Stark's Command (31 page)

Vic frowned in clear disapproval. "You need sleep, Ethan."

"I know, I know. I'm just sorta restless. I couldn't sleep right now if I tried."

"What's the matter? Are you worried about anything in particular?"

Stark thought, face disturbed, then waved one hand in negation. "No. Oh, I got plenty of worries, but nothing special that I can think of. Maybe I'm just keyed-up from seeing everybody tonight."

"Maybe. Promise me you'll try to sleep in a while?"

"Sure. It ain't like I don't want to get rest, you know." He smiled straight at her. "Thanks for setting up that get-together, Vic. It meant a lot."

"I live to serve, Commander Stark." Reynolds laughed at Stark's sour expression, waving in farewell as she turned away. "Sweet dreams, Ethan."

"Likewise." He settled at his desk, glowering down at the report displayed on his palmtop, then keyed the unit off.
I may be restless, but I'm not restless enough to work on this junk tonight.
Stark looked around the sparsely furnished room, eyes jumping rapidly from point to point, object to object, wondering again about the officers who had lived and worked here in the years since it had been hewn from lunar rock.
They're gonna come back. Try to take us down. I wish they'd try talking instead, but that'd mean admitting they'd screwed up enough to at least partially justify what I did. And the officers I'm used to never admit when they've screwed up.

Stark slapped his palm unit irritably. "Security Central, this is Stark. How's everything look?"

"Really quiet, Commander. Nothing unusual. Oh, we did have some Private asking after you at one of the sentry posts an hour or so ago, but since it was so late we told him you'd hit the sack, and he should try contacting you tomorrow."

"He? You get his name?"

"Uh, something like Stone, I think."

"Stein?"

"Yeah. I mean, yes, sir. Should we call him?"

"No. You did right. I'll see what he wanted tomorrow. Keep an eye on things."

"Yes, sir."

That should make me feel a lot better. It doesn't.
Stark studied his monitor carefully, using the command functions to pull up the security program, which granted access to vid from hallways and rooms throughout the headquarters complex. He sped through the images, outwardly identical rec rooms, halls, and working offices strobing past, almost all empty at this hour, until something caught his attention. Backing up, Stark peered at the vid of a rec room with three occupants.
What-daya know? Corporal Gomez, Lieutenant Mendoza, and Mendo. What're they looking at?
A 3-D projection hovered over one table, Mendo speaking as his hands traced movements along the projection, Gomez watching intently as he did so.

Where's the sound key? I gotta use security override for that, too, huh? I guess that's a smart restriction, but it doesn't look like they're talking about me so I don't figure there's any problem listening in for a minute. Still feels funny, though, like I'm some security officer looking for people making disloyal statements. But that's not what I'm doing. I just wanta know what's got Gomez so interested.
Only half-convinced by his own arguments, Stark punched the override. Sound came, matching the vid.

Stark watched as Gomez drew a cup of coffee from the rec room dispenser, then glanced briefly across the corridor. "Hey, Mendo, don't let me forget I dumped my extra gear over there, okay?"

"It should be safe at headquarters, Corporal."

"There's a duffel bag with lots of ammo in there. That kinda thing ain't never safe unless you got a hand locked on it." Gomez sat down at the small table where Mendo waited. She raised one finger, moving it around the terrain map projected over the surface of the table. "I oughta be in bed," she complained, "instead of rehashing some battle a coupla hundred years old. What's this place again?"

"Gettysburg."

"Uh-huh. Same place where that big attack wasted a lot of infantry, right?"

"Yes, Corporal. Pickett's Charge. That happened on the third day of the battle."

"Yeah." Gomez glared at the map. "And they had to launch that big attack 'cause they let the other guys dig in on the good ground the first day. But I don't get it. Why'd they stop? Why didn't these, uh, Confeds take the high ground while they could?"

Mendo cleared his throat, glancing at his father for reassurance before speaking. "It may have been a failure of nerve or simple exhaustion after a long day of battle, but probably was due to overconfidence."

"Gettin' scared, that I understand. But overconfidence?"

