Stark’s Crusade

by John G. Hemry

  “Uh huh. Credit the pilot and his crew, I guess. They must have gotten the velocity on that sucker down quite a bit before it hit.”

  “Where are they?” Stark looked around, vainly searching his HUD for anyone tagged as flight personnel. “The shuttle crew?”

  “Where?” Asad nodded again, this time toward the wreck. “In there. The shuttle came to rest on the crew compartment. We haven’t been able to pry the bodies out, yet. Too busy taking care of the living. Might need engineers to open it up, anyway.” He paused. “I guess they didn’t have time to eject the crew compartment. Too bad.”

  “They had a chance, Doc. They could’ve ejected.”

  “Why didn’t they?”

  “They were trying to save their passengers.”

  Dr. Asad stood silent for a moment. “They did that. I’ll get them out, Sergeant Stark. I’ll take real good care of them. Promise.”

  “Thanks. Do you need anything else? More people, more equipment, more transport?”

  “Have you got anything coming to pick up the soldiers who can walk?”

  Stark checked his command display before answering. “Sure do. There’s some more APCs on the way. Should be here in a few minutes.”

  “Then we’re fine. Everybody who needs help has got it.”

  “Guess there’s nothing else I can do here, then. Good job handling the wounded. You and your people. Tell ‘em thanks for me and all the other grunts.”

  Another impossible suited shrug from Asad. “That’s our job. But I’ll tell my people. It never hurts to know you’re appreciated.”

  Stark moved slowly back to his APC, turning to look once more at the wrecked shuttle as he reached his transport. Gutierrez. And your whole damn crew. Thanks for saving those soldiers. I’ll make sure you’re not forgotten. He pulled himself into the APC, sealing the hatch then strapping in, moving with the weariness of great age or great responsibility.

  A briefing room big enough to accommodate the official planning hierarchy had no trouble holding Stark’s small group for their postmortem of the operation. Sergeant Tanaka had explained the old routine to Stark before she’d died in the failed raid on Stark’s headquarters. Generals would be holding down the best seats, flanked by senior planners, backed up by assistant planners, supported by junior planners. Standing against the wall would be the action officers who would do any actual work if such was required. Before each officer at the main table a display would offer instant access to any portion of the massive operation plan being developed; annexes, appendices, annexes to appendices, subsections, sub-subsections, and the ever-popular attachments to any and everything. “They tried to print out one of the oplans once,” Tanaka had offered. “Some general insisted on it. But headquarters ran out of paper before the print job finished.”

  “Were you short on paper?” Stark had asked.

  “Heck, no. We had a lot of paper. Reams and reams. Just not enough to print out an oplan. I hear oplans used to be a little shorter, back before they went paperless. Now everybody just copies the last one onto their hard drive and adds on to it. There’s probably stuff in there about fighting the Brits during the Revolution. Who’d know? Nobody can read the things anymore, and I don’t think anybody tries.”

  Stark shook off the memory of Tanaka, one more face and name gone from this world, and focused back on the present, gesturing toward the image of Lexington Sector floating slightly above the surface of the table. “Okay, you apes. What went right and what’d we do wrong?”

  Vic swung one finger slowly along the arc of low elevations studded with defensive symbology that marked the enemy front. “We got our forces in past there and out again. That’s a big plus.”

  “Yeah, but it still cost us a shuttle. We haven’t got a lot of those. Gordo.” Stark focused on his supply officer, Sergeant Gordasa. “Have we had any luck trying to get more on the black market?”

  Gordasa shook his head. “Too expensive, but more to the point, too tightly monitored. Nobody can figure out how to get one to us without being caught.” He offered a small smile. “Now, if you’d brought back all that ammunition you blew up, I might’ve been able to trade that for one.”

  “Sorry, Gordo. We were too busy to form a work detail.” He turned to Sergeant Tran. “Speaking of that ammo, any problems with all the junk it blasted into space? Any of it gonna fall on us once its orbit decays?”

