Stark's War

by John G. Hemry

  His feet hit an upslope and Stark surged forward, putting all he had into a final burst of speed. He cleared the cloud of dust and debris, sudden stars and black night seeming unnaturally bright, bursting out with the top of the ridge before him and in a single motion dove low down and across the rocks, turning to glide down into the dust of the reverse slope, head down on his back, bringing his rifle around and triggering its two grenades to either side, lining up the sight to aim-squeeze-fire, aim-squeeze-fire at the figures scattered here. Enemy soldiers fell, atmosphere venting from ruptured armor, firing across at him from each side, rounds passing above his prone body to inadvertently engage their own forces on either side.

  Stark slid to a halt, aim suddenly jittery as he tried to keep shooting, feeling a long, slow moment of despair as enemy fire steadied, knowing he had only seconds left and panic frozen inside. Didn't work. At least I tried. Sorry, you guys. I guess the civs will get to watch us buy it after all. Hope Mom and Dad see this, know I did 'em proud, if they can stand seeing me die out here.

  Another figure loomed, shockingly close from over the ridge, and Stark swung to fire, freezing his finger on the trigger as IFF shouted "friendly!" Then there were more friendlies coming over the ridge. His Squad, shouting and firing at enemy ranks already disrupted by Stark's charge. The enemy began falling back in confusion, ranks torn and broken.

  "Jesus, Sarge," Murphy screamed as his armored body flopped down near Stark, his weapon jumping as rounds ripped out in an almost steady stream, "why the hell'd you do that? Next time give me a heads-up!"

  "Sure," Stark shouted back, automatically rolling away from Murphy to avoid providing a clustered target. Stark's comm system was screaming now, too, commands from up the chain tangling with each other and enemy jamming. "Get the heavy weapons!" he ordered.

  Murphy and the rest of the Squad turned, targeting the weapons pits that were finally reacting, shifting aim to target Stark's Squad now that their own troops weren't intermingled. Some of the Squad scrambled up, trying to get in among the enemy once again, but dropped rapidly as the heavies opened up, raking the area with firepower the Squad's own small-arms fire couldn't match. The charge's momentum faltered, events hanging in the balance as the enemy tried to figure out what had happened and how to crush the unexpected assault.

  A huge object jumped the ridge to Stark's left, gouging out a swath of terrain as it shaved the top, then slid ponderously down in a slow avalanche of rocks and dust, turret swiveling and secondary rounds going out, enemy weapon pits erupting into clouds of debris as the tank took out local targets. Whoops of triumph filled the comm circuits. Of course, Stark realized. We cleared the troops manning the ridge, so a tank could get across without being targeted. He suddenly loved all tankers, especially the one who'd risked his or her machine and life in that mad leap to join them. The turret steadied a moment and the main gun jumped, followed seconds later by a massive detonation in the distance.

  More infantry came over the ridge. Stark's overloaded HUD painted a flickering picture of tentative IDs that indicated the rest of his Platoon had followed his Squad. "Stark!" Lieutenant Porter's outraged voice rang out in a moment of comm clarity. "What the hell—?" Then it was overridden, Tactical clearing momentarily to shift in a wild update, ordering an advance all along the ridge. Someone up the chain had seen the opportunity offered by Stark's Squad's charge, had broken out of paralysis long enough to shove everything available after them.

  The enemy line had fallen apart. Some of their infantry were still running, others stopping and dropping their weapons to await capture. The tank continued methodically chewing up every target in sight, shifting position as the second and third tanks in the squadron heaved up over the ridge to join it. On the HUD, Stark watched as more troops poured into their penetration, widening the hole and peeling away the edges like a river in flood tearing open a dam. Then the river faltered, slowing to a trickle as the stream of troops ran dry. Nothing left to exploit the success, Stark noted bleakly. We used up everything we had stopping the enemy.

  Stark came up to one knee, trying to judge the status of his Squad from their position markers, knowing he couldn't yet trust their health or readiness readouts. Somewhere up ahead, a sudden flurry of fire marked the enemy rushing in reinforcements to stabilize their front and seal the penetration, the two armies clashing in drunken exhaustion like punch-drunk fighters still trying to land blows but too worn out to achieve much without rest. His HUD displayed tangles of estimates warped by jamming, comm delays, and enemy deception, but the lines seemed to be holding on both sides even as Stark's Tactical ordered another advance against the rapidly solidifying enemy resistance.

