"I'm here, LT," the medic replied. "I took some shrapnel in the shoulder but I'm okay. The suit sealed it up."
"How we looking?" Callahan asked him.
"I'm still making the rounds. We got hit pretty hard though. Most of us were in the open when the mortars came down. At least six dead and nine wounded. Two of the KIAs were the squad leaders. Snipers got them."
"Great," Callahan said with a sigh. "Come over here and look at me when you get a chance. I took some shrapnel in the back."
"On the way, LT," the medic told him. "Do we have dust-offs on the way? We're gonna need a bunch of them."
"I'll check with our fearless leader," Callahan promised. He switched frequencies back to the command net. "Cap, this is Callahan. You there?"
"Your situation, Callahan?" Ayers asked. "I'm not getting anything coherent from the other platoon leaders."
"The mortars hit right in the middle of us," Callahan said. "They inflicted considerable casualties. The greenie gunners have got someone out there directing the fire; probably one of those special forces teams up on a hill somewhere. We're under constant sniper fire. They're going after the platoon leaders and the NCOs. I don't know how they're identifying them but they are. We're not picking up the flashes from their weapons. We need some air cover out here and some dust-offs."
There was a hesitation. Finally, "Air cover is a bit sparse at the moment. The greenies hit on the north and south side of the perimeter at the same time. They used the same technique. Mosquitoes came in and wiped out the hovers in a matter of minutes. Snipers opened up on the troops once the hovers were gone and then mortar fire came down. You can expect more mortar fire as soon as the greenie gunners relocate their positions."
"You're not sending any hovers out here?" Callahan asked, appalled, horrified.
"Command won't release them," Ayers said. "We've already taken too heavy of losses in air support. The hovers are needed to bomb the greenie's main line of defense."
"What about the dust-offs?" Callahan asked.
"They can't go either," Ayers said. "The greenies will just hit them with mortars while they're on the ground picking up the wounded. That's already happened at New Pittsburgh."
"New Pittsburgh?" Callahan asked. "Did this happen there too?"
"Yeah," Ayers said. "They hit us even worse there from what I hear. You'll have to leave the dead where they are and load up the wounded into the APCs. Take command of the company and get back here as quickly as possible."
"Jesus," Callahan said.
"Keep under cover as much as you can. Intelligence isn't sure how the snipers are able to pick out the officers yet but they're thinking it might be from your radio transmissions."
"What?" Callahan asked. "How the fuck could they tell that?"
Ayers didn't get a chance to answer him. Another voice came on the command channel. "Sir! This is Corporal Swans! I'm in charge of fourth platoon now... I guess."
While Ayers and Corporal Swans discussed the fact that his lieutenant and every one of the squad sergeants had been killed by falling aircraft, sniper fire, or mortar shrapnel, Callahan saw a shape coming rapidly toward him. So jumpy was he that he raised his weapon and came within three grams of pressure on the firing button of shooting the man before he realized it was his medic.
"Don't fuckin' shoot me, LT!" the medic screamed in terror.
"Sorry," Callahan said, slowly lowering the rifle. "I thought you were... well... you know."
"Yeah," the medic said. "I know." He shook his head. "I ain't never seen no shit like this before, LT. This is fuckin' horrible!"
"You don't say," Callahan said dryly. "Now take a look at me. How bad am I?"
"Where you hit, sir?"
"On the back," Callahan said, rolling onto his stomach.
The medic took out a body scanner and ran it over the hole in Callahan's back. It sent out a series of X-rays and ultrasonic sound waves to survey the damage done. "You'll be okay, sir," he said when he got the reading. "You got two pieces of shrapnel lodged in the muscle tissue of your back. Bleeding is stopped, no organs hit, and your suit is sealed. Do you need some morphine?"
"No," Callahan replied. "Go tend to the others. No dust-offs will be coming to offload them."
"What?"
"You heard me," Callahan said. "We're gonna have to load all the wounded into..."
"Incoming!" was screamed over the net again, first by one and then by eight to ten other voices. Callahan didn't even bother to look up this time. He pulled himself as close to the boulder as he could and hunkered down.
"Shit my pants," the medic cried, terrified. There was no cover for him here and lying flat was not much protection against proximity-fused shells. He stood and began running towards a field of boulders twenty meters to his right. He made it only three steps before the rounds began to explode overhead. One of them was close enough to send five kilograms of shrapnel ripping through his head, his chest, and his left arm. He flew backwards, trailing boiled blood behind him and dropped lifelessly atop Callahan's boulder. His helmet, broken into several pieces, with chunks of skulls, brain, and skin inside of it and boiling blood rising from its surface, dropped onto Callahan's back and then rolled directly in front of his face. He tried not to look at it.
The explosions continued for about thirty seconds, during which Captain Ayers once again informed him that radar had picked up incoming shells. As soon as people started to move around again two more squad sergeants and another lieutenant fell to sniper fire.
Callahan looked at the carnage around him. He had never felt so far from home in his life.
"The Martians can have this place," he said. "I'll even pay the fucking delivery fee."
At 1930 hours, Eden time, Brian Haggerty and Matt Mendez walked through the doors of The Troop Club outside the Eden MPG base. With them were six other pilots and nine other systems operators, all of whom had seen air-to-air combat that day. This was Matt's first trip to the bar, was in fact his first trip to any bar anywhere. Ghetto inhabitants typically did not have the funding to go to such places, they instead chose to do their drinking and smoking in the more traditional fashion: on the front steps of their housing building or in the nearest park or in the privacy of their own home. But now Matt's banking account was swelled with more than six hundred credits, the new currency that was being distributed to those in the employ of the interim planetary government.
The distribution of the credits had caused another financial crisis when they were first introduced three weeks earlier. The argument against them was that you could not simply make up money to give to people. The credits didn't represent anything, didn't stand for anything, therefore they could not possibly have any value. Economists, accountants, and lawyers (all former corporate Earthlings with nothing better to do now that their jobs had disappeared) had all appeared on MarsTrans channels denouncing Laura Whiting's attempt to pay her revolutionaries with make believe money. For a few days merchants had refused to accept the currency.
"This money is not fabricated," Laura said in one of her daily addresses to the planet, "and it most certainly does represent something. It is credit for work done in the interests of Mars and the Martian people. Currently we are paying vital factory employees, vital mining employees, and, most importantly, our brave military men and women in credits. The exchange rate is one credit for every ten dollars. The credits have this value because the interim legislature and I say it has this value. When we finally defeat the Earthlings and throw them off this planet, the credit will replace the dollar entirely. Granted, if the Earthlings manage to defeat us, the credit will become as worthless as confederate script became after the American Civil War, but for now, they have yet to defeat us, and it is looking more and more like they won't defeat us, so this money is as good as any dollar. It can be used to buy supplies for your shop, to pay employees, to spend when and where you wish. This is Martian money, people! If you have faith in Mars, have faith in our money as well."