"Roger." Laconic as always. Stark felt an absurd annoyance, a wish that something would break Sanchez's calm outer shell.
"Go." One word.
"Third Squad, fall back with me." Stark scrambled backward, coming to his feet as he got far enough beneath the ridgeline. Fast, through showers of gravel falling along with them in lethargic tandem, as if the Moon were insisting it would not be rushed regardless of human priorities. They reached the midpoint, breathing heavily now, turning and aiming to where Sanchez's Squad came down off the ridge in another series of small slow-motion avalanches.
It took a little something extra to hold in place while Sanchez's Squad stampeded through them, not running but feeling like it all the same. "Everybody hold still," Stark grated, hunching his own body a little higher to make himself a solid symbol of stability. It made him an obvious target, too, but that was part of the price you paid. His Squad held their position, waiting as HUDs began calling out new warnings, tracking heavy rounds coming in high over the ridge. Artillery, looping in deadly tracks to gouge new craters where millennia of meteors had once worked alone. Mortars, arching high overhead to drop almost straight down. The Squad held again, trusting to their myriad of deceptive camouflage devices and active jammers in every suit to throw off or fool smart munitions, hoping no dumb round would blunder its way right on top of them.
The enemy barrage hesitated, as Stark knew it had to. The enemy had come up too fast for supplies to keep up, and now they'd have to pause until new ammunition arrived. First Squad came down, faster than Sanchez's had moved, leaping in long, flat arcs, three figures now being partially carried by their Squadmates.
"Hold on," Stark urged as First Squad passed through. Sergeant Reynolds waving a quick salute as she passed. Shots rippled across the now vacant ridge, questing for targets, then ceased. Here they come. Stark aimed toward the ridge, canting his rifle high momentarily as he did so and seeing the targeting symbol flash red. Can't shoot if I aim too high. Must be an inhibit to keep us from throwing rounds into orbit. "Stand by," Stark cautioned his Squad. "Make every round count."
Figures showed momentarily as enemy troops rolled over the ridgeline. Stark's and Sanchez's Squads opened fire in a prolonged volley. In Stark's rifle sight, magnification and enhancement revealed vague outlines, ghostly images of soldiers with their own camouflage and jammers. He centered on each outline, his rifle slamming against his shoulder as rounds went out. Small clouds of shrapnel spread their deadly rain as Desoto used his auto-launcher to drop grenades among the enemy with cool precision. The outlines fell or tried firing back, only to fall sooner as they attracted more fire. "We gave them a bloody nose," Vic called. "Get your Squad back here with us, Stark."
"On our way. Let's go, Third Squad. Desoto, you and I bring up the rear." Run, all out except to keep herding the slower Squad members before you. Run, as more figures boiled over the ridge line behind them, firing as they came despite a murderous barrage from First and Second Squads. Chen slipped and fell, his suit broadcasting damage to Stark's display. He slid sideways, grabbing Chen as the Private tried to rise, propelling him forward even as Chen grunted with pain that the motion intensified.
Then the artillery came again, chasing at Third Squad's heels as they gasped up and over to the relative safety of the final ridgeline. Stark lay, breathing heavily, checking his own stats as well as the rest of the Squad's. "Mother of mercy. Chen, looks like you're our only casualty."
"Lucky me." Chen's voice had a slightly delirious quality, wobbly from the drugs his suit med kit was busy shoving into his system. "It's not bad, is it?"
"Bad enough, but you'll live." Stark switched circuits, grateful for the welcoming presence of friendly unit symbols on either hand, trying not to dwell on the increasing amount of threat symbology crowding in front, trying not to feel the steadily increasing drumroll of artillery slamming onto the ridge where they lay. "Vic, we got any more orders?"
"See anything new on your Tactical?"
"No."
"That's what we've got. We hold this line, Ethan."
