Stark's War (16 page)

I guess Conroy got warned about me by the last Lieutenant. Or maybe the one before that.
"Of course, Lieutenant," Stark agreed. "Subject to new tactical developments, of course, right?"

Lieutenant Conroy hesitated, obviously thinking through Stark's statement for implications and unable to come up with reasons not to agree with it. "Well, yes," she finally agreed reluctantly, as Vic Reynolds stifled a smile and shook her head at Stark in mock exasperation.

Stark studied the map carefully. "How big is the threat we're worried about covering against, Lieutenant?"

"Unfortunately," Conroy continued, picking up the thread of her brief again, "there's a professional military base a dozen kilometers north of the refinery. Normal manning is at least," she emphasized the last two words, "a reinforced mechanized company. It's the quick reaction force for their whole sector. They can get to the refinery area fast."

"So if they get alerted too early," Reynolds noted, "we're going to have a hot time trying to get away. Once the worm's been neutralized, they won't have much trouble tracking us."

Stark traced the Platoon's path across the plain. "Any support on the way back, Lieutenant? Any heavies going to move up?" APCs or tanks would be really nice to have on hand if a mech company happened to be snapping at their heels.

The Lieutenant frowned. "The raid is supposed to be carried out swiftly enough that we can exit the area before the enemy responds."

"Yes, sir," Sanchez interjected smoothly. "But if something should go amiss, heavy support could be crucial to successful egress."

Conroy spoke slowly, choosing her words with care. "We'll get additional support once we're under the perimeter defense umbrella. Brigade headquarters has indicated it doesn't want to risk heavy armor under . .. unfavorable circumstances."

Sanchez somehow kept his expression bland, but Reynolds was frowning now, too. Stark fought down a wave of anger.
She means the brass knows grunts are a lot cheaper than hardware. They aren't going to risk getting their expensive weapons systems trashed.
The viewing public didn't like watching their taxes go up in fireballs in almost real time on their vids, especially after having been told how invincible those expensive weapons would be in combat. More than one commander had been sacked following a few spectacular equipment losses, even if the result had been technically a victory.

"So," Reynolds spoke with equal care, "almost all of the way back we'll be on our own. If the enemy gets active fast, we're in for a long walk home."

Conroy bit her lip, then nodded once more. Stark studied the Platoon's withdrawal route again, the lunar dust plain sprawled across the path like a sheet of ice back on the World, apparently an easy route but actually a possible death trap.
It could be a really long walk.

Most of the mission details were downloaded to the squad bunkers after the face-to-face. Stark made a habit of screening the files sent to Corporal Gomez and the rest of his soldiers to make sure they got everything they needed. The brass often assumed the less the grunts knew, the better, but Stark figured they had the right and the need to know most details. If he got waxed or they got cut off, they'd require that information, and a tactical crisis was no time for headquarters to be downloading new mission data to a soldier. He abided by security on the worm, though. If that information got compromised, he didn't want to be on the receiving end of either enemy fire or "friendly" officers.

Technically, of course, you didn't need to brief the troops at all. They just had to follow the plan presented on their Tactical Displays: Go here now, do this now. Headquarters staff and their civ bosses back at the Pentagon were almost always complaining that mission preparation times were too long. Just download plans to the battle armor Tacs and go. Grunts in the field would have none of that. No one Stark knew depended solely on the Tac timeline, if for no other reason than the troops should know what the hell they were doing on the mission. Bad enough being on ops, without wondering what the next order from your Tac would be. Difficult enough being surprised by the enemy, without being surprised by your own plan.

Then came After. After you've got the mission brief and memorized your parts. After you've briefed your people in turn, and made sure the dense ones wouldn't screw up and the too-smart ones wouldn't try anything they thought might be brilliant. After you've checked your gear and preinspected their gear. After all that, then there's not much left to do but wait. Stark hated After, the time when there was temporarily too much time.

