"Yeah," said Drogan. "You make a good point there."
"Yep," said Jeff. "Now we know what Valentine's not talking about. It must have been fuckin' awful to watch that."
"Anyway," said Hicks, "the WestHems still ain't never gonna know how many of their fuckin' marines we killed. Most of them are in those APCs and tanks out there and we ain't counting their asses, are we?"
"That would be considered impractical and unfeasible," Drogan said, looking out towards the armor in question. There were literally hundreds of dead WestHem tanks and APCs out there, all of them containing at least two dead marines, some containing as many as twelve. The engineer battalions from both the 17th ACR and the 2nd infantry were down there hooking each one up to a towing tank or wrestling it onto a tracked flatbed carrier. But, as Hicks pointed out, they weren't bothering with trying to collect the dead inside or even scan them since most were smashed and exploded by the lasers that had felled them. They were only moving them out of the way, dragging them to the north or the south portion of the valley and just dumping them there for all eternity so they wouldn't serve the second wave of WestHem marines as cover for their un-smashed armor or their un-shot infantry.
"They're already all accounted for," said Jeff. "We only killed a thousand or so planetwide, remember? That's what the big three are reporting anyway."
"Sure," Drogan said. "And they wouldn't lie, would they?"
"Fuck no," said Hicks. "They're the goddamn bastions of truth."
They all had a laugh at that — a slightly bitter one. Hicks was the first to mention what was really on their minds.
"They ain't lying about them coming for Eden though, are they?" he asked.
"No," Jeff said. "I don't think they are. Every military plan they announced to this point has been true."
"Sure has," Drogan agreed. "That's why General Jackson has us out here repairing all the positions in the Gap. He knows this is where they're coming."
"Almost four hundred fucking thousand of them," Hicks said. "And all their armor, all their hovers, all their artillery. We ain't gonna be able to stop them on our own."
"No," Jeff said. "Not a fuckin' chance in hell of that. Jackson needs to send us reinforcements."
"A lot of fuckin' reinforcements," Hicks said. "We need every MPG unit from every fuckin' city to fight that off. If they don't get here soon, it'll be a slaughter."
"No it won't," said Drogan. "Because if we don't get reinforcements, I'm not coming back out here. Neither are most of the others."
Jeff nodded. "I'm down with you there, Drogan. I signed up for the long haul here and I knew I was laying my ass on the line, but I ain't puttin' it in front of no fuckin' firing squad. Jackson needs to even these odds or he can count my ass out."
Hicks seemed relieved by their discussion. "I thought I was the only one thinking that way," he said. "I was keeping it to myself."
"No need to do that," Drogan said. "This is a voluntary war. Laura Whiting and General Jackson been saying that shit the whole time. No one's gonna throw their ass away against eight to one odds, me included."
"So when the fuck is he gonna start movin' those troops over?" Hicks asked. "The big three been saying that they're gonna bomb the train tracks around Eden, cut us off from supplies and reinforcement. They're probably getting ready to do that right now as we're having this conversation. So why ain't anything moving this way?"
Drogan and Jeff both shook their heads. They knew what Hicks was saying was true — MarsGroup was reporting that no reinforcements had been loaded or had even started the process for loading — but neither understood it.
"I don't know," Drogan said. "Sometimes I worry that Jackson's fuckin' lost it, that he's choking at the final moment here."
"I think maybe he bit off more than we can chew," Hicks said. "I mean, he was a smart motherfucker getting us to this point — I won't take that away from the man — but maybe WestHem was right all along. They're gonna jack this place back from us no matter what and maybe Jackson realizes that and just don't know what to do about it."
Neither of them had an answer for him. Neither wanted to admit that what he'd suggested might be the truth but neither could think of any other explanation either.
"Oh well," Hicks said, stretching his sore shoulders a little. "Enough of this depressing talk. I'm gonna go back inside and take myself a nice shit."
"Why don't you just do it out here?" Drogan asked. "We've all seen you squat and grunt a hundred fuckin' times."
"I know you like watchin' me, Drogan," he said. "And I'd love to accommodate you, but I also hear they got a new kind of food gel for us, something that's supposed to taste like cherry pie." He looked at her slyly. "You've eaten your share of cherry pie, ain't you, Drogan?"
She pushed him playfully, almost causing him to tumble off his perch. "Get the fuck out of here, asshole," she said.
He laughed and then got the fuck out of there.
Drogan and Jeff both looked at their communications status screens once he'd walked away. When they saw he'd turned his set off of the private frequency they looked at each other.
"Well," Drogan said, "go ahead. You know you wanna ask me."
"Ask you what?" Jeff said, although he knew exactly what she was talking about and knew that she knew.
"You're wondering about me and Belinda Maxely," she said. "You're wondering if I made her fall so deeply in love with me that she's forgotten all about your good friend Xenia and her supple, suckable boobs, aren't you?"
"Well... I wouldn't exactly have put it that way," he said. "But since you brought it up... ?"
She laughed, a laugh that was full of pity. "Belinda and I are just fuck buddies," she told him. "It'll never go any further than that."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," she said with a nod. "She's fuckin' premo in the sack, I'm here to tell you. She's on my top ten list of female pussy eaters and I made her scream when I returned the favor the first time." She sighed. "But you know what?"
"What?"
"When she screamed it was Xenia's name she screamed out."
"Really?" Jeff said, dejected and a little shocked. In Martian culture that was considered one of the ultimate faux pas, right up there with coming before your partner had a chance to.
She nodded. "That bitch is so in love with Xenia I'm surprised she even let me munch her muff out. If you were hopin' she'd fall for me and leave you in the clear with the X-girl, you can just put that thought right out of your horny little head."
Jeff didn't even bother denying that was what he was hoping. "Xenia never said she was that good in the sack," he said.
"Oh?" Drogan said, raising her eyebrows a bit. "They've done it before?"
Jeff clenched his teeth, knowing he'd just revealed more than he was really supposed to. "Keep that to yourself?" he pleaded.
She chuckled. "You know it, Jeffy," she told him. "You and Hicks saved my ass out here in the Gap, remember? I'd do anything for you, for either one of you. Why the fuck do you think I snatched Belinda away from Xenia in the first place? I was trying to open a corridor for your advance."
Jeff was surprised. "You mean... you mean you took Belinda away on purpose?"
"Fuckin' aye," she said. "She's not really my type anyway. I like... well... Xenia's type to tell you the truth. But I saw you was trying to get your weenie wet with her and thought I'd give you a hand. Turned out Belinda was a better fuck than I thought she'd be and I turned down what was probably a premo opportunity to lick a little X myself, you know what I mean, but I did it." She looked sharply at him. "You were supposed to take advantage of the opportunity and nail the bitch while I had her softer interest occupied."