Stark looked back over his shoulder, noting for the first time that behind him lay only a long, gentle slope, leading for kilometer on unobstructed kilometer to the American rear areas, to the new colony city being dug and raised by civs adventurous or desperate enough to come to the Moon voluntarily, and to the only spaceport left in their possession. "Yeah. I guess we do hold here. Otherwise, it's all over for us, and for the civ colonists who're depending on us."
It had been somewhere between Earth and Moon, months ago during the too-long lull between loading into their assault ships and reaching the objective. Stark and Corporal Desoto were strapped in, staring somberly at the many-shaded grays of their lunar target, talking about the small things and the big things soldiers discuss in quiet moments.
"Never thought I'd leave Earth," Desoto offered at one point.
"Me, neither," Stark agreed. "They say we'll be able to see it again when the ships do a turn-around to brake for arrival at the Moon. Not that I expect it'll be all that much to look at by then."
"Long ways from home," Desoto observed, then, after a pause, "You ever go home, Sergeant?"
"What do you mean?"
"You know. Home. Parents. Brothers and sisters."
"Home." Stark repeated the word slowly, then shook his head. "Nah. Haven't been there since I joined. Civ neighborhood, you know."
Desoto's eyes widened in wonder. "Your parents were both civs? You weren't born on a fort?"
"That's right." Stark looked out the port, his eyes focused somewhere else. "I tried going back once, right after I made Corporal. Pretty proud, let me tell you. I made it in only three years."
"Three years?" Desoto demanded in amazement. "How'd you make Corporal in only three years?"
"Uh . . ." Stark hedged with obvious reluctance, then shrugged. "Just lucky."
"Sergeant, it takes more than luck to make Corporal that fast. You get a battlefield promotion or something?"
Stark stared back at the Moon, avoiding Desoto's gaze. "Or something. Look, that's not what this is about. I made it."
Something about Stark's attitude finally got through to Desoto, who nodded in silent assent to change the subject. "So, what happened when you tried to go home?"
"Well, I was passing through the old town and I thought, Why not? Hopped a ride to the old neighborhood."
"Bet it'd changed."
"Uh-uh." Stark grimaced at the memory. "Same as always. Me, I was different. Wearing a uniform. Civs stared at me, fish out of water." He'd been around uniforms so long he'd forgotten how rare they were in the civilian world, insulated from the small band of military that sufficed for America in the twenty-first century. "Like I was some kinda alien with two heads, you know?"
Desoto nodded. "Yeah. Been there. Like they expect you to start shooting them or raping their sons and daughters or something." He suddenly smiled sadly. "Or maybe they're afraid seeing us will make those sons and daughters want to join the mil, too."
Stark laughed sharply. "Could be. Look what happened to me. They don't know us, Pablo."
"Mendoza told me that once upon a time lots of people knew someone in the mil, or had even served themselves. That was before the long drawdown. Now that there're not too many mil, and we're all pretty much in for life, most civs never meet a uniform. What happened when you got home?"
"Never did." Stark remembered the cops, alert and wary, who had faced him at the bus station. You lost, soldier? The base is back that way. If you're looking for a drink, take the number twelve bus to the military bar district. No, he'd protested, I'm just passing through. Fine, keep going, but don't pass through here, soldier. It's a peaceful place. A civ neighborhood. "Some cops stopped me. Made it clear nobody wanted me there. I said, 'Hell, what do you think, I'm gonna kill someone?' And they said, 'That's what you do, isn't it? Kill people?'"
"Bastidos."
"Damn straight."
"So you let th
em stop you?"
"Not like that." Stark smoldered, old slights rising to the surface. "But I turned around. Didn't go home."
Desoto tried to make a joke of it. "Never thought Sergeant Ethan Stark would be afraid of a couple of civ cops."
Stark stared at his hands, not rising to the levity. "I wasn't afraid of them, Pablo. I was afraid my parents would be the same way. That's what scared me away."
"Sorry. Why they got to be that way, Sergeant? We put our lives on the line all the time, but they treat us real bad when they see us. Why?"
