“What about her?”
“Seems one spring day she was walking on the lawn of her castle or whatever and she saw some pretty flower that’d just bloomed. So she told her people to put a sentry on that spot to make sure nobody stepped on the flower. Well, maybe a hundred years later some other Russian ruler looks out at the same lawn and wonders for the first time why there’s a sentry standing out in the middle of it. Turns out nobody ever told anyone to stop posting a sentry once the flower died, so there’d been a soldier posted there ever since, rain or shine, summer and winter, guarding the spot where a flower’d once been.”
“Hah! Sounds like something our own bosses would’ve done.” Chief Wiseman sobered again, sipping her beer slowly, eyes distant. “Yeah. There’s dumb stuff: But the good traditions are important.”
“The good traditions are important. And no matter what else happens, we’re going to keep ‘em. What got you thinking about ‘em? Anything in particular?”
“My birthday.” She quirked a small smile at Stark’s reaction. “Don’t bother singing me ‘Happy Birthday.’ The only thing I celebrate about birthdays now is the fact that I’ve survived long enough for another one. No, it just got me thinking about my family. My two brothers joined the Navy, too. Of course. What else you gonna do when your parents are Navy?” She still smiled, but her eyes were looking somewhere into the past. “We’d have some kinda bar crawls when we were in port together. People used to call us the Three Wisemen.”
“Used to?”
“Yeah. Joe died when his ship got nailed during a heavy action up here. The USS John Hancock. Whole thing blew to hell while she was covering some transports. They shoulda run, but they had to save those other ships, right? We didn’t have to worry about burials for any of the crew ‘cause there weren’t any bodies left to speak of.” She took another drink, her face shading into sadness. “They awarded the ship and crew a Presidential Unit Commendation. Posthumously. Fighting their ship to the end in the finest tradition of the Naval Service. All that crap. But they did their duty, didn’t they? Good ship. Good tradition. My brother did us proud.” She sat silent a moment longer. “Now it’s the Two Wisemen. So far.”
“Sorry.”
“I heard you’re the only mil in your family, Stark, that all the rest are civs. That right?”
“That’s right.”
“Does that make it any easier?”
Stark shook his head, frowning. “Does it make what any easier?”
“Ordering people into combat. Knowing some of ‘em will die. I mean, since they ain’t relatives, and since you didn’t grow up with ‘em.”
“They’re still friends. No, it’s not easier at all. Maybe harder.”
Wiseman smiled again. “Reminds me of another joke, one my grandfather told me. Back when the Russians controlled Poland, in the twentieth century, I guess, some Russian went to Poland and asks a native whether he thinks of the Russians as his friends or his family. The Pole says family, of course, because you get to choose your friends.”
Stark laughed. “There’s a lot of truth in that, ain’t there? But family’s still important. Where’s your other brother?”
“Wet Navy, now. One small blessing. I won’t run into him up here. He always told me I was crazy for staying a space surfer. Said ships ought to float on water, not on nothing.”
“I guess he’s got a point. The Air Force always said the same thing, right?”
“Yeah, sure,” Chief Wiseman snorted. “When they were trying to claim they should control all ops in space. But they couldn’t figure out how to build luxury accommodations for their pilots up here, so they left the job to sailors. We’re used to livin’ miserable.” She drained her beer, then stood. “Thanks for listening, boss.”
“That’s part of the job.”
“Yeah. But some people are better at it than others. You ain’t a bad boss for a mud crawler.”
“Thanks, Chief. You ain’t bad for a squid.”
“Says you,” Wiseman snorted again, then saluted. “By your leave, sir.”
Stark stood as well, returning the salute. “Take care of yourself, Chief. Sure you don’t wanna talk any more?”
“No, thanks. Besides, I gotta get going if I’m gonna be back with our little fleet in time for eight o’clock reports.”
“Eight o’clock? You mean twenty-hundred?” Stark asked, converting the civilian time measurement into military time! “You got plenty of time ‘til then.”
“No, I don’t. The Navy always holds eight o’clock reports at seven-thirty.”
