Stark's War Read online

  "Thank God." Lieutenant Porter's delighted exhalation broke through Stark's growing disquiet. "We've got comms again."

  "Oh, goody," Stark muttered. He called up the Platoon picture, shaking his head as he saw Sergeant Reynolds' Squad scattered some distance away. They'd obviously been dropped off target as well. Nonetheless, Stark grinned in automatic relief. Sergeant Victoria Reynolds, an old friend and one of the best soldiers Stark had ever served with, had made it down safely. "Hey, Vic," he called on the circuit Sergeants had long ago secretly jumpwired-in to allow private conversations. "Nice to see you. I feel safer already."

  "Hi, Ethan. Likewise."

  "Looks like you got dropped in the wrong place, too."

  "Yeah." Vic didn't try to hide her disgust. "Everybody's used to the automated location systems on Earth doing all the thinking for them. Heaven forbid they actually have to navigate manually."

  "What happened to the comms? How come we couldn't see you earlier? The enemy screw with our systems somehow?"

  "Don't know. All the officers were running around in a panic without somebody to tell them what to do."

  "Sergeant Reynolds?" Porter cut in, oblivious to the conversation he'd interrupted. "How are you doing?"

  "Fine, Lieutenant. We were out of position but we're making it up and should be on our Tactical timeline soon."

  "Good. Good. What was the problem earlier? Why couldn't we talk or exchange Tactical feeds?"

  Reynolds spoke soothingly, trying to calm Porter's agitation. "Something scrambled comms in this sector, Lieutenant. Some sort of software failure in the relays. They just got it straightened out."

  "Comms were scrambled?" Porter sounded horrified. "How did you command your Squad?"

  "Just like Julius Caesar, Lieutenant. I used hand signals."

  "Oh. Um, good. Where's Sanchez?"

  "I don't know. His Squad may not have made it down." Stark winced involuntarily. Sergeant Sanchez wore a poker face like other soldiers wore uniforms, giving few clues to his thoughts, likes, and dislikes, but he knew his job and he had twelve other soldiers with him.

  Porter obviously reached the same conclusion Stark had. "Oh, Christ. His APC crashed?"

  "I don't think so. We should have seen and felt that. I'd guess it never dropped. During the run-in, Sergeant Sanchez told me his driver was complaining about some system failures."

  "Why did he tell you and not me?"

  "Lieutenant, I'm sure Sergeant Sanchez had a good reason, but I can only speculate as to—"

  "Never mind. Stark?"

  "Yes, Lieutenant."

  "Are your comms okay? Did you receive the update to Tactical from Brigade?"

  "Yessir." Stark scanned the new plot. "No threats?"

  "None encountered so far," Porter confirmed. "We've got a long way to the objective. Keep moving. I'm going to head toward First Squad to link up with Sergeant Reynolds."

  "Yes, Lieutenant." Stark switched to the private circuit again. "Hey, Vic, you got company coming."

  "So I heard. You acting insubordinate again?"

  "Just doing my job and trying to keep my people alive."

  "Like I said."

  "Vic, it ain't my fault the junior officers can't think without senior officers putting every thought in their heads."

  "It's not really their fault, either, Ethan. Junior officers aren't allowed to think. Every action they take is dictated by senior officers monitoring their every move."

  "Maybe if they held an assignment for more than six months at a stretch they'd learn how to think despite that, just like we do," Stark suggested. "Of course, if they thought independently and really took time to learn their jobs they wouldn't get promoted to be senior officers who think micromanagement is the only way to operate. What kind of system is that?"

  "A self-sustaining one. You could still be more diplomatic, Ethan."

  "Vic, I'm a soldier. I don't talk nice to hostile people. I kill them."

  She laughed, the sound over his comm circuit oddly out of place amid the bleak emptiness of Stark's surroundings. "Okay. I'll calm the Lieutenant down, Ethan."

  "Thanks. That's why the Lieutenant likes you best."

  "Knock it off."

  No threats. The once-ominous shadows held no enemy troops, fingers poised over hidden weapons, but now gaped empty on every side. Monotony replaced tension. Combat assaults weren't supposed to be monotonous, but this one lacked an enemy, lacked major obstacles, and lacked scenery unless you counted endless kilometers of gray rocks and fine gray dust. The stars probably looked nice, but any attempt to look up at them virtually guaranteed hooking an armored foot over one of the omnipresent rocks and sprawling in that dust.

  Too monotonous and too damn quiet. Stark activated his pirate tap on the command circuit to see what the Lieutenant and the rest of his superior officers were up to.

  ". . . dull! We're losing audience points by the second!" That sounded, Stark thought, like the Brigade's Commanding General. What the hell is he talking about? Audience points?

  "There's nobody to fight, General," someone else complained.

  "That's because you're moving too slow! Take that unit. Who is that? Who's the commander?"

  "That's part of Lieutenant Porter's Platoon," another officer reported. Stark felt a chill run down his back at the words.

  "Porter! You're way off your timeline!"