"Because they don't know better, I guess. Civs like the mil to protect them, but they want it done from far away."
"I wonder why we do it, sometimes. Why not do something else?"
"Something else?" Stark laughed. "Like what? You gonna get a civ job? Wear some kind of suit to work?"
"No. I guess civs are as alien to us as we are to them, huh?"
"Yeah. I grew up civ, and sometimes I can't even remember what it was like anymore. Other times it's like some weird dream where everything is different from what you know."
"Different? Like, how?"
"You know." Stark fumbled for words. "Different."
"I grew up on a fort," Desoto stated. "I don't know different. Like in school, everybody's mother and father, or maybe both, were in the mil and maybe off fighting. And we all knew we'd grow up and join the mil like them. Is that what civ kids are like?"
"No." Stark lowered his head, staring at the metal flooring beneath his feet. "No. Civ kids . . . okay, their parents do a lot of stuff. All different jobs. But hardly any of them run around saying, Tm gonna do what my dad or my mom does.'"
"How come?"
"They just don't. I dunno. Everything's confusing. You got all these . . . options . . . but most of them ain't real and you don't have any way of really understanding what the others are like. I mean, the mil, it's your life. Everything you do is mil. But civ jobs are all different. Maybe you understand what your parents do for a living, maybe you don't. Maybe you want to do the same thing. Maybe not."
Desoto nodded, his face puzzled. "You didn't want to do what your father did?"
"No."
"It was a real bad job?"
Stark looked up finally, face set in an unreadable expression. "I used to think so. I used to know everything when I was a teenager."
"We all did, Sergeant." Desoto laughed.
"Yeah. Now, I dunno. Maybe Dad didn't have the most important job in the world, but I guess he did it as best he could."
"You got an important job."
"I like to think so, but I know civs don't understand it. I was there, Pablo. One of them. Didn't have a clue what the mil was like." He shrugged. "Doesn't matter now, I guess. My life as a civ ended a long time ago."
"But you still have a home there."
"I guess. Sorta. Like I said, that civ life doesn't seem real anymore." Stark slapped Desoto on the shoulder. "Why do I need to go to a civ neighborhood to get home? Hell, I'm home right now."
Sensory overload threatened, even through the filter of the battle armor's systems, as the final American defensive line on the ridge got pounded by everything the enemy could throw at it. The lunar soil shuddered repeatedly as enemy rounds and submunitions hit, dust thrown up to hang in slowly falling curtains that were quickly ripped by small-arms and heavy-weapons fire.
Stark's Tactical glowed serenely, displaying no changes and no updates. It looked like the brass had locked up again. No decisions, no brilliant stratagems. Just hold until there was no one left to hold. Not the first time a unit died in place because no one could figure out how to extract them. But now that kind of thing was being shunted to the civs to see on vid. Great drama. Blood and guts. Now the civs would get to see them buy it, not staring in sick fascination at a rain of death displayed on their HDDs but watching all nice and comfortable in their media rooms with pretzels and cold beer.
Can't run, not without screwing every other soldier on the line. Can't stay, unless dying in place counted, which sometimes it did but not now. Stark hugged the rocks and dust and felt death's impacts trembling through them. The ghosts of trampled grass blades seemed to wave in front of his face shield, vibrating in time to the explosions. How many of the soldiers on this ridge might already be down, how long was left until the enemy pushed again and cracked the line wide open?
A unit could take only so much punishment, throw out only so much destruction at the enemy before ammo started to run low and battle fatigue ate at their brains. Too much combat, sustained too long, and you reached a point where the incoming rounds started to overpower resistance, a point where your own stuff couldn't hit back hard enough. Then it was just a matter of waiting until the unit's line started crumbling like cardboard under rain, falling apart into individuals and breaking away.
