Stark's Command (15 page)

"Good. While you're happy, start thinking about how we're going to find all the officer candidates we need from the enlisted ranks."

"Thanks for the reality kick." Stark finished his coffee, glaring defiantly toward the dispenser. "I'm gonna have a beer. You should, too."

"Way to be in charge," Vic applauded. "Keep making decisions that good and people'll be talking about Stark's Big Victory someday."

"Sure. Right now this feels more like Custer's Last Stand."

"You're not Custer, Ethan. If you ever start acting like him, I'll whap you upside the head." She stared upward, pensive. "Speaking of that battle, and officers, funny how you never hear much about Captain Benteen."

"Who the hell was he?"

"One of Custer's subordinates. I know about him because I grew up in Fort Riley, Kansas, where the old Cavalry Museum is located. In the histories, it's always Custer this, Custer that. Right before the battle, Custer split his regiment into three parts, taking one himself, giving one to Reno to charge straight in to attack, and telling Benteen with the rest to just wait around. But if Benteen hadn't chosen to disregard the last orders he'd received from Custer, if he hadn't guessed that things were going to hell, then picked out a strong defensive position and been already digging in when Reno's troops came running back with the Indigs at their heels, well, the whole Seventh Cavalry would have been wiped out instead of just the troops with Custer. Benteen saved them, but you never hear about him."

"Vic, if you made a big deal about some officer who disobeyed orders and instead did what he thought was right and smart, you'd have other officers thinking that might be a good idea, too. Then where'd you be?"

She smiled lopsidedly. "You're right. What was I thinking?"

Stark's own smile shifted, his face growing thoughtful. "But you know what? You got something, there. Why does the mil have to work that way? Why can't we let people run their units smart instead of following orders blindly? And if they can't run their units smart, why have them in charge in the first place?"

"If they don't follow orders, how can you run a battle?"

"Maybe better. Look, I really gotta think about this, how to balance the need to keep people focused on the same objective and also let 'em use their brains. Maybe it can't be done."

"I'm not sure it's ever been tried. Maybe the technology wouldn't permit it before now. I mean, signal flags or horns or walkie-talkies can't provide the information you need to run things any way but top-down." Vic sighed, smiled at the beer Stark placed before her, then downed it in one long drink. "While you're thinking up a new way to fight, I'll arrange a meeting with that Sarafina civ to talk about the exchange. Maybe she'll bring her little friend along."

"What little friend?"

"Your date, remember? What was her name?"

"Robin?" Stark chuckled, reaching to take away Vic's empty. "It wasn't a date. It was an interrogation. A nice one, but all I did was answer questions. I haven't heard from her since."

"Poor Ethan. No luck with the ladies."

"Probably because you're scarin' 'em off, Sergeant Reynolds. Besides, I don't have time to date nowadays."

She smiled and sighed simultaneously. "Yeah. Running an army is no fun. At least you still get to sleep."

"Yeah. Sometimes."

Another day. Another meeting. Stark's staff sat back in their chairs, rigidly proper, like sentries guarding their own welfare, while Campbell's assistants hesitated or flung insults. Minor points were raised, debated endlessly, each one dying out in a fog of tiny deviations of definitions. Stark checked the time, trying for the hundredth time to keep himself from exploding.
I thought forcing this meeting to last until something got decided was a good idea. Wrong. Real wrong.
While the arguments raged inside, outside the conference room the normal workday came to an end, dinner was eaten, evening leisure enjoyed, and late-night shifts came on duty.

Stark fixed his eyes on Campbell, who stared back with exasperation dulled by exhaustion. "I'm not hearing anything that makes me think we're gonna decide anything."

Campbell nodded, the weary gesture barely moving his head. "Everyone go home," he ordered his staff shortly. They stood with varying degrees of apparent fatigue, edging out with barely a glance at the military representatives. Only Sarafina remained, gazing bleakly at Campbell.

"You apes go, too," Stark told his people, not watching as all but Reynolds left the room.

Reynolds exhaled, a long and slow gesture. "If it means anything, I'm not happy."

"Thanks much," Stark grumbled. "Campbell, you don't have to hang around. It's been a real long day."