“Then why are they called eight—? This is like that crazy lamp thing, ain’t it?”
“Sort of. It’s a Navy thing. You wouldn’t understand.” She saluted again, almost cheerfully, then left, practically running into Vic Reynolds on her way out.
Vic glanced curiously after Wiseman. “You guys planning some special op?”
“Nah. Just doing some personnel counseling.”
Reynolds sat, looking concerned now. “Does the Chief have some problems?”
“Nah. Just the usual. Worried about things. She needed a little hand-holding and a sympathetic ear. You know the drill.”
“The same one I give you every time you get depressed? Yeah, I’m familiar with it.”
“That’s because you’re a decent leader,” Stark stated. “I hope I am, too. Thank God we can talk to each other when things get rough.”
“I guess. And, speaking of leadership responsibilities…”
“Oh, man. Now what?”
Vic pursed her lips in thought for a moment. “How do I say this? We’re winning and morale is great, but the troops are edgy.”
“Yeah. I’ve felt it, too. Can’t quite put my finger on it, but something’s wrong. You got any ideas?”
“A couple.” Reynolds leaned back, staring upward where rough metal shielded and armored the ceiling. “Part of it is the old end game question. You’ve given us a reason to fight, now, besides just surviving, but the problem with holding yourself up as a symbol is there’s no way to know if it’s working.”
“A lot of people are trying to find out, Vic. The demonstrations back home are getting bigger. The government’s been tossing mercs at us, and now they’re cooking up those Jabberwocks, so you know they’re worried. Stacey and the civ security people keep spotting attempts to intrude on our systems or plant worms. Oh, yeah, and the government’s propaganda mills keep churning out stories about how horrible we are. If you go by how hard our enemies are trying to beat us and discredit us, we must look like a real threat to them.”
“I know. But even if it works, we don’t know how long it’ll take. We’ve been fighting up here for what seems like forever already. No one wants to keep fighting a day longer than we have to.”
Stark nodded. “I wish I knew the answer to that. Hell, I wish I could end the war right now. All I can say is the civs in the Colony are working like crazy to stir up hate and discontent back home with the government. Sarafina’s been keeping you briefed on their efforts, right?”
“Uh-huh. There’s no way the government can totally block the civs’ ability to download info into systems back on the World, so they can’t stop our own propaganda from getting through. But she doesn’t know for sure how well any of it’s working or if or when it’ll succeed, either. But then she’s not being asked to be shot at while she waits for the answer.” Vic held up a hand to forestall Stark’s words. “I know. Cheryl Sarafina’s a decent human being, and I respect her judgment, which I never thought I’d say about a civ, but it’s a fact. There’s a different level of stress. Still, I don’t think that issue is entirely the problem.”
“Huh. What else, Vic? What’re your guts telling you?”
“They’re telling me our friends back home are up to something we haven’t spotted. Spreading their own brand of hate and discontent up here. Or trying to, anyway.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”
“Stacey got an
ything?”
Stark shook his head. “Nah. She’s worried, though, for the same reason you are. Stace figures the spooks back home have got to be trying to cause trouble up here, and she hasn’t been able to spot it, not with the tools we’ve got.”
“We could try some loyalty screens…”
“No. That won’t happen. I start loyalty screens, and it’ll hurt us more than anything the spooks are trying to do. I’ve got to trust my people, Vic.”
She nodded, her face unhappy. “I guess you’re right about loyalty screens. But some people don’t deserve trust, Ethan. This isn’t like before, when you could know every person who worked for you in your squad. There’s people in this little army of ours that you and I never heard of, let alone know personally. And you know soldiers aren’t angels.” Vic reached to activate the nearest display panel, punching in some codes. “Like here. We’ve had almost a hundred grunts hauled up on charges for using that new synth drug, Rapture. Somebody’s making it, and somebody’s selling it, but we haven’t nailed them, yet.”