  "Gimme a break." Stark checked his own ammunition, noting less than a half-dozen rounds remaining, and extrapolated that to the rest of the Squad. "Lieutenant Porter?"

  "Stark!" The signal came through so clear that Porter must have somehow gotten himself onto this side of the ridge as well, maybe with the assistance of the dismounted APC driver who still had to be thirsting for revenge over her gunner's death. "If you ever take off without orders or Tactical again I'll, I'll—"

  "Yessir. Lieutenant, I've got orders from Tactical to assault, but my Squad's out of ammo."

  "So what? Follow orders for once! Just do what you're damn well told!"

  "Lieutenant," Stark corrected, trying to project regretful innocence, "doctrine states exhaustion of ammunition requires holding in place until resupply."

  "It does? Damn. Sergeant Reynolds?"

  "Reynolds here," Vic's voice chimed back. Stark ducked his head in gratitude to hear she'd survived the assault as well.

  "How's your ammunition?"

  "One or two rounds left per weapon, Lieutenant."

  "Sergeant Sanchez?" Porter called, sounding increasingly vexed.

  "Yes, Lieutenant." Sanchez might have been reporting in a routine roll call. "I have no ammunition remaining."

  "Whatever happened to fire discipline?" Porter demanded. "What about casualties?"

  "Unknown," Stark declared coldly. "Casualties are being screened out at our level. We can't trust our Tactical picture."

  "I—" Porter cut off his own reply, then spoke again as if with difficulty. "I'll report our status up the chain. Stand by for orders."

  Stark, trying to fight off a giddiness born of unlooked-for survival, switched his own comms to talk to Reynolds directly. "Hey, Vic. What happened to all your ammo? You been in a battle or something?"

  "Look who's talking. How many angels you got looking out for—? Oh, God."

  "What?" Stark checked his HUD, spotting incoming through the mess of symbology. Careless. It's not over. Too damn careless. "Third Squad! Take cover!" Enemy heavy artillery had finally reacted. Massive rounds started dropping along the ridge, perhaps called in on their own position by the now-fleeing enemy infantry. Stark held on to the rocks beneath him as the lunar soil shuddered with impacts so heavy he seemed to be on the verge of launching into the empty atmosphere, wondering why the artillery had concentrated on this site, then cursing wildly as one of the reasons rumbled by.

  "Third Squad, get out of here!" Stark bellowed. "Away from the armor, now!" Tanks were magnets for enemy fire, and there were three of the metal monsters scattered among Stark's own Squad's position. He rose and dashed to the right, downslope, taking only a dozen steps before his suit shrieked another warning. Stark dove for the ground again, forgetting where he was, forgetting to pull himself down instead of depending on gravity, falling with agonizing slowness until a column of fire blossomed close by and a great hand reached over and slapped him with shrapnel fingers.

  Darkness without stars cleared abruptly, Stark's ears ringing with comms and suit alarms. Battered but somehow still intact, pitted with shrapnel scars, the armor had absorbed the impact without suffering a major rupture. "Third Squad. Follow me." He rose, limping as either his leg or the battle armor protested the movement, leading the way down off the ridge.

 
"Sarge?" someone called, voice distorted by screeches of static. "We gonna attack again, Sarge?"

  Stark checked Tactical once more, glaring at the red digits demanding his Squad assail the enemy again immediately. "No."

  "But our orders—"

  "Screw our orders. We're digging in."

  Stark stood awkwardly, helmet in hand in traditional deference to the dead as he stood in the field hospital. A medic who looked like he hadn't slept in a week stared bleary-eyed up at the Sergeant. Stark nodded to indicate the medical wards down the hall. "I'm here to see Gomez."

  "Gomez?" The medic made an obvious effort to concentrate, typing with careful precision on the laptop before him. "Anita? Bay 25B."

  "Thanks." Stark headed in the direction indicated, keeping his hands well clear of the unadorned white paint that sealed the rock walls here. Bay 25B held more of the same, a white curtain strung across the entrance, white ceiling, white sheets on a bed where Gomez lay with a white cast covering most of one leg. Even Gomez seemed