  “No,” Tran stated. “It was a surface blast, so most of the debris flung upward came from the ammo itself, and that debris was fairly small stuff. A lot of it, but small. Nothing any of our surface installations can’t handle. They were built to deal with small impacts.”

  “Okay. Stacey.” Security officer Sergeant Yurivan, leaning backward in her chair as if half-asleep, opened one eye slightly and cocked it toward Stark. “Any reaction from back home?”

  Yurivan yawned. “Nope. Of course, the powers that be ain’t telling anyone about this back home. There’s a lot of buzz about the explosion, because you couldn’t hide the blasted thing from anyone on Earth who was looking this way, but officially its cause remains undetermined.”

  Reynolds snorted. “How long does the Pentagon and the government think they can stonewall something like that?”

  “If they’re being stupid, maybe they think a long time. Or long enough to deal with us first and then keep everything classified until the sun burns out, anyway.” Stacey Yurivan smiled. “Oh, yeah. Got an unofficial thanks from a couple of civ contractors who you let run away from that landing field. They say they owe us. Could be nice friends to have.”

  “Could be,” Stark agreed. I guess that’s doing well by doing right, or something like that. “Chief Wiseman, how’re you doing?”

  His naval commander made a small face, then waved away the question. “I’m okay. You lose people. It happens.”

  “You lost real good people,” Reynolds corrected.

  “That’s right,” Stark agreed. “You sailors all did great, and that shuttle crew… well, they did above and beyond. For real. I made a promise, Chief. They’ll be remembered.”

  Wiseman managed a small smile. “Thanks. And if it’s any consolation, I bet people’ll be studying how we used those shuttles for quite a while. We wrote a new chapter on raiding.”

  “Good.” Stark glanced over at Sergeant Lamont, who was sitting uncharacteristically subdued. “I guess you’re still unhappy about losing that tank.”

  Lamont spread his hands. “They’re my babies, Stark. We can salvage the tank from the wrecked shuttle, by the way, but losing even one piece of heavy armor hurts. We can’t replace ‘em, you know.”

  “I know. Not unless Gordo manages a black-market buy of a shuttle. Maybe he can smuggle a tank onto it.”

  “Why not?” Gordasa muttered. “Just ask Supply to do the impossible. No problem. We deal with CDATs all the time.”

  Lamont chuckled. Back in the twentieth century soldiers had joked about DATs, dumb-ass tankers. As their tanks grew more sophisticated the DATs had become CDATs, computerized dumb-ass tankers. “Gordo, after word gets out on that raid, my boys and girls will be in the CDAT Hall of Fame. You’ll feel honored every time you reject a spare parts requisition from us.”

  Stark smiled briefly. “Mendo.” Private Mendoza, his chin resting on both hands as he watched the others speak, jerked slightly in surprise. “What do you think? We blew up a lot of stuff and rained that enemy general’s day, week, month, and year. Big picture, though, was it worth it?”

  “I think, Commander Stark…” Mendo visibly hesitated for a moment, then spread his hands over the display. “It depends. On the objective. What do we seek?”

  “To avoid getting beat,” Yurivan drawled.

  Stark wondered if Mendoza would be intimidated by Stacey Yurivan’s mockery, but the small private shook his head stubbornly. “That is a very limited objective, though a valid one. But is that our objective, Commander Stark? And is it a wise objective?”

  “Why wouldn’t it be wis
e?” Stark asked.

  Mendoza paused again, gathering his thoughts. “A defensive strategy can work, but it requires time. Time to wear out the enemy. Too, it requires an enemy who cannot corner you, cannot force a decisive battle.”

  “We’re surrounded here,” Lamont noted.

  “Exactly. The essence of a delaying strategy is to avoid a decisive battle. It is often called a Fabian Strategy after the Roman commander who used it successfully against Hannibal. Since the Romans had lost every time they fought a major engagement with Hannibal, Fabius simply refused to fight such an engagement, always retreating when confronted.”

  “What kept this Hannibal from just capturing Rome while Fabius ran away?” Reynolds questioned.

