the prisoners that you've captured from our special forces teams," Jackson told him. "Now I know from those briefings you give you're claiming you've taken more than fifty of my men into custody but by my count I have two squads that reported coming under fire and that are now unaccounted for. That's twenty men although my guess is that most of them were killed in the exchange of gunfire."
"The numbers that I reported in the briefing are accurate," Wrath said with an indignant tone, although he was secretly impressed with Jackson's reasoning ability.
"As I said," Jackson said, "my hope is that we can talk like two military men here and you can save the propaganda for your daily briefing. What I expect out of you is that you treat the men you have captured and the bodies you have recovered according to the established Geneva Accords regarding warfare. By this I mean we are to receive a full accounting of our men that have been killed in action that you've been able to identify, an approximate number of the KIAs you have not been able to identify, and, most importantly, that you immediately release to us the identities of all men you have taken into custody and give us an update on their condition. Those men are to be treated as prisoners of war, which means they will not be subjected to torturous interrogation, paraded in front of your media cameras, or charged with criminal offenses."