"What's that?"
"That battle group that has been sent to Callisto, the one that was supposed to defend Mars, it's going to be slaughtered when it tries to eject that landing force. There's no way in hell it's going to be able to retake that moon if the commander of the EastHem forces is even halfway competent at his job."
"What do you mean?" she asked him. "You said that they would have been able to keep EastHem from invading Mars. Why won't they be able to take back a moon? What's the difference?"
"The difference," he explained, "is that here on Mars that battle group would have been the defenders. They would have dug in and set up their forces and just waited for the EastHems to try and make a move against them. But on Callisto, the situation is reversed. The EastHem forces were able to make the landings. It is now they who will be dug in, their tanks and artillery all set and pre-positioned in the optimum places. In any battle the advantage goes to the defender. A military rule of thumb is that it takes three times as many troops and equipment to dislodge a position than it does to hold it. The EastHem forces on Callisto are roughly equal to the forces that will be trying to retake it. They're going to be massacred."
"Christ, Kevin," Laura said. "Do you have a lot of friends among that group?"
He nodded. "Hundreds of men I've trained with and served with everywhere from Ganymede to Cuba. Most will probably be killed during the assault phase. Others will be captured and sent to an EastHem POW camp. The lucky ones will be those who are just wounded and pulled from the battle area. They might just live through the war. Not that we have it much easier here. If EastHem makes landings here we'll fight them as hard as we can but we'll all be killed or captured within a day." He snorted a little. "They'll probably write songs about us and make Internet shows and erect monuments to us, just like the Snoqualmie defenders back in World War III. That'll make my mother real proud, won't it?"
"Is there a solution?" Laura asked, knowing that Kevin had to have a reason for telling her all of this.
"Not for the current crisis," he said. "Like I told you, if EastHem wants to take this planet, then it's theirs. But there is a chance they won't do that."
"Why wouldn't they?" she asked eagerly.
"EastHem doesn't really want this war," he explained. "At least that is my impression as a military historian. I know that all the Internet channels and the news services are telling us that EastHem is the aggressor and that they are bent upon ruling the entire solar system, but I don't really think that's the case. They just want Callisto and they felt they had a right to colonize it. Whether they are right or wrong is not the issue here. The fact is that they just want to become self sufficient in fuel so they don't have to pay WestHem corporations for it. All they were trying to do was set up a fueling operation on Callisto and we attacked them for it."
"But why wouldn't they invade Mars though?" she asked. "I'm not a military expert or anything, but I know that in an all out war like this, doctrine is to press any advantage you have. Invading Mars and cutting WestHem off from their food and their steel, as well as denying them a strategic staging area between Earth and the Jupiter system, would certainly seem advantageous to me."
"It is," he agreed. "And I'm not sure they will be able to resist the temptation now that those idiots have left us wide open, but I'm quite sure that occupying Mars was not one of their original goals. They positioned that invasion force here only as a diversionary tactic, figuring, as any sane commander would, that WestHem would then have to reinforce Mars which would draw troops away from Callisto and therefore give them more time to dig in there. To tell you the truth, I'm pretty impressed by the way EastHem has fought this war so far."
"We should have such leadership," Laura observed sourly.
Jackson dismissed this thought. The situation was what the situation was. "In any case," he went on, "EastHem has Callisto now and we're not going to be able to take it back from them any time soon. With any luck they will be satisfied that their war goals are met and try to push for an armistice instead of drawing out the fighting by landing troops here. If that is the case, then that invasion force will stay where it is for now."
"Will WestHem consider an armistice with them though?" she asked him. "This is edging into my area of expertise now. If politicians are controlling this war on behalf of their corporate sponsors, then they won't give a damn how many marines die trying to take Callisto back. They'll keep sending wave after wave of troops there to try again."
"I have no doubt about that," he told her. "And that's exactly what I wanted to talk to you about."
"Oh?"
"If WestHem does not sign an armistice soon, if they keep trying to retake that moon from EastHem, then EastHem is eventually going to have to invade this planet in response. Whether they want to or not, they will have no choice. I think you can help prevent that from happening though."
"Me?" she asked. "What can I do? I'm just a city council member."
"You're a politician, Laura," he reminded her. "And as a prominent, upward moving lawmaker, I'm sure you have established certain connections with certain powerful people in the Martian corporate world."
"Sponsors," she said. "Of course. You can't get elected to the PTA board in this life without a corporate sponsor to donate money and tell you how to vote. But I don't have any sponsors from Jovian Gas or Standard Fuel. I only have connections with corporations that operate on Mars."
"That's my point," he said. "Would Agricorp be one of those sponsors?" Agricorp was the owner of the majority of the Martian agricultural industry, which was considerable. Martian crops, which grew in huge greenhouse complexes that surrounded the equatorial cities like Eden, made up the bulk of the exports from the planet. It was an industry worth trillions and Agricorp was easily the most powerful of all of the WestHem corporations.
"Yes they would," she said. "One would not get very far in one's political life, either here or on Earth, without Agricorp's consent." She started to gleam a little of what he was getting at. "So you think that they'll be able to... influence things?"
"If they understand the seriousness of the situation," he replied. "Agricorp wields a whole lot of political clout, as I'm sure you're aware. Especially with the executive council. If someone could impress upon them just how serious this threat of EastHem invasion is, how easily their entire industry and holdings could suddenly be in EastHem hands without any sort of compensation, then I'm sure they'll see to it that defensive troops are sent here to prevent that invasion. Agricorp has more pull with the council then the gas refining industry, don't they?"
"Yes," she said. "Nobody has more pull with the council than Agricorp. They have their fingers in everyone's pocket. The question is whether or not they will listen to me. Remember, I'm just a city council member right now. I have a reputation as a future force to be reckoned with, that's true, but right now the lobbyists I deal with are pretty low level."
"I think you need to try, Laura," he said. "If they don't listen to you then they don't listen to you. But you have to try. Be persuasive."
She smiled a little. "Now that," she said, "I know how to do. I'll get online with my contact as soon as I get back to my office. Can I mention your name?"
"You can," he said, "but I don't know how much good it will do. I'm just a greenie like you, remember? Corporate haunchos probably won't have a lot of respect for what a greenie has to say. Remember, we're all the descendants of welfare sucking losers who were chased off of Earth. I think you'll do better mentioning the name of Colonel Herald."
"Colonel Herald?" she asked. "Does he know you're talking to me?"