  "Yes, General," Porter responded immediately. "We were dropped twenty kil—"

  "Why isn't your unit moving faster?"

  "Uh, General, doctrine—"

  "To hell with doctrine! I need some action here. Get those troops moving!"

  "Yes, General. Right away." Stark braced himself as Porter called him over the official command link. "Sergeant Stark, advance at double time."

  "Lieutenant," Stark stated with careful precision, "at double time we'll be moving too fast to react so we can evade any incoming covering fire."

  "There's nothing to evade, Sergeant! Get them going, now!"

  It all runs downhill, and I'm pretty damn near the bottom of the hill. Stark checked his scan once more, biting his lower lip, finding nothing there but friendly symbology. No threat visible, and if I can't spot enemy positions at this speed we might as well go faster just in case surprise hasn't gone to hell. "Third Squad, advance at double time." Groans and curses rippled up the circuit. "Stop complaining and move! Gomez, keep your end of the Squad up with my end. Don't let anybody lag."

  "Yes, Sergeant."

  Disorientation threatened as the pace increased. Dust and rocks skimmed by below, their height and distance distorted by the lack of atmosphere. Something that clear should be close by, but up here you couldn't count on that. Look down and you got dizzy from the dead-black and dazzling-white contrasts zipping past. Look up and the trillion stars seemed to be sucking you into space, so legs and arms started flailing as the mind convinced itself you were falling up. Looming over everything hung a white-spangled blue marble where humans by all rights belonged and where anyone with common sense knew they were supposed to fight their wars.

  "Son of a—" Acting Corporal Gomez started to yell, the curse broken by a heavy grunt.

  "You okay, Gomez?" Stark demanded, checking her suit's status.

  "Yeah, Sarge. I just tripped and did a nose dive."

  "Your suit looks fine."

  "It's fine. How come that damn horizon is so close but we don't get anywhere no matter how fast we go?" Gomez demanded sourly.

  "That's easy, Anita," Chen chimed in cheerfully. "It's like a nightmare, because you actually bought it and went straight to hell when our APC crashed."

  "Sure. I'm in hell. The fact that you're here with me supports that."

  "Kill the chatter, you clowns," Stark ordered. There shouldn't be any problem with the troops working off a little tension by bantering, given that someone had decided the threat was so low they could just run toward their objective. But he'd long ago learned not to trust any assessments from higher than
company level, most especially those emanating from any place behind the lines. "We're on a combat op, not a walk in the park. Maintain comm discipline."

  "Yes, Sergeant." Gomez sounded uncharacteristically abashed. "Sorry."

  "Sorry?" Stark questioned sharply.

  "I'm acting corporal. You shouldn't have to tell me that stuff."

  "Right." Sometimes a little extra responsibility brought out a little extra in a soldier. Sometimes not. Gomez obviously felt the burden. "But don't apologize. Just do the job."

  Stark cut into the command circuit again, worried about threats that might be developing elsewhere and half hoping to hear Porter being chewed out by his own superiors again, but instead heard a clutter of commands as officers continually passed detailed orders to units and individuals without regard to intervening levels of command. Business as usual. What did officers do before they could use command and control gear to sit on our shoulders every second? He switched over again, calling Sergeant Reynolds. "Vic? You busy?"

  "Nothing special for a combat assault," she noted dryly.

  "What's up?"

  "What's this talk about audience points?"

  "What about it?"

  "I don't know what it means, and I don't like something happening during a combat op that I don't understand."

  Vic hesitated before replying. "This attack is being broadcast back home on vid with less than a half-hour delay."

  "What?"

  "The audio and video feed from our command and control gear is being relayed straight to the public affairs office," Vic elaborated patiently, "who're shunting it to the networks. Congratulations. You're a vid star."

  "I don't want to be a vid star. Why the hell are they doing that?" Stark demanded, outraged. "I don't want the enemy seeing vid of what I'm doing on our civ networks."

  "There's supposed to be a long enough lag time to keep us safe. As long as we're on timeline."

  "Which we're not. The damn planners are always too optimistic when they lay out those timelines."

  "I know, Ethan. It's not my idea." Vic's tone changed, growing crisp and clipped. "Gotta go. We're closing on our objective."

  "Roger. We are, too." Stark stared ahead, looking for visual on the objective his Tactical claimed would be nearby now. Concentrate on the job at hand. Something suddenly came into view as he crested a small crater rim, a large object set into the lunar surface that glowed like a neon sign on Stark's infrared sight. Waste heat. A lot of it. Looks like they didn't expect trouble enough to worry about camouflaging their site. That was good.

  "I've got target on visual," Murphy reported.

  "Me, too," Stark advised. "That should be the main entry hatch for our objective. Mendoza, check the door for traps or alarms. Gomez, hold back with Billings and Carter to cover the rest of us until we get the hatch open. Everybody else converge on it."

  Smooth and easy, going through the motions they'd executed a thousand times before in a hundred different places, though none so different as this. Stark approached the hatch cautiously, crouched, weapon at ready, then covered Mendoza as the Private unlimbered his gear and scanned the access for any defenses or warning devices.

