Stark's War

by John G. Hemry

  "Sergeant, you need to give the enhanced mobility system a chance—"

  "No, thank you, sir. No, thank you," Stark repeated. "Captain, I know our Combat Systems people are always trying to kill us with their bright new ideas and stuff that doesn't work in the field, but for God's sake, if they want us dead that bad it'd be a lot simpler for them just to design in illuminated targets to hang on our butts."

  "I see." Captain Noble smiled crookedly. "I'll be sure to keep your opinion in mind, Sergeant."

  "Sir, I respectfully request my Squad be removed from consideration for field-testing that new armor."

  Noble smiled slightly again, his eyes avoiding Stark's, then turned and left. Stark glanced at Gomez, who had been following the conversation intently. "Did he agree to my request or not?"

  "I dunno, Sarge. He didn't say anything."

  "That's what worries me. You think maybe I laid it on too intense?"

  "With him?" Gomez laughed. "No way, Sarge. Too bad the Captain didn't find time to tell you that you did a good job on the last op."

  "Sure he did. He talked about my record."

  "With a guy like that, that kinda statement could mean anything, good or bad, Sarge."

  "I know. Ask me if I care."

  Within a couple of days Stark felt as if he had never been gone, as if the last op and the hospitalization had been products of some unpleasant dream. Every time he stripped for a shower, though, he saw the scars still visible despite the medics' work. Those are the scars that show, anyway. I don't know what's inside. Not sure I want to know.

  Just to further confuse life, the standard rotation policy was suddenly changed, leaving the current units either on the front line or in R&R for another few weeks. "How'd you swing that, Stark?" Sergeant Nguyen demanded from the bunker where Stark's Squad had been scheduled to relieve Nguyen's Squad.

  "Not my work," Stark protested. "Sorry you're stuck out there."

  "Who's work is it? What the hell's going on?"

  "Either nobody knows or nobody's saying. Look, I'm heading to headquarters today to try to get some stuff done. I'll ask around."

  Paperwork had stopped being paperwork decades before, but it still took up enormous amounts of time, primarily because many senior officers seemed addicted to the idea that accumulating huge quantities of data was the same thing as understanding what was going on. Stark stood before the counter at Division Administration, drumming his fingers on the worn surface and trying not to project the furious annoyance he suspected every admin clerk secretly sought to generate in their victims. "Ethan Stark? How's life, old buddy?"

  Stark turned at the voice, frowning as he tried to tie it to a memory, then smiled as he saw the woman who'd spoken. "Sergeant Bev Manley. How come you haven't retired?"

  She smiled back, yanking a thumb over her shoulder. "I'm still having too much fun, soldier. Come into my office for a private chat."

  Manley's office could have doubled as a closet, which still made it a tremendous perk in lunar offices tunneled out of rock. She sat opposite Stark, then nodded toward her computer monitor. "Congratulations."

  "Thanks. For what?"

  "I've got correspondence here from Captain Noble saying you volunteered your Squad to field-test the new enhanced mobility combat armor."

  "That damn little pissant."

  Manley grinned. "You don't sound like a very enthusiastic volunteer."

  "I'll kill him," Stark ground out. "I swear. Next time we're in combat together, assuming the little bastard ever goes near a battlefield, I'll put a round right between his beady little eyes."

  "Don't waste the ammo," Manley advised. "I thought this didn't sound like something you'd do."

  "Great. So what can I do about it?"

  Her grin widened. "Ethan, stuff gets lost in the system all the time. Just kinda disappears." Manley reached over to punch a key. "Captain Noble's message just disappeared."

  "Really?" Stark grinned back. "Is there any chance Captain No Balls will find out?"

  "Not a one. He'll rotate out in a few months, fat, dumb, and happy, thinking he's done a major suck-up to some General in Combat Systems Development." Manley's grin took on an evil glint. "Me, I'd like to be a fly on the wall when he tries to call in a chit on the deal."

  "What if the General tries to find out what happened? Won't your system leave fingerprints?"

  Manley rolled her eyes. "Gawd, no. Mind you, when it was delivered we were told it was one hundred percent foolproof and maintained an unalterable track of every piece of correspondence that entered the system."

  "How long did it take you to find a back door?"

  "First day. We've found a lot more since then. Don't worry about me. There're no fingerprints."

  Stark reached to shake her hand. "I owe you one, Bev. Big time."

  "Nah, we're even. You saved my ass back on the World when those insurgents tried to overrun our base camp on Madagascar, remember?"

  Stark scratched one temple. "Oh, yeah. Heck, I'd forgotten all about that."

  "I haven't." Manley waved him out. "Watch out for yourself, you big ape."

  "I'll try when I'm not busy protecting you rear-echelon jerks." Stark paused as he started to rise. "Hey, can you help me expedite this paperwork I'm stuck here trying to get processed?"

  "What do you think I am, a miracle worker?" Manley demanded. "Ah, hand it over. I'll see what I can do." She frowned over the material displayed on Stark's palmtop. "What the hell is this?"

