"I see. Gathering information makes a great deal of sense. What's the other reason?"
"Scapegoats," Stark answered matter-of-factly. "They want to hang Meecham and maybe some others. Otherwise, they'll take the blame. Can't have that, even if they did send him here and approve his plans."
Campbell hung his head, shaking it as he did so. "And to think I once lectured you on politics. It appears you've had plenty of exposure to the bad side of it."
"There's a good side?"
"Yes. Perhaps I'll be able to show you someday."
"I won't hold my breath. Hey, Vic, where's that data coin with the latest list of family members?"
Reynolds smiled thinly. "Last I saw, on your desk, where you put it after I gave it to you."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks." Stark stood, beckoning to Campbell and Sarafina. "Come on. My room's down the hall a little ways. I'll give you that coin so you can set things up." The hallways, normally the scene of numerous personnel hustling on errands, were quiet and empty in that curiously deserted way buildings got after midnight, even though the midnight up here was totally artificial. Palming open his door, Stark rummaged over his desk until he held up a coin triumphantly. "Here it is."
"You found it?" Vic questioned. "Miracles do happen."
Campbell took the coin, staring at it for a moment, before handing it to Sarafina. "Odd to hold the fate of so many in my hand for even a moment. Do you ever feel that burden, Sergeant Stark?"
"Not too often. Only once every day. All day."
The words brought an understanding smile to Campbell's face. "If there's nothing else, I'd like to get back to the Colony proper before too many observers wonder why I'm lingering here to hatch nefarious plots with you."
"Good idea." Instead of stepping out the door, though, Campbell paused, staring at Stark's battle armor where it stood against one wall. "Something wrong?" Stark finally asked.
"No." Campbell shook his head. "I've just never seen your combat equipment up this close." He reached out a hand, then hesitated. "Is it all right to touch it?"
"Feel free. You can't damage the outside."
"That's odd." Campbell frowned as he pushed fingers against the armor's chest area. "I thought it would be rigid, like steel. But it gives very, very slightly."
"That's right." Vic stepped forward to punch an arm of the armor with a light tap. "It's designed to be a little flexible."
"But I thought armor would be made as strong as possible."
"Yes and no." Vic slid easily into the instructor role every veteran had to fill for new personnel. "Things which are technically very strong are also very brittle. When they break, they shatter all to hell. That'd be bad in the case of our armor. So the composite material it's made of flexes a little when it's pushed, enough to help absorb and distribute the force of an impact, but hopefully not enough for the shock to injure us as bad as a penetration would."
"We get bruised a lot, though," Stark added with a laugh. "Beats a hole in your body, but after a battle we sometimes look like we've been run through a line of guys with clubs."
"Think of it as a trade-off," Vic continued. "Ideally, the armor would be very light, very strong, and very flexible. In the real world, we have to accept a compromise of those traits."
"The best compromise you can get?" Campbell inquired, smiling. "Odd. Here we'd been discussing the good side of politics, and your armor is a very concrete example of just that."
Vic raised one eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"That's how politics works at its best," Campbell elaborated. "Everyone wants something. Some people insist they have to have that something, and exactly that, no matter what. But other people insist on having other things, which don't match what the first group wants. To really get anything done you have to compromise and find a middle ground that isn't everything you want but satisfies most of your needs."
"Great," Stark observed. "Our armor's like politics? I'll never trust the damn armor again."
Campbell laughed once more, then sobered abruptly. "Sergeant Stark, are the compromises in your armor a bad thing? Or do they make it work?"
"They make it work," Stark admitted after a moment.
"Ideally, that's how politics should be as well. Not a perfect thing, but not a bad thing. Something which makes things work in an imperfect world."
Vic bared her teeth in a humorless grin. "From what I know, our armor does a helluva lot better job of that than politics has recently."
Campbell nodded back, still somber. "I must agree. Technology is much more straightforward than human relations."
"Your armor is dark gray," Sarafina pointed out. "I did not think it looked that color in the vids I saw before I came up to the Moon."
Stark shook his head. "No, it wouldn't've. Gray's the default shade. In action, the camo's activated."
"Camo?"
"Sorry. Camouflage. That means anything that helps hide us. We use the word camo to talk about any active or passive countermeasures."
"On a battlefield," Vic interjected, "survival is often a matter of not being seen. If you can be spotted and engaged with aimed fire, your chances of survival drop dramatically."
"Yeah," Stark agreed. "So when the camo's on, the suits scan their surroundings and alter color and shade to match. Like a . . . what's that lizard?"
"A chameleon?"
"Right. Only better. If we're on a field of snow, it'll be white. If the snow's melting in patches, it'll have dirty brown or green mixed in with the white."
Campbell eyed the armor judiciously. "It must make you very hard to see."
"Sure, but the enemy's got targeting systems designed to spot us anyway. Sometimes we win, sometimes they do."