  “Rome had fixed defenses. Walls. Hannibal lacked the engines of war necessary to breach those walls. Nor could he settle down to attempt to build them while worried about the Roman army operating in his rear. So Hannibal could not win as long as Fabius refused to fight. Operating in hostile territory far from home, Hannibal’s army was eventually worn down and forced to retreat.”

  “Interesting idea,” Stark noted. “But it sounds like this Fabius had time on his side. Which we may not. And he could run away when he didn’t want to fight. We’ve got nowhere to run.”

  “Just so,” Mendoza agreed. “We must wait in one location while our opponents muster their forces against us. Aside from tactical adjustments to the perimeter, we must defend the Colony. We have Rome’s walls, but we lack an army on the outside able to threaten anyone besieging us.”

  “We aren’t stuck here,” Lamont argued. “We left the perimeter to hit that enemy landing field. Why not keep doing that?”

  Mendoza shook his head. “Carrying out that raid required use of deception to bypass enemy defenses. Can another raid such as we conducted succeed again?”

  “No chance in hell,” Reynolds stated. “I’d hate to be the shuttle crew that accidentally lands on the wrong field from now on. They’ll get blown away before they can say ‘bad mistake.’ There may be another way to get past the enemy defenses surrounding us, but I sure can’t think of any right now.” Some of the others at the table looked uncomfortable at her words, but no one contradicted Reynolds.

  “Then we must be prepared to defend against heavy attacks,” Mendoza concluded, “and to somehow hold out until our attackers are exhausted.”

  Stark glanced around at his staff, all of whom were digesting Mendoza’s advice with expressions of varied discontent. “What you’re not saying, Mendo, is that our attackers basically have the entire resources of Earth to hit us with, and all we’ve got is what’s on this particular patch of the Moon. Right?”

  Mendoza nodded. “We can inflict immense losses on our foes, time and again, and still lose eventually.” He stopped speaking, obviously pondering his last statement. “Much like the Carthaginians. Hannibal’s people. They defeated the Romans over and over again, destroying armies and fleets. The Romans always came back, though.”

  “Very cheerful,” Stacey Yurivan remarked. “But you’re leaving out the political aspect of this, aren’t you? Just how willing is everyone on Earth to spend their lives and treasure trying to beat us?”

  Vic Reynolds nodded. “That’s a good point. Our former bosses, the government and Pentagon, want us beat something fierce. But does everyone else? Especially if the cost rises too high.”

  “Don’t forget the corporations who just about own the government,” Sergeant Bev Manley advised. She’d been sitting quietly, one eye on the debate, while she tried to catch up on her administrative duties with the other. “On the one hand, they want us beat, too. On the other, pure revenge won’t help their profits any. We make the cost of beating us too expensive, and the corporations should want to make a deal with us. Any word on that yet?”

  Yurivan shook her head, then glanced sidelong at Stark. “Maybe our boss’s civ buddies can clue him in on that. They worked for corporations before we let them kick their bosses off this rock, right?”

  “They did,” Stark agreed. “And I’ll be meeting with the Colony manager and his assistant later today, to brief them on the raid’s results. I’ll ask what they know about things back on Earth.”

  His staff exchanged glances, then Manley put into words what the others were obviously thinking. “Are you sure we can trust them, Ethan? I know they’ve hung with us so far, and that surprised the hell out of me I can tell you, but they’ve gotta be feeling trapped right now. If the civs get scared they might try to cut a deal that leaves us hanging.”

  Stark stared back with a confidence he wasn’t sure he really felt. “I trust them. Remember, the civs gave us warning about that raid that hit this headquarters. Warning that probably made the difference in keeping us alive. They’ve also been giving us matériel assistance. They volunteered their medical facilities to help handle our casualties. And some of them are even enlisting. Right, Vic?”

  “Right. Damnedest thing I’ve ever heard of. You should’ve seen the expression on the face of the corporal the civs asked how to enlist.” The military had grown too separate from society as a whole, too isolated from the civilians it had been formed to protect. A closed club, where military families raised children who joined, while civilians looked on with worry at the people who carried weapons and were willing to kill if ordered. Almost as incomprehensible to the Free Lunch Culture, the military were willing to die, if ordered. “I agree with Ethan. I think we can trust these civs. They’ve been right behind the front lines for years. They know we’re here to protect them.”