  "I figured you'd know."

  "Individual reliability assessments for every soldier in your Squad? Dates of last security reviews? Consolidated disciplinary report? Who the hell ordered this?"

  Stark spread both hands. "No idea. My Captain said the report was required, not that I can trust a word he says. Supposed to go back up through him, but I can't get the guy to answer his calls, and he's never in his office, so I figured I could turn it in here."

  "Huh." Manley turned to her terminal again, keying in data rapidly. "Security block? No access authorized for me? Fat chance. Just use a few skeleton keys . . . ah . . . there we go. Damn. They're asking for this stuff on every soldier in First Division. Why wasn't I told?" She glared at Stark. "This should have gone through me."

  "Maybe you don't have a good reliability assessment," Stark joked.

  "Maybe not," Manley grumbled, her fingers dancing over her input board. "Top brass ordered this. Hell, I could've put together all the security and disciplinary info from my database and saved everybody a lot of time. Something screwy's going on, Ethan."

  "So what else is new?" Stark eyed her searchingly. "This has got you worried, doesn't it? So the brass went off on a wild tangent again. They always do that."

  "They went outside channels, Ethan. They want reliability assessments for everyone and they went outside normal channels to get them. What does that tell you?"

  "That they don't trust you, or me, or the guys who work for us."

  "That's what I think, too." Manley shook her head, all levity fled. "We don't trust our officers and they don't trust us. Helluva way to run a military, Stark." She tapped her screen again lightly with one finger. "One more thing. You better be ready for some cramped quarters until you go back on the line."

  "Why? I heard there're no replacements coming in."

  "There aren't," Manley confirmed. "But there're orders here to prepare to double up all existing temporary barracks occupants."

  "Why?" Stark repeated.

  "I'll try to find out," Manley vowed.

  "Thanks, but I think I know somebody else who might have the answer."

  Half an hour and several kilometers later, Vic Reynolds stared back dispassionately from her chair as Stark took a seat nearby. "What's the word, Vic?" Stark jerked his thumb backward to indicate the barracks complex behind him. "Why the doubling-up?"

  Vic pursed her lips. "How'd you hear that was coming down?"

  "I got a source of my own. Amazing, isn't it?"

  "Sure
is."

  "So what's going down?"

  "There's no official word, Ethan."

  "I know that. I didn't ask for official word. I want to know what's going on, and I know you know if anybody does."

  This time Vic grinned tightly. "A reputation can be a terrible thing. Okay. You want to know why we're going to be doubling up here? To make room for reinforcements."

  "No way." Stark squinted at Vic in a futile attempt to try to read any trace of mockery. "Reinforcements? Real honest-to-God reinforcements? Who's showing up next, Santa Claus?"

  "If Santa does show up, you better be ready with some good explanations."

  "I got plenty of those." Stark frowned, fixing his friend with a suspicious glance. "So why aren't you happy? Isn't this good?"

  Reynolds avoided his gaze, expression still noncommittal. "Depends what you consider good."

  "Okay, Vic. Stop playing games. What's going on? Why reinforcements, and why aren't you happy about it?"

  The stars outside crawled millimetrically across the black sheet of endless night while Reynolds pondered her response. "Fair question. Ethan, aren't you wondering where these reinforcements will come from?"

  "I hadn't gotten around to that yet." Stark scowled in frustration. "Where the hell do they come from? Second Division is supposed to be completely tied up with commitments back on the World."

  "It is," Vic confirmed.

  "So?"

  "So they're sending Third Division up here. All of it."

  Stark just stared, the words slowly entering his brain and hanging there, unable to progress because they wouldn't fit anywhere. "Third Division is the Strategic Reserve. The Continental Guard."

  "Yes and yes," Vic confirmed dryly.

  "They wouldn't send those pretty boys and girls up here. Who backs up the Armored Brigade if anything happens?"

  "There's no more Armored Brigade to back up, Ethan. It's been disestablished, cannibalized to provide bodies to bring Third Division up to full strength."

  Stark's eyes twitched as if of their own volition, focusing away from the face of Vic Reynolds and onto a nearby remote vid of the outside. Rocks. Dust. Black shadows and white light. People didn't belong here, didn't fit, and right now the things Vic was telling him didn't fit either. "Why?" he finally spat out.

  "Big push. We're going to break the enemy perimeter, Ethan. End the war with total victory." Vic stayed expressionless, reciting the words without emotion.

  "Ah, sweet Jesus," Stark whispered, closing his eyes tightly for a few moments. "Tell me it's a joke, Vic. Tell me you made it all up."

  "Sorry. No can do."

  "They're sending our entire Strategic Reserve up here to try to break the stalemate?"

  "That's right. They'll start disembarking within the next twenty-four hours. The whole force is supposed to be here by the end of the week."

  "That's pretty damn fast. They must have crammed them awfully tight into the transports."

  "The idea's to achieve surprise, Ethan."

  "Well, they sure as hell surprised me. What are these fresh troops supposed to do, mop up after we miraculously walk through the enemy lines?"