Some grunts wrote letters during the lull, ticking carefully away on their palmtops, frowning over the unfamiliar effort of putting words into writing, or peering with feigned confidence into a cam port to record a vid message.
Dear Mom and Dad,
or
Dear Sweetheart,
or
Dear Darling and Kids.
What do you say when this might be the last letter, the last words they'd ever hear from you? Nothing could be good enough, so no one ever tried, instead talking of everyday matters or idle dreams of a future that might or might not be canceled this night.

Others played games, gambled, or read, whatever they'd learned would keep nerves in check. None of that worked for Stark. He'd long ago learned he wasn't any good at hiding his nerves while actually doing something. It didn't do to let the troops see their Sergeant getting jumpy. No, part of his job required showing confidence even when he lacked that inside. So the Squad liked to see him waiting along with them, looking cool and casual in that way that projects calm certainty of success no matter what uncertainties were churning away inside.

Stark had long ago worked out a routine to meet that need. He'd just sit back in the rec cell of the bunker, where everyone could see him, pretending to watch whatever vid entertainment had been officially approved for that day's viewing, while actually zoning out the world. Gomez had told him the Squad was impressed as all hell by the way he'd calmly watch anything on the vid prior to a mission. Morale bonus for his coping mechanism. Go figure.

Private Hoxely pulled Stark out of his nonthinking reverie by jumping up and cursing to a couple of different deities. Frowning, Stark focused on Hoxe's group, three soldiers playing keno as if there were no tomorrow. Which, of course, there might not be for any of them. Craps was impossibly slow up here, dice taking leisurely tumbles for minutes at a time. Even poker played too slow for grunts keyed up for a mission, but you could lose big and fast bucking the tiger. Gomez stood up as well, quietly but fiercely read Hoxe the riot act, then left the chastened Private to watch his buddies split their winnings.

"Nerves." Gomez came up to Stark, speaking quietly. "With the vid ratings down, they know this op has to be high-risk to get the public tuned in again. There's a rumor the action will be seen on vid so close to real time the enemy will be able to target us from it."

"I doubt even our officers are that stupid." Stark raised his voice for the next statement, making sure the others in the room could hear. "If the action ain't a success, our commanders would get canned for losing too many grunts, so they'll keep the time lag long enough to make sure we can do the job."
I hope. Just because I know too short a time lag would be stupid doesn't mean our leaders will realize the same thing.

"Makes sense," Gomez agreed. "That'll make the troops feel better."

Stark nodded. "They'll do okay if you and I stay frosty. Got to maintain the image. You handled Hoxe real well. Get him back in line, then leave him without shaking up anybody else. Good job."

Gomez looked away. "Thanks, Sarge."

Embarrassed,
Stark realized with some surprise. He'd never gotten used to the fact that his opinion meant a lot to his soldiers. "Yeah. Just how I would've handled it. You'll make a good Sergeant someday."

A smile broke on Gomez's face. "Means a lot from you."

Stark fought down a sudden foreboding, recalling a similar conversation with another good Corporal years before. With some effort he smiled back, attempting an awkward joke. "Of course, that'll probably be ten or twenty years from now. Unless I buy it earlier."

Gomez's smile broadened at the banter. "That's not gonna happen,
Sargento.
You're, like, invincible. Like you're made out of rock."

"Sure," Stark snorted in derision, "me and the damn Moon. Two big ugly rocks."

"I mean it," Gomez insisted with a wink that denied the words.
"Gracias,
though. I try. I got a lot to live up to, and these guys, well, they ain't the best soldiers in the world, I guess, but they're pretty damn good."

"They're pretty damn good," Stark agreed, once again pitching his voice just high enough for the words to carry to the others in the cube.

Gomez grinned, noting the gesture. "Like that. Good trick." She looked around for an excuse to change the subject, focusing finally on the music playing over the vid. "You like these guys?" She squinted at the screen. " 'Jackson's Foot Cavalry?' Who the hell are they?"

Stark shrugged. He hadn't been paying much attention, but he'd heard the group several times recently. "Retro-Hill Rock, I think they call it, whatever that means. I heard these guys are really popular on the World these days. I guess the groups that were popular when we left are all gone now."