“We will. Stacey’s real ticked off about that Rapture stuff. It’s the sort of thing she’d have tried running in the old days. Well, maybe not. Rapture can mess up people permanent, right? Stace wouldn’t have played that game. But she’s still determined to take the dealers down.”
“After which some other designer drug will pop up to keep things ugly,” Vic noted. “Okay. So, what do we do about the people issue? Try something proactive or wait for something bad to happen?”
“Let’s try to think of something proactive. I can’t think of anything we haven’t already done, but maybe there’s something. It’s pretty late in the day now to be trying creative thinking. Let’s get together tomorrow, say during lunch, and hash out some ideas.”
“Sounds good.” She gazed at Stark. “Something else bothering you?”
“No. I don’t think so. Probably just like you said. The agencies back on Earth have got to be working on something to make us unhappy. I really wish I knew what it was.”
Stark had just entered his quarters, trying to decide whether to dig through the virtual mound of paperless paperwork on his terminal, when his comm unit buzzed urgently. “Stark here.”
“Commander Stark, this is Security Central.” The watch-stander sounded breathless, bringing Stark to full alertness as he listened. “There’s some sort of situation going down.”
“What do you mean ‘some sort of situation’? What exactly is happening?”
“Uh, sir, we got some warning messages coining in from two areas. That’d be Chamberlain Barracks and Morgan Barracks. We’ve also lost remote monitoring signals from the ammunition magazine nearest those barracks—”
“What kind of warning messages?” Stark broke in, aching to leap into action but forcing himself to wait until he could learn more. “Are you talking another raid?”
“No. No sir. I’ve got no reports of enemy action. These messages are hard to explain. Let me replay one for you, sir.” After the briefest pause, a different voice began speaking hastily. “Hey, you guys. Somethin’ funny’s happenin’ here in Morgan Barracks. We got soldiers coming through in full combat gear, claiming there’s some new Enlisted Council that’s gonna be running things. Says Stark and his gang are just using us so we’re taking over. I says who the hell is ‘we,’ and they looked sorta confused. We told them to get back to their damn barracks, but it looks like they’re tryin’ to occupy this one. I think they’re all Fifth Battalion troops from Second Brigade. You better get—”
“Security, the message broke off.”
“Yessir. That’s what happened. We’ve activated the on-call company in that area, but, uh, what are we supposed to do, sir? I mean, are they supposed to attack someone?”
Stark closed his eyes, wishing his lunch with Vic had happened a few days earlier, before apparently being overtaken by events. “One, notify everyone on my staff. Two, put out the word all soldiers should remain in their quarters or barracks unless they get orders from me otherwise. Three, you get the on-call company down to those two barracks and tell them to block anybody trying to take over those locations or seize control of any area without authority. No shooting. Understand? You haven’t told me about any shooting, yet, so I assume there’s been none.”
“That’s right, Commander. No reports of firing and no sensor indications of combat.”
“Good. So get our own people in place and just block these other guys until we find out what’s going down.”
Vic broke into the circuit. “This is Reynolds. Get the on-call companies in the adjacent areas going, too. What’s the backup battalion in the area?”
“Uh, that’d be Fifth Battalion.”
“Okay,” Stark acknowledged. I guess we can’t use them. “Get the next backup battalion closest to those barracks going. And all those on-call companies, like Sergeant Reynolds said. I want a wall of bodies holding in this so-called Enlisted Council.”
“Yessir. Uh, what about the magazine, Commander?”
Stark took a slow, deep breath, imagining what panicked soldiers might do around a large quantity of high explosive. “Same thing. Get the exits blocked. But no offensive activity around that magazine. No pressure. I don’t want it blowing half the Colony to hell.”
“Yessir. Troops are on the way, Commander.”
“Vic, meet me in the command center.”
“On my way. Does this mean our lunch date is off?”
He grinned involuntarily at the black humor. “I don’t expect to have much time for eating in the next few days. Don’t forget your battle armor.”
“Ethan, I’m a big girl. I know enough to wear battle armor in a crisis. Are you going to remind me to bring my rifle, too?”
“No. But I sure hope you won’t have to use it.”