"I agree," Campbell replied, with a wave toward his remaining assistant. "But I needed to give you some good news."

"I could use some."

"Ms. Sarafina has made a great deal of progress on the negotiations for the exchange of officers for your family members," Campbell reported. "I'd meant to tell you about it in the morning," he continued dryly.

"It's morning," Stark noted. Outside and overhead, the blue-white Earth hung as always, uncaring that her rotation from day to night still governed the lives of humans no longer directly affected by it. "How come you didn't bring this up before?"

Campbell visibly hesitated. "I am no longer sure how my advisers will react to even apparently good news. I felt it best to keep this issue separate from any contentious ones."

Stark managed to muster a smile. "Can't argue with that. Everything seems to be contentious. No big hang-ups, then?"

"No. The authorities in Washington apparently want those officers back pretty badly. Are you sure you want to let them go? They must be very good if the Pentagon needs them . . ." Campbell halted as Stark and Reynolds started laughing. "Something is amusing?"

"Just the idea that our officers are very good," Vic gasped. "The Pentagon wants them back for two reasons. First, to find out what's happened up here. They've probably got only the barest information, which must be driving them crazy. Ninety percent of the Pentagon is devoted to regurgitating information for senior officers who don't really need it, and those officers must be getting pretty tired of seeing variations on 'nothing new to report' for the umpteenth time."

"I see. Gathering information makes a great deal of sense. What's the other reason?"

"Scapegoats," Stark answered matter-of-factly. "They want to hang Meecham and maybe some others. Otherwise, they'll take the blame. Can't have that, even if they did send him here and approve his plans."

Campbell hung his head, shaking it as he did so. "And to think I once lectured you on politics. It appears you've had plenty of exposure to the bad side of it."

"There's a good side?"

"Yes. Perhaps I'll be able to show you someday."

"I won't hold my breath. Hey, Vic, where's that data coin with the latest list of family members?"

Reynolds smiled thinly. "Last I saw, on your desk, where you put it after I gave it to you."

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks." Stark stood, beckoning to Campbell and Sarafina. "Come on. My room's down the hall a little ways. I'll give you that coin so you can set things up." The hallways, normally the scene of numerous personnel hustling on errands, were quiet and empty in that curiously deserted way buildings got after midnight, even though the midnight up here was totally artificial. Palming open his door, Stark rummaged over his desk until he held up a coin triumphantly. "Here it is."

"You found it?" Vic questioned. "Miracles do happen."

Campbell took the coin, staring at it for a moment, before handing it to Sarafina. "Odd to hold the fate of so many in my hand for even a moment. Do you ever feel that burden, Sergeant Stark?"

"Not too often. Only once every day. All day."

The words brought an understanding smile to Campbell's face. "If there's nothing else, I'd like to get back to the Colony proper before too many observers wonder why I'm lingering here to hatch nefarious plots with you."

"Good idea." Instead of stepping out the door, though, Campbell paused, staring at Stark's battle armor where it stood against one wall. "Something wrong?" Stark finally asked.

"No." Campbell shook his head. "I've just never seen your combat equipment up this close." He reached out a hand, then hesitated. "Is it all right to touch it?"

"Feel free. You can't damage the outside."

"That's odd." Campbell frowned as he pushed fingers against the armor's chest area. "I thought it would be rigid, like steel. But it gives very, very slightly."

"That's right." Vic stepped forward to punch an arm of the armor with a light tap. "It's designed to be a little flexible."

"But I thought armor would be made as strong as possible."

"Yes and no." Vic slid easily into the instructor role every veteran had to fill for new personnel. "Things which are technically very strong are also very brittle. When they break, they shatter all to hell. That'd be bad in the case of our armor. So the composite material it's made of flexes a little when it's pushed, enough to help absorb and distribute the force of an impact, but hopefully not enough for the shock to injure us as bad as a penetration would."

"We get bruised a lot, though," Stark added with a laugh. "Beats a hole in your body, but after a battle we sometimes look like we've been run through a line of guys with clubs."

