"Just because you liked to fuck each other?" Matt asked.
"That was virtually the only thing we had in common with each other," Brian confirmed. "After about three or four months of boffing each other in every way three times a day, people started to see us as a couple. After awhile, we started to feel like a couple. And before you know it... well, we were standing in the marriage chapel saying those vows." He shrugged. "It made our families very happy and stopped all the rumors."
"So it wasn't a happy marriage?" Matt asked, surprised considering the hatred the man had of the vermin as a result of what happened.
"It was a marriage based on sex so, in a way, it wasn't all that bad. We learned to tolerate each other and we even became something like friends after a few months, although we still fought like EastHems and WestHems. But every time we fought, no matter what we fought about or how serious it was, we could always make it better with sex. It was that kind of a marriage."
"And is that the kind of marriage you would recommend?" Matt asked.
"No," he said immediately. "We had our reproductive blocks turned off right away because that's another thing we're expected to do in this society. She got knocked up within two weeks. If she hadn't of been killed... well... I'm honest enough with myself to realize that we wouldn't have lasted five years. A marriage based on sexual infatuation can't last forever."
"Wow," Matt said, in awe, as if these were the wisest words ever muttered since Jesus Christ had spoken at the Temple on the Mount. "That's fuckin' deep, boss."
"It's common sense, kid," Brian said. "Common fucking sense. And that's what we're out here fighting for, isn't it? So I've told you my sad story. I've all but admitted that the hatred I feel for the people who did this to me is because they took away a static sex toy and put me back in the situation of people wondering why I'm not getting married again. So what's your question? You wondering if you should find some bitch you can tolerate just so you can say you're married and stop having people think you're different?"
"How'd you know that?" Matt asked, wide-eyed.
"It was apparent for the past three weeks. I see the way you act around that loader you've been banging. She's what — twenty-two? Never been married? She starting to put the old pressure on?"
"A little bit," Matt said. "And... like... you know... I kind of like Surrender and she's hot in bed and all and she's fuckin' educated. I mean, I ain't never had me no bitch that's even graduated high school before and she's got a fuckin' masters degree and she's kind of hinted that she might be interested in putting her finger on the pad with me. She's never been married because she's spent all of her life workin' on her education."
"So you're flattered by her attentions and impressed by her accomplishments?"
"Well... yeah," Matt said. "And she's really good at sex too. I ain't never done some of the shit she showed me before. I didn't even think people really did that shit."
"Oh yeah?" Brian asked. "Like what?"
Matt actually found himself blushing. "She gave me a rim job," he said. "And then she had me do the same thing to her. And then... well... she did this thing with her feet."
"I get the point," Brian said.
"But she's also goin' on and on about how much she wants to have her kid and start raising it. And she talks about how nice it would be to have a two-bedroom apartment."
"Do you love her?" Brian asked.
"Well... I'm not sure," he said. "We've only known each other for..."
"If you're not sure, you don't love her," Brian told him. "I've never been in love myself, but I've talked to enough people who really were to know that's the God-fucking truth, kid. If you don't know for sure, you don't love her. And if you don't love her, you don't want to marry her."
"But what if I never find anyone I love?"
Brian shrugged. "I learned from my first experience," he said. "I'm not going to get married again until I know I'm in love and I know she's in love with me. If that never happens then it never happens. I'll just go on fucking everything with a pussy that will let me in and I'll still die happy. Fuck what other people think about that. I mean, what do I care?"
Matt thought that over for a few seconds. "Damn," he said. "That's really fuckin' radical, boss."
"Ain't it though?"
They'd been watching for almost an hour now. APCs continued to shuttle tank crewmen from one landing ship to another and tanks continued to come down the ramp where they would drive to a staging position and await assignment to a prepared position on the perimeter. Meanwhile the bulldozers continued to work like mad, preparing those hull-down positions.
"No way in hell anything is gonna get in that perimeter," Lisa observed. "We could throw every tank in Eden at them and they'd throw them all back in ten minutes."
"Yep," agreed Lon. "And there's too many of them for us to start sniping with our own ATs. We'd hit three or four of them — maybe — and then they'd rake us with eighty-millimeter fire. There's not enough cover or even concealment out here to protect us and the nearest place we can bring down a Hummingbird without having it plastered is six klicks back."
"We'll have to pound them on the march," Horishito said.
"But we won't have as much time to do it in," Jefferson pointed out. "They're only a hundred and twenty klicks from the city and only seventy-five from the gap."
"We're gonna have to work twice as hard," Lisa said. "So will the Mosquito crews."
"You got that shit right," Lon said. "If we don't slow them down somehow they're gonna get to the gap before our reinforcements get there. If the gap falls without the ACRs inflicting heavy casualties on them the 2nd Infantry might not be able to hold — especially if the reinforcements aren't there yet either."
They all pondered that thought worriedly, none liking this sudden debut of what appeared to be sensible thinking on the part of the WestHems.
"Our whole doctrine depends on slowing them down," Jefferson said. "There has to be a way to do it."
"Nothing that we're gonna be able to do," Lon said. "We're stuck out here observing and reporting. And what we're observing and reporting is bad news."
The news became worse a few minutes later. It was Lisa — whose sector of responsibility included the middle portion of the landing zone — who spotted it first. She saw flares of heat from one of the ships. Her trained eyes grew wide as she saw that the ship in question was a hover-carrier and that the flares of heat were caused by excess interior atmosphere being vented out due to the opening of many doors on the side of the ship.
"Shit on me," she said. "Sarge, take a look at ship two-seven — the hover carrier. They just opened every goddamn door on the side."
"The launch doors?" Lon asked, alarmed. He quickly reduced the zoom on his goggles and began panning in the direction where the ship designated as twenty-seven was located.
"The launch doors," Lisa confirmed. "And now I'm getting heat flare from inside almost all of them. They're sending hovers out! An assload of them."
The discipline instilled in the special forces members prevented the rest of the team from abandoning their areas of observational responsibility to take a look at what Lisa was reporting. For this reason Corporal Spunkmaster — one of the recent replacements for the two casualties from phase one — was the next to make an observation.
"I'm getting the same thing from landing ship one-eight," he said. "That's the other hover-carrier. Multiple doors opening and heat flare of engines from inside."
"Jesus Christ, sarge," Jefferson said. "You think they picked up a transmission from us or from one of the other teams?"
"If they know where we're at we're fuckin' toast," said Horishito, a hint of fear in his voice. "There ain't nowhere for us to hide out here!"