"They had beaten the Union Army many times before and believed they had just done so again."

Lieutenant Mendoza nodded approvingly from his seat nearby. "Exactly. Winning too often can be dangerous. Lessons are learned from defeats."

"If you say so, but I still prefer winning." Gomez studied the map again. "So what'd this General, this Roberto Lee, what'd he do to the guys who stopped and let the Union soldiers dig in on the high ground?"

Mendo spread his hands. "Very little. Lee did not command by harsh measures. He was used to commanders who anticipated his wishes."

"Helluva thing to depend on. Sometimes you gotta kick butt to get things done."

Lieutenant Mendoza smiled. "Your Commander Stark, this is how he leads you?"

Stark frowned. He'd been absorbed in the conversation, but the question made him abruptly aware once more of his hidden observation of his friends. He reached to toggle off the audio, then hesitated in spite of his resolve as Gomez replied.

"The
Sargento!
Sometimes. Not always. We usually do things for him because we know he wants it, that's all. Not 'cause we're scared of him. But we also know what would happen if we let him down." She paused, thinking. "Only he wouldn't tell us we'd let him down, he'd say we'd let ourselves down. Nothing we can't do, that's what he tells us. Of course, he always mother-hens us anyways, tries to keep us out of trouble."

"That is the essence of good planning. Commanders must be bold in their concepts and actions, but also wise enough to take counsel of their fears." Stark's hand hovered over the audio cutoff as he concentrated on Lieutenant Mendoza's words.

Gomez frowned in obvious disagreement. "Sergeant Stark, afraid? He ain't afraid of nothing."

"On the contrary," Lieutenant Mendoza corrected softly, his words somehow carrying greater authority despite their gentle tone. "I have seen Commander Stark, and I believe he fears many things, yet he faces these fears and acts nonetheless in the manner he feels most correct."

"The
Sargento
is not a coward," Gomez stated firmly, each word heavily emphasized.

"Of course not. He is extremely brave, though I am certain he would deny that. No, his fears make him a better commander, perhaps a great one someday, for they make him question himself and his actions. This could easily paralyze a lesser soldier, as it has so many commanders in the past, did he not have the moral courage to act despite those fears."

"Well, maybe—" Gomez began.

Stark finally caught himself, appalled that he'd listened to so much, killing vid and audio together so his screen fuzzed into gray emptiness.
Why the hell did I do that? It was too easy. Just listen in like you're a fly on the wall. Find out what people think about you. Learn their little secrets. This is too damn . . . what's the word? Seductive. Yeah. Supposedly they put this vid and audio stuff in so they could run ops if headquarters ever got attacked, but I wonder. What boss wouldn't want to know how their people felt? What boss could resist checking every once in a while? I've got to get some kinda inhibit, put on this to keep me and anyone else who gains access honest. Or maybe just rip the whole damn thing out.

Stark shut off his monitor completely, fighting down an unclean feeling from his covert spying on his friends. He fidgeted a moment longer, then jerked in guilty reaction as his comm unit buzzed. "Yeah."

"Commander? Security Central. We've got something pretty unusual to report."

"Unusual?" Stark felt the hairs on the back of his neck stiffen automatically.

"Yessir. We got a call from the civs at the spaceport, the ones who normally track the shuttles hauling stuff for the Colony. They wanted to tell us they'd seen some ghost images on one of their scans."

"Ghost images?"

"Something that looked like something might maybe be there, but then it wasn't. Our search gear at the spaceport gets that kind of stuff all the time because of all the electronic warfare going on nearby. You know, echoes of jamming and false signals from surface and orbital units."

"So why'd the civs tell us if that sort of junk shows up a lot?"

Security Central hesitated just enough for the pause to be obvious. "I dunno, Commander."

"The spaceport civs report a lot of this stuff to you?"

"No, sir. They never have before. Not anything. They don't talk to us unless they have to. You know civs."

Stark's eyes narrowed. "So why'd they talk to us this time? Did they say?"

"Uh, yessir. The civ I talked to said his bosses got word from the civs running the Colony to keep us informed of anything unusual they saw. New procedures, he said." Security Central paused again. "Commander, he also asked if there was anything else they could do for us."