The command center felt off-balance, its normal smooth functioning disrupted by an event the watchstanders had never trained for. “Are you telling me I can’t get a map of the barracks area on this display?” Stark demanded.
“We’re looking for one,” Sergeant Tran advised. “That isn’t an area we’re supposed to have to worry about.”
Vic entered, shaking her head at Tran’s words. “What about if the perimeter had been penetrated? There has to be a self-defense plan for the military complex.”
Tran slapped his forehead. “Of course there is. We’ll get it up right away.” He hastened to a console, conferring with the watch-stander there as they sought the needed planning document. A moment later, the display lit with a 3-D depiction of the Chamberlain and Morgan Barracks. “We’ll get enemy activity posted on here real quick, Commander Stark.”
“Thanks. But they’re not enemy. Let’s keep that in mind.” Stark fiddled with the controls, frustrated as his instincts urged him to do something quickly but he was forced to wait for more information. “I oughta go there,” he muttered so only Vic could hear.
“No. The situation’s too confused.” Vic eyed the display as red markers began appearing where so-called Enlisted Council activity had been reported. “Ethan, I just remembered something.”
“Doesn’t sound like it’s anything good.”
“It’s not. Remember who used to belong to Fifth Battalion? A guy named Kalnick.”
“Kalnick?” Sergeant Kalnick had briefly served as commander of the Fifth Battalion, before losing the confidence of his soldiers when he tried to undercut Stark’s authority and almost disastrously delayed the battalion’s response to an enemy breakthrough. After Kalnick’s own people voted him out, Stark had sent him home to Earth, not wanting someone he couldn’t trust so close at hand. “Why didn’t we think to keep a special eye on that unit?”
“Probably because we both thought everybody had gotten fed up with Kalnick. But I bet he still has some friends in Fifth Battalion. Friends who’ve been keeping a low profile. Speaking of which,” Vic pointed to her console, “looks like the Second Brigade commander is calling in.”
Stark called up t
he incoming transmission. “Sergeant Shwartz? You don’t look happy.”
“I’m not,” Shwartz stated. She turned slightly to issue a command to someone near her, then faced Stark again. “I am forced to report that significant portions of one of my battalions are not responding to orders. They have occupied portions of two barracks and the closest ammunition magazine to their location.”
“Portions of the barracks?” Vic questioned. “So they haven’t been able to take over both in their entirety?”
“No. Only a small portion of Morgan Barracks is being held, even though it appears practically all of Chamberlain Barracks has been taken over. I believe most, if not all, of the mutineers are from my Fifth Battalion. Despite their talk of an Enlisted Council, whatever that is, they don’t seem to be garnering extra support. There hasn’t been active resistance to this council that I’m aware of, just passive refusal to go along with the mutiny.”
Stark couldn’t help internally mocking himself. I ended up in charge because I started a mutiny, and now I got people mutinying against me. Serves me right for setting a precedent. “First things first, I see the on-call companies moving into position at those barracks. Are you in contact with them?”
“Yessir. But they lack specific objectives.”
“Not anymore. Move them up, nice and slow. Fifth Battalion is quartered in Chamberlain Barracks, right? So I’m guessing the parts of Morgan Barracks that are occupied aren’t held too strongly at this point.”
Shwartz nodded. “That matches with what I can see from here.”
“Try to push those Fifth Battalion people out of Morgan. Just move your own people forward, occupying rooms as they go, and see if the Fifth Batt guys pull back. If weapons get pointed, I want the advance stopped. Understand?”
“I understand. No firing. Stop the advance if firing is threatened. What about the ammo magazine?”
Stark scowled, checking his display. “I’m being told there’s an unknown number of troops sealed inside. Send a couple of people, no more than that, to knock on the entrance and try to talk them out. Make sure those people are unarmed. I don’t want to make the soldiers sitting on all that ammo nervous.” As Sergeant Shwartz gave orders to her soldiers, Stark leaned toward Reynolds. “Vic, whadayya think?”
Stark’s Crusade Page 10