  Stacey Yurivan smiled insincerely. “You’d be expected to agree with Stark, wouldn’t you, Reynolds? You being old pals and all.”

  “I tell it like I see it, Stace.”

  Sergeant Gordasa cleared his throat. “I have to agree with Stark and Reynolds. I’m working with the civs a lot to get spares and food and stuff since our normal supply routes are closed off. They’re trying to get decent deals, sure, but they’re not trying to cheat us. They treat me okay, one-on-one. And the stuff coming in is good quality. Hell, the food’s better than we’re used to. Verdad?”

  Everyone around the table nodded. The soldiers had recently actually been able to identify the source of some of the meat in their meals. “Still and all,” Manley persisted, “I’ve got to ask; what do the civs want? For us to keep protecting them, sure. But why? What are they expecting to be able to do while we do all this fighting?”

  Everyone looked at Stark, who scowled back. “Last I heard, there was a lot of sentiment in the civ colony for declaring independence from home. They’d become a new country, and I guess that’d make us that new country’s military.”

  “What kinda country?”

  “Like the U.S., I guess. Or how it’s supposed to be, anyway. All these civs up here got trapped into real bad contracts with their corporations. They were being shafted something fierce, while the corporate bosses were getting richer, as usual. So they don’t want that kind of stuff up here.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with capitalism,” Stacey observed.

  “No, there ain’t, except the same thing that’s wrong with any system allowed to run without any checks on it. That’s what the government’s supposed to do, not be in bed with the bosses, right?”

  “The Constitution is sort of silent on that.”

  “ ‘Provide for the general welfare,’ ” Vic recited. “I think that covers it. Fine. Let’s assume these civs declare independence and form their own country and even adopt the exact same Constitution we’re sworn to protect. How comfortable is everybody with that?”

  There was a long silence, finally broken by grumbling from Manley. “We’re Americans, damnit. I don’t want to be anything else.”

  “Me, neither,” Stark agreed. “But the people running our country don’t like us much. We may not have any choice about becoming something else.”

  Yurivan looked up, grinning suddenly. “That’s an angle. The government’s been putting o
ut word that we’re all criminals and troublemakers, out for anything we can get.”

  “Good thing none of us fit that description, huh, Stace?”

  “If I may finish without further heckling, we haven’t had much propaganda of our own to counter that. But we can get word around back home that we’re loyal and true-blue and one hundred percent and all, and the only reason we’re in trouble is because the bosses don’t want us because we kicked out other bosses who were idiots. It could stir up some trouble at home. Maybe get some pressure off us.”

  Reynolds smiled. “That’s a good idea. The civs running the Colony tell us the two major political parties are really running scared that they’ll be kicked out of power. If we get word out on what we really feel, that might help that thing happen.”

  “It might. But these other guys, these political parties that want to clean things up, might not like us any better than the current crop of crooks. Who knows?”

  “Campbell might,” Stark noted. “The Colony manager. Like I said, Vic and I have a meeting with him later. I’ll sound him out on that. Are there any other issues we should deal with here?”

  Lamont grinned. “Let’s see, we’ve talked about what our main strategy should be, whether we want to belong to another country, and how good the food is lately. What’s left?”

  “Locating a replacement shuttle,” Gordasa noted, then shook his head in mock despair. “I’ll take care of that, and you guys can handle the easy stuff.”

  Stark laughed along with the others, motioning for everyone to leave, but paused himself as Vic placed a restraining hand on his arm. “Sergeant Milheim. He just made it in. You want him to hang around and provide you with individual feedback or just put it in a report?”

  “If he puts it in a report, I’d never find time to read it. Besides, if I call somebody to see me, the least I can do is actually take some time for them once they get here. You can head out, though.”

  “No problem.” Vic left, motioning Milheim in through the door.

  “Sorry I didn’t make the meeting,” Milheim began.