  "There is nothing there but a standard arrival enunciator," Mendoza reported. "No sign they are expecting problems, Sergeant."

  "Good. Now—"

  Another voice cut in on the circuit abruptly. "What is that? What are you looking at, Sergeant?"

  Stark checked the ID on the transmission before replying. Brigade Staff had apparently decided to devote their attention to his small part of the operation, at least for the time being. "It's a door, Colonel."

  "A door? On the Moon?"

  "Hatch, sir. The main airlock into our objective."

  "Which is a laboratory, right, Sergeant? A research laboratory investigating, uh, new synthetic material fabrication techniques in low G."

  Whatever that means. "That's what my Tactical says, too, Colonel."

  "Good. Good. Well, gather your troops and prepare for entry."

  Stark spoke with exaggerated patience. "They're already gathered and prepared, sir."

  "Then get in there, man!"

  Stark gestured roughly toward the lab airlock. "All right, you apes—"

  "Wait a minute!" another voice interrupted. "Has that hatch been checked for booby traps?"

  Stark bit his lip before answering this time. "Yes, General."

  "It's clear?"

  "Yes, General."

  "I don't want unnecessary damage to that installation, Sergeant! Tell that Private—no, wait, what's the Private's name?"

  "Mendoza, General, he's—"

  "Private Mendoza," the General ordered, "run another check on that hatch for booby traps."

  "Y-yessir," Mendoza stuttered. Seconds dragged by while he ran another scan. "It looks clean, General."

  "It looks clean, or it is clean?"

  "It is clean, sir," Mendoza amended rapidly. "Then get going," the General ordered. "Thank. You. Sir," Stark stated carefully. "And make sure you look good! Remember, we're on top of this!"

  I remember when there was a chain of command, Stark thought darkly. "Yessir."

  The hatch cycled open without protest, innocent of defenses, just as Mendoza had predicted. The Squad crowded in, weapons ready, while atmosphere built up. Just before the inner hatch popped, a small vid screen inside the airlock came to life, displaying an owlish visage blinking in surprise. "Who's there? We weren't expecting visitors today, or this early."

  "That's the point, Civ," Gomez said with a grin as the inner hatch swung open. "It's called surprise."

  "Surprise?" The foreign civilian scientist blinked some more. "I don't understand. Who's the surprise for? Should I come escort you in?"

  "You just wait where you are," Stark advised. "We'll come and get you." He faced his Squad, swinging an arm toward the inner hatch. "Move it! Round the civs up before they figure out what's going on."

  His soldiers scattered into fire teams, heading down individual routes through the roughly hewn rock corridors of the laboratory in accordance with the plans in their Tacticals. Stark took two privates with him down the longest hall until he reached a ninety-degree bend at the end. He paused, weapon at ready, preparing to leap and then fire immediately if needed.

  "Sergeant!" Stark jumped nervously, cursing as another transmission broke his concentration. "Be careful going around that corner!"

  "Yes, Colonel," Stark grated out between clenched teeth.

  "There may be armed opposition around that corner," the Colonel continued. "Make sure your other soldiers are posted to cover you."

  "They are, Colonel," Stark assured his distant commander. "Now just go the hell away and let me do my damn job," he added under his breath.

  "What was that, Sergeant? I couldn't understand the last thing you said."

  "I didn't say anything, Colonel," Stark hastily assured him.

  "I heard something. Major, didn't you hear something?"

  "Yes, Colonel," another voice chimed in. "There was something there."

  "There may be something wrong with your suit's comm system," the Colonel decided. "Run a diagnostic, Sergeant."

  "Colonel, I'm in the middle of an operation—"

  "Never mind. I'll order the diagnostic from here. We can't risk you losing comms with headquarters."

  Stark opened his mouth to issue another frantic protest, then stopped as a blinking red symbol on his HUD announced that his comm suite had dropped off line to run the diagnostic. He slammed one fist repeatedly into the nearest wall, glaring threateningly at the two Privates, both of whom pretended not to be aware of his situation. Unable to advance while he couldn't talk to anyone else in the Squad, Stark waited and fumed while precious moments crawled by as the suit checked the entire hardware and software of his built-in communications system. "Please, sweet Jesus," he prayed, "when my comms come back on let the worthless Brigade Staff have found another little part of this big battlefield to micromana
ge to death."

  Green lights popped up to announce the completion of the diagnostic. Stark held his breath, waiting for further backseat driving from headquarters, but silence reigned. Guess they got bored waiting for the diagnostic to run and went off to tell some other poor grunt how to tie his shoes. Stark eased toward the corner, motioning his two Privates along, then paused. All the training simulators insisted at this point you should stick a finger around the corner to scope out the scenery with the fiber-optic sensors in the suit's fingertip. That helped ensure you wouldn't be surprised, but unfortunately worked both ways in that it also told any enemies lying in wait that there'd be a soldier following that finger around the corner in the immediate future.