  "No, Ethan. They'll be the spearhead."

  Stark's fist hit the wall, causing the image of the lunar landscape to jump in response. "That's too damn flippin' idiotic for even our brass to have dreamed up. Those new troops'll be green, totally unused to the environment up here. They'll be too busy learning to walk to think about fighting. They'll be—"

  "Tell it to someone who doesn't know all that, Ethan," Vic interrupted coldly. "They didn't ask us, and they won't ask us, and they won't listen if we try to tell them."

  "I know that." Stark stared from his hands back to Reynolds. "Why them in the spearhead? I sure as hell don't want to do it, but why them?"

  Vic smiled in self-mockery. "Because we lack fighting spirit, Ethan. They say we're burned out."

  "No kidding. War does that. Someone finally noticed?"

  Vic ignored Stark's gibe. "Third Division, on the other hand, has great morale."

  "Sure they do. They probably think they can catch bullets with their teeth, but that's 'cause they ain't been shot at in, what—fifteen or twenty years?"

  "So," Vic plowed on, "their fighting spirit will enable them to overcome the enemy. Then we mop up in their victorious wake."

  Stark glared at the outside remote view again, anger and futility warring within him. "Just how many millimeters of protection does 'fighting spirit' add to battle armor?"

  "It's not my idea, Ethan."

  "If it was I'd personally blow your head off."

  "Tell that to General Meecham."

  "Who?"

  "General Meecham." Vic's mouth twisted in a bitter half smile. "Our greatest strategic and tactical thinker."

  "I've done quite a bit of tactical stuff in the past few years and I've never heard of him."

  "You will. He's coming up here to implement his, uh, 'revolutionary force-multiplication' concepts. Something called Synergy Warfare."

  Stark rolled his eyes in mockery. "Be still, my heart."

  "Yeah. Anyway, we'll get lectures on the whole framework for the offensive before the attack goes down."

  "They're going to give us the whole plan in advance?"

  Stark questioned, not trying to hide his surprise. "That's not bad."

  Vic laughed as if the effort pained her. "I didn't say a lecture on the plan, Ethan. Lectures on the framework, the theoretical basis for, um"—Vic's eyes closed as she dredged up a memory—"'overwhelming the enemy mass with our fighting spirit and superior idea paradigm.'"

  Stark's jaw dropped. "What the hell.. . ?"

  "Don't ask me. Just be glad we won't be leading this attack."

  By the time Stark got back to his quarters, a notice awaited, ordering his Squad to vacate half the quarters they'd been occupying. His soldiers were still grumbling when the first members of Third Division arrived, staring around like hick tourists visiting the big city as they stumbled, bumped, and bounced about in the unfamiliar gravity. Mostly, they stared at rock. Rock hallways and rooms tunneled out of the lunar soil. Rock floors left fairly rough to provide traction in a place where gravity didn't help nearly enough. Overhead, mostly raw metal sealing in the little things humans needed, things such as air and heat and moisture.

  Stark had seen the city from the outside, staring down at it from some of the heights where American troops held positions. Sometimes it made him think of a spread-out anthill, with big and little humps scattered around to mark high ceilings, and raised strips over subsurface corridors. Here and there, higher towers and clusters of low buildings rose, heavy masonry walls formed from lunar rock pulled out of the subsurface excavations. Not heavy because gravity required it, but because heavy helped keep in that air and heat, and keep out falling rocks and radiation. Nothing like the fairy-tale towers rising under transparent domes in the really old pictures guessing at mankind's future. Fairy tales, after all, are nice to look at, but hideously expensive to build in a place where everything was already really expensive, and far too vulnerable to the threats posed by nature even if other humans hadn't been targeting weapons there as well. No, for fairy towers you had to look at some of the industrial complexes, open to the lunar environment, lights flashing amid skeletal frames rising what seemed far too high for their light structure. Mankind's future, where the fairies had been sent to build and labor in factories on the lifeless rock of the Moon.

  The new soldiers, Stark noticed, tended to cluster in the courtyards, small rooms with thick windows set in the ceilings or walls to offer direct views of the outside. Apparently none of them noticed the airtight emergency doors ready to slam shut if one of the windows failed. Stark, like most of the veterans, preferred remote views over standing near a window with vacuum on the other side.

  "You guys need any help?" Murphy offered as a Third Division Squad moved into part of his old quarters.

  "Not from you," one of the
new Privates cracked, drawing laughs from his comrades.

  "What the hell's that mean?" Murphy demanded.

  Stark stepped in before the Third Division personnel could answer, staring them down with a steely gaze. "It didn't mean anything, right?"

  The new soldiers exchanged uncertain glances before one answered. "No, Sergeant."

  " 'No, Sergeant' what?"

  "Uh, no, Sergeant, it didn't mean anything."

  "Good. You'd be well advised to accept any help lunar vets can give." Stark turned to Murphy. "Why don't you and the rest of the Squad take the night off? Go out and have a good time. Probably be your last chance for a while."