Campbell and Sarafina stared back at him. "I do not see how you can discuss that so casually," Sarafina finally stated.
Stark shrugged. "It's the way things are. We do our best to survive and beat the other guy."
"You mean 'kill the other guy,' " she corrected, eyes wide.
"Yeah. I guess I do. If we have to. Sometimes you don't, but basically the job's about killing other people." Stark reached to pat his weapon, resting ready in its rack. "That's why a rifle has always been a soldier's best friend. At least, since they invented rifles."
Campbell bent to look, examining the rifle without attempting to touch it as he had the armor. "It looks just like the weapons I've seen portrayals of back on Earth."
"It does because that's pretty much what it is. The muzzle velocity has been lowered considerably so there's a lot less chance of firing slugs into orbit. Of course, we've got inhibits built into our suits' targeting systems that keep us from firing straight up, but you could be aiming at someone above you and miss a little. Anyway, back home, high velocity is necessary to give you long range and accuracy, but up here there's no air the bullet has to punch through and the gravity doesn't drag it down near as fast. You don't want to be able to shoot a bullet around the Moon."
"But if the bullets don't go as fast, can't your armor defeat them?"
"Good question. The answer's no, because the bullets aren't just solid metal. Armies haven't used solid slugs for a couple decades, I guess. There's an explosive charge inside every round, so when the bullet hits something it fires a super dense sub-caliber penetrator at high velocity into the target. Punches through most personal armor and hurts like hell. On the other hand, if the bullet doesn't hit anything for a long time, like if despite the aiming inhibits it does go high enough and long enough to threaten God-knows-what, then that same charge goes off a little different and just blows the bullet into little pieces."
"Very neat," Campbell approved.
"When it comes to killing people, humans are extremely clever," Vic agreed dryly. "Look at the whole war we've been fighting up here. Everything's pretty much nice and peaceful on Earth where a major war might inconvenience folks and break stuff, but up here, where everything's dead anyway, we just add a lot of new craters."
"Not everything
is dead," Sarafina declared, her voice thin. "The Colony is alive."
"True. So are we. For a while, anyway. I guess some lives count more than others."
"Hell, Vic," Stark noted, his voice harsh, "we've known that for ages."
Sarafina shook her head, eyes downcast. "It appears we must also learn that same lesson."
Vic's expression softened momentarily. "You've got to work with the world as it is, and that's the reality we have to live with."
"Wrong." Stark flashed a grim smile. "Reality's gonna change, and we're gonna change it."
"That," Campbell observed, "is a rather high goal to aim for."
"We've been putting our lives on the line for longer than we care to think about. And you know what I think? If you're gonna risk your life for something, it might as well be something big. Something really worth dying for."
"This is big," Vic agreed.
"Worth mutually pledging your lives and your honor?" Campbell asked.
"Is that some sort of quote?"
"Sort of, Sergeant Stark. Sort of."
Open, yet closed in. Like a passenger concourse in an airfield, the main spaceport terminal for the Lunar Colony was dominated by a large room, which extended in all directions, interrupted by stone pillars supporting a metal-reinforced Moon-rock ceiling above. A very thick ceiling, just in case one of the shuttles using the spaceport had the worst kind of accident. On Earth, the pillars would have been described as having been hewn from the living rock, but somehow the phrase didn't fit for lifeless lunar matter. Among the pillars, clots of people stood or moved in patterns that appeared chaotic at first, but slowly resolved into a sort of ballet of three parts, one of those moving to the exit, one of those arriving, and one of those holding their places to guard or guide the first two. Groups of civilians stopped to stare at the soldiers crowding the terminal, unfamiliar faces in unfamiliar garb intruding on the isolated small-town environment that no longer existed back home. An environment inadvertently recreated on the Moon, which those fabled small towns of yesterday had once gazed upward from on clear, quiet nights.
Stark smiled at a nearby gaggle of civs, a few teenagers wide-eyed with faked nonchalance at the military presence. I could've been one of them. That punk in the short jacket. Funny where life leads you. And, the disquieting thought arose, if I screw up this situation I may ruin their lives along with mine.
Fitful movement started up to one side of the concourse, a long line of uniforms shuffling forward. Officers. The former leaders of Stark and his troops, now under guard and on their way home. Some of the officers stood tall, gazing around defiantly as if still in charge of all they surveyed. Others huddled small, ashamed or frightened of their changed roles, eager to get on the shuttles that would return them to a world where they still commanded. Stark's eyes narrowed as one of the enlisted guards gave a passing officer a shove with a rifle butt, creating a stumbling ripple down the line heading for the exit. He took a dozen quick steps, closing on the incident. "You."
The guard looked around, worried eyes clashing with his hastily forced look of innocence. "Me?"