Stark had been here before, in another place, where grass grew. Lots of grass, tall and wild on the open hilltop, grass that had been trampled by heavy boots and matted down with blood as a long afternoon turned into despairing sunset. A place where the indigs had outside backing, a place where his unit had found itself on the downside of the firepower game, the manpower game, and the tactical thinking game. He could see it still, the tree line on all sides flashing with gunfire, those deadly flashes only partly obscured by the haze of battle. The soldiers to either side dying in sudden silence or long agony, their final duty to have their bodies plundered by those still living for desperately needed ammunition and medical supplies.
Not this time, Stark thought with rising rage. I'm not gonna sit here while everyone dies around me. I don't care what happens to me. But what can I do?
Over the squad net Hector called, his voice distorted with strain. "Sarge, it's getting mondo bad over here."
Stark came back quickly, trying to sound as sharp and cool as if he were on inspection. No panic. Keep their fear, your fear, under control. "You need me to hold your hand? I've been through a lot worse than this."
There was a long pause, then Billings came back, unnaturally calm. "Hector's down, Sarge."
Startled, Stark checked his HUD. No unit casualty stats showed. Sonofabitch. They're screening out casualties. Damn. Damn. Damn. Brigade had started sanitizing the information available to lower-level systems. That meant the brass expected heavy losses and didn't want them to know they were being torn apart. Never mind that filtering out the information at squad level meant Stark couldn't keep track of his own capabilities.
Like hell, Stark thought with redoubled fury. I'm not playing that damned game. Not here. Not now. There was another way. No orders? Fine. He'd make up his own. Maybe for the last time. Save his Squad if he could. If they were going to buy body bags anyway there wasn't much sense in not trying.
Stark raised his head, fighting down fear that the movement would attract instant fire, and scanned the ground ahead slowly, concentrating to block out the panic that threatened to break free. The intensity of the enemy barrage had grown so bad it actually provided some cover, the rocks, dust, and other junk tossed into slow-falling lunar trajectories that confused or blocked enemy targeting systems. Stark squinted, matching what he could see with the partial map on his HUD. If he could just cover that flat area between him and the next ridge, he'd be in among the enemy grunts and at least he wouldn't die cowering here. At least. Do the unexpected. The enemy had been pushing them hard, trying to make them break, and by now the enemy had to be tired, too.
Okay. Get to that ridge. Maybe one hundred meters. Piece of cake on an exercise track, but impossibly far here and now. He and the Squad would need cover, and they didn't have the bullets left to provide suppressive fire.
They did have the damned dust, though. There was plenty of that.
Stark called up a personal circuit, one jump-wired so the command channel and the vid monitors couldn't access it. "Pablo," he called his Corporal. "Need you. Get ready to put a string of delay-fuzzed eggs along this line." As he spoke, Stark used his helmet sight to dr
aw a ragged series of impact points along the far ridge and through the low terrain before it.
"Okay, Sarge." Desoto wasn't happy, but he didn't question the order. "That's going to use up all the grenades left in the autolauncher."
"If this doesn't work, we won't need them." Stark switched back to the regular circuit, ready for the chain of command to track his actions again, now that it would be too late for them to veto anything. "Third Squad, stand by. Okay, Corporal Desoto. Fire."
Stark's HUD suddenly tracked a dozen grenades flying toward the points he'd designated. Every round on target despite the intense enemy fire. Good shooting, Pablo. The rounds hit, and, after a pause, detonated from below the surface, throwing up a dense cloud of dust along and before the ridge. 'Third Squad! Follow me!" Fighting down the voice screaming in the back of his brain to hide-hide-hide, Stark lunged forward, rolling headfirst down the slope before him, running, staggering back and forth to confuse aiming in case the enemy could somehow see him, trying to hold a course toward the next ridge. His HUD flickered, staggering under the load of enemy jamming, then blanked out, blinded by the dust, picking up incoming small-arms fire and energy pulses close by, here and gone in a blink through the obscuring cloud. He kept going, hoping his Squad had followed, trying not to think beyond the next step.
Stark's War Page 8