Gomez stared at the vid. "Yeah. It's different being out here, even with near-real-time comms. The World goes on and we stay where we were when we left."

"Always been that way." Stark found himself reminiscing about earlier deployments and campaigns, something he rarely did. "Even if you were deployed on the World. Home changed and we didn't. Funny." He waved Gomez to the chair next to his. She smiled in sudden delight at the invitation before sitting at a carefully gauged distance, Corporal to Sergeant. They talked for a while after that, about places they'd been and places they'd heard of in a thousand bull sessions in a score of barracks. Funny thing, each barracks was different, but also the same. You knew people, who also knew people, and everybody knew the places. Maybe his home had always been a bit bigger than he thought, scattered through bases around the World and up here. Or maybe not, maybe it all represented nothing beyond shared familiarity with a very widespread but very limited part of the World. Still, he felt at home in those places, with those people, and that was enough.

The group in the rec cell gradually thinned as individuals went to worry over their gear and start final preps. Gomez excused herself to don her own battle armor, one of her hands worrying finger-over-thumb that way she always did whenever action seemed imminent, as if she were manipulating invisible prayer beads. Stark stayed, having learned he hated standing around in armor even worse than sitting and waiting. Finally the clock worked its way to where it needed to be. Relieved to have purposeful action required once more, Stark rose, instantly becoming the center of attention. He swept the room with his eyes, announced, "All right, people, let's suit up," to the few remaining and headed for his own locker.

He put on his battle armor deliberately, double-checking each step. He'd found that process kept his mind from worrying itself throughout a mission over whether some minor detail had been overlooked. The readouts were supposed to tell you if anything had gone wrong or been missed, but vets learned not to trust 'trons any further than they had to. If something else could go bad, why couldn't the readouts also fail? Murphy's Law seemed particularly at home on the battlefield. Mendoza, in one of his talkative moods, had said once that some German claimed everything in war was easy, but all the easy stuff was really hard. Made sense out here, anyway.

The suit's diagnostics said everything go, matching the results of Stark's own painstaking inspection.
Just another mission, that's all. Keep the new Lieutenant from doing anything stupid. Meet the objective and get my people out safe.
Stark looked carefully around his cube, making sure everything sat neat and organized. Every grunt had their own fetish, a little ritual to give them luck on an op. For Stark, that ritual involved making sure nothing was out of place. Sort of a reverse fetish. He figured if you left something sloppy and undone, something you wouldn't want anyone else to see, you'd get nailed and everybody'd see when they came to pack your stuff up. Leave it all ready for inspection, and you'd come back. So far it'd worked every time.

"Sarge, the APC's coming in." Murphy, manning the watch station, pointed to the armored personnel carrier image onscreen, enhanced to be visible. Bunker and APC systems exchanged cyber greetings, each deciding the other was friendly. Without IFF readings, the sizable armored vehicle would have been almost impossible to identify until it was right on top of them. Up close, the APC's rounded carapace made it resemble a huge insect, gliding with multiton delicacy over the jagged terrain.

"Thanks, Murph." He jerked his head toward the rest of the Squad. "Fall in."

Murphy jumped up, quickly sliding into his place where the Squad stood formed and waiting, Gomez at the head. Stark walked slowly down the lines, Gomez following close behind, visually checking each trooper while he flipped through their battle armor status scans on his HUD. As he passed Chen, a gaggle of red telltales suddenly popped up on scan.

"What the . . . ?" Gomez was startled into an exclamation. "Sarge, he was green when we suited up."

"Don't doubt it." Stark knew Gomez would never have let the armor through otherwise. He raised his own armored right fist and rapped sharply on the side of Chen's arm, just below the shoulder. The red telltales flickered, then went green all at once.
Damned Mark IV armor.
He gestured toward the suit. "This model gets false cascading failure indies once in every blue moon. Totally unpredictable. I've only seen it once or twice, but it's always like this."

Gomez's head nodded, her gaze riveted on the spot Stark had hit. She'd have it memorized before her eyes moved. "Nice to know. Any fix coming?"