"Think of it as a trade-off," Vic continued. "Ideally, the armor would be very light, very strong, and very flexible. In the real world, we have to accept a compromise of those traits."

"The best compromise you can get?" Campbell inquired, smiling. "Odd. Here we'd been discussing the good side of politics, and your armor is a very concrete example of just that."

Vic raised one eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"That's how politics works at its best," Campbell elaborated. "Everyone wants something. Some people insist they have to have that something, and exactly that, no matter what. But other people insist on having other things, which don't match what the first group wants. To really get anything done you have to compromise and find a middle ground that isn't everything you want but satisfies most of your needs."

"Great," Stark observed. "Our armor's like politics? I'll never trust the damn armor again."

Campbell laughed once more, then sobered abruptly. "Sergeant Stark, are the compromises in your armor a bad thing? Or do they make it work?"

"They make it work," Stark admitted after a moment.

"Ideally, that's how politics should be as well. Not a perfect thing, but not a bad thing. Something which makes things work in an imperfect world."

Vic bared her teeth in a humorless grin. "From what I know, our armor does a helluva lot better job of that than politics has recently."

Campbell nodded back, still somber. "I must agree. Technology is much more straightforward than human relations."

"Your armor is dark gray," Sarafina pointed out. "I did not think it looked that color in the vids I saw before I came up to the Moon."

Stark shook his head. "No, it wouldn't've. Gray's the default shade. In action, the camo's activated."

"Camo?"

"Sorry. Camouflage. That means anything that helps hide us. We use the word
camo
to talk about any active or passive countermeasures."

"On a battlefield," Vic interjected, "survival is often a matter of not being seen. If you can be spotted and engaged with aimed fire, your chances of survival drop dramatically."

"Yeah," Stark agreed. "So when the camo's on, the suits scan their surroundings and alter color and shade to match. Like a . . . what's that lizard?"

"A chameleon?"

"Right. Only better. If we're on a field of snow, it'll be white. If the snow's melting in patches, it'll have dirty brown or green mixed in with the white."

Campbell eyed the armor judiciously. "It must make you very hard to see."

"Sure, but the enemy's got targeting systems designed to spot us anyway. Sometimes we win, sometimes they do."

Campbell and Sarafina stared back at him. "I do not see how you can discuss that so casually," Sarafina finally stated.

Stark shrugged. "It's the way things are. We do our best to survive and beat the other guy."

"You mean 'kill the other guy,' " she corrected, eyes wide.

"Yeah. I guess I do. If we have to. Sometimes you don't, but basically the job's about killing other people." Stark reached to pat his weapon, resting ready in its rack. "That's why a rifle has always been a soldier's best friend. At least, since they invented rifles."

Campbell bent to look, examining the rifle without attempting to touch it as he had the armor. "It looks just like the weapons I've seen portrayals of back on Earth."

"It does because that's pretty much what it is. The muzzle velocity has been lowered considerably so there's a lot less chance of firing slugs into orbit. Of course, we've got inhibits built into our suits' targeting systems that keep us from firing straight up, but you could be aiming at someone above you and miss a little. Anyway, back home, high velocity is necessary to give you long range and accuracy, but up here there's no air the bullet has to punch through and the gravity doesn't drag it down near as fast. You don't want to be able to shoot a bullet around the Moon."

"But if the bullets don't go as fast, can't your armor defeat them?"

"Good question. The answer's no, because the bullets aren't just solid metal. Armies haven't used solid slugs for a couple decades, I guess. There's an explosive charge inside every round, so when the bullet hits something it fires a super dense sub-caliber penetrator at high velocity into the target. Punches through most personal armor and hurts like hell. On the other hand, if the bullet doesn't hit anything for a long time, like if despite the aiming inhibits it does go high enough and long enough to threaten God-knows-what, then that same charge goes off a little different and just blows the bullet into little pieces."

"Very neat," Campbell approved.

"When it comes to killing people, humans are extremely clever," Vic agreed dryly. "Look at the whole war we've been fighting up here. Everything's pretty much nice and peaceful on Earth where a major war might inconvenience folks and break stuff, but up here, where everything's dead anyway, we just add a lot of new craters."