"Yeah. You." Stark reached to grab the shoulder of the officer who'd been shoved, a female Colonel who seemed torn between terror and outrage. "Your orders are no mistreatment. Right?"
"Uh, yessir."
"So you will apologize to this officer for striking her without cause." The other guards were watching Stark now. "If she gets out of line, you are authorized to discipline her. If she tries to grab your rifle, you are authorized to shoot her. But you will treat her with courtesy otherwise."
The guard flushed, his mouth tight. "They never treated us with no courtesy."
"That's the point. We're supposed to be better than that. And we will be." Stark paused for a moment. "I'm waiting."
"Okay. I mean, yessir." Gulping, the guard nodded toward the Colonel. "I apologize for striking you without cause, Colonel."
Stark shifted his gaze to the officer. "Now, you accept the apology."
The Colonel turned a brighter shade of red than the guard had. "I don't—!"
"Yes, you do. Get out of here." Stark turned her with casual force, placing the Colonel back into the flow of officers headed outward, then faced the guard again. "We're better than that," he repeated. "I'm not asking you apes to respect people like this, but give them courtesy. Make it automatic. It's called discipline, and nobody better forget it. We've got our own officers coming along, and I don't want anybody out of the habit of listening to them."
"Where we gonna get our own officers?" another guard wondered.
"From apes like you. The best ones." Expressions of incredulity met Stark's words. "I mean it. You guys all know somebody who's good enough to lead, and good enough that you'll follow. Tell them word's gonna be coming down for volunteers, and we'll want the best."
Silent nods and scattered "yessirs" acknowledged Stark's words as he stepped away, heading toward another column whose members' awkward shuffles marked them as new arrivals to the Moon. He watched them, half-curious, half-envious of the soldiers whose parents had shared their lifework and could now share their lives again.
One man, slim and elderly, locked his eyes on Stark, evaluating him in a fashion that caused Stark to automatically stiffen his posture. The man detached himself from the file, ignoring a hasty call from one of the escorts, walking with the wobbly awkwardness of a new arrival to the Moon until he reached Stark and stood at rigid attention to render a precise salute.
Stark returned the gesture as professionally as he could. "Do I know you?"
"No, you do not, Sergeant Stark. My son, however, had the good fortune to serve in your Squad for some years. He often spoke of your leadership qualities."
"Your son?" The man's face, his mannerisms, his carefully controlled speech, suddenly clicked into focus. "Private Mendoza. You're his dad."
"That is correct."
Stark smiled broadly. "Lieutenant Mendoza, I guess I should say. Damn nice to see you, sir."
"I was not aware my son had spoken of me to you." Hard to say how the elder Mendoza felt about it. Like Mendo, it seemed he kept a quiet, disengaged front before the world.
"Just once. He's a good soldier. Your son's okay, Lieutenant. Minor wound during a recent action, but nothing that kept him off duty."
"Thank you. I am grateful for the news. But I am retired now, as you must know, Sergeant Stark. Mr. Mendoza is sufficient."
"Sorry. From what I've heard, you're a fine officer, so you're still a Lieutenant to me." Stark spotted Reynolds walking down the incoming line, scrutinizing the arrivals. "Hey, Vic. Mendo's dad's here. This is Lieutenant Mendoza."
Reynolds saluted automatically. "Pleased to meet you, sir."
Lieutenant Mendoza quirked a quizzical smile. "I was informed discipline had failed on the Moon. How odd to be met by proper military courtesy."
"Just what were you expecting?" Vic challenged.
"The authorities at home warned that an officer, even a retired one, might well face a lynch mob here."
"Can't lynch people on the Moon," Stark noted sardonically. "Gravity's too light. They just hang there, yelling at you while their neck muscles automatically tense to keep them breathing. Takes a few hours before their necks get too tired to keep the windpipe open. We haven't tried it," he hastened to add as Lieutenant Mendoza raised an eyebrow. "Every once in a while some guy tries to suicide that way. Never works. When they get found, people make fun of them for a while before they cut them down."
"I see I have much to learn of the environment up here, but it appears that soldiers are much as they have always been."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Stark smiled. "Once you're settled in and have had a chance to meet your son, I'd like to talk to you, sir. I think you could help me with some ideas, if you're anything like Mendo. Excuse me, like your son."
"Certainly." Lieutenant Mendoza saluted again, then turned to cautiously make his way back to the incoming file.
/> Stark glanced at Reynolds. "That was a nice surprise. What brings you here, checking out the incoming? Expecting anybody?"
Vic shrugged, projecting indifference. "You never know when a familiar face might turn up." Turning slightly, she gestured toward the outgoing column. "All officers today."
"Yeah. General Meecham and all his little sub-generals were loaded onto the first shuttle. I doubt he'll ever be back to the Moon."
"What a shame," she noted with a total lack of sincerity. "Did you say good-bye?"
Stark's Command Page 13