"Sounds like that bothers you."

"Well, yeah, sir. It does. I mean, what kind of game are the civs trying to play?"

Stark smiled in self-derision.
Not too long ago I would've wondered the same thing. But I've been working with Campbell long enough to know these civs are mostly sincere even if they don't understand us too well.
"They're not playing any game. They want to help. I know that sounds pretty strange, but civs here are different than we got used to back on the World. I'd guess their boss, the Colony Manager, told them to work with you."

"Okay, Commander." Security Central's skepticism came clearly across the comm circuit. "But if they call us every time they see a scan ghost it won't help much."

"Understood. They don't know how we work, but it's nice they cared enough to call, right?"

"Yessir. You want us to do anything about the report, Commander?"

"I don't. . ." Stark paused, a memory nagging at his brain.
What was that? Some vid. Long time ago. Still a civ myself, I think. Someplace, a harbor or something, where the Navy got beat up bad because everybody saw all these warnings but everybody blew them off. But I can't jerk around my people every time the civs get nervous.

"Commander?" Security Central prompted. "Like I said, we get this sort of thing all the time on our systems. It's no big deal."

The missing question finally popped into Stark's mind. "Did our mil scans see the ghost the civs warned you about?"

"Uh, I don't know, Commander. Probably not. The civs have different systems. You know, different pulse repetition rates, different frequency hopping algorithms—"

"Okay. Could the civs see something we didn't because something was hiding from the mil systems and reacting a little different to the civ systems?"

A longer hesitation this time. "Maybe. Sir."

Get my people spun up for nothing? Jump at electronic shadows? From civ warnings, yet?
Everything Stark knew urged him to blow off the report.
And sometimes everything you know is more dangerous than what you don't know.
"Security, pass a warning to all posts. I want everyone extra alert. Somebody may be trying something."

"Yessir. If you say so."

"And make it a firm warning. None of that 'we're just telling you this 'cause we have to' stuff."

"Yes, Commander."

Stark slumped in his chair, annoyed with himself for overreacting to nervous civs.
They think they're helping when they're just getting in the way. But, hell, at least they're trying. Feels funny working with civs, though.
He sat straighter, then carefully retrieved his rifle from its rack and began painstakingly field stripping it.
Never know when I might need this thing again.
He worked carefully, focusing his mind on each step, forgetting moral ambiguities in his concentration on the task, relaxing slightly as the familiar process occupied his hands and his thoughts. Time passed, unmarked in the room buried beneath the lunar surface except for the soft, red glow of the digital clock counting down human minutes.

The blare of the Red Alert alarm seemed to jolt through Stark's entire body, reverberating from wall to wall before repeating its howl of warning. He slapped the last component of his rifle into place and was strapping on battle armor, moving by instinct, before the alarm had sounded the second time. By the third anxious bleat Stark had his rifle in one hand again while he toggled a comm circuit with another. "What's up?"

"Alert from Sentry Post Four," Security Central reported.

"Why? What happened?"

"We don't know. Could be the sentry triggered it by accident, but they're not answering—"

"Get a reaction force out here as fast as they can move!" Stark roared, heading for his doorway.

"Yes, sir. Sending orders. Wha—?" The sound of gunfire rang through the circuit. "Under attack. Repeat, we are und—"

Vic Reynolds stood outside her room, fully armored, weapon questing as if seeking targets of its own volition. "This a drill?" she demanded.

"No. We've lost at least one Sentry Post and probably Security Central." Stark stared through the blank fields on his Heads-Up Display, portraying nothing outside their own immediate surroundings. "I'm not getting any data relays."

Vic punched her comm unit. "Comms are being jammed now, too. Whoever they are, they took out all the relays already."

"Then I hope that order for a reaction force got out in time." Stark stood, indecisive, as several more staff members popped out of their rooms, only some armored but all carrying weapons. "Vic, what do you think they're after?"

"Whoever's attacking? They want to take down headquarters, and that means the Command Center. Unless it's an even more precise surgical strike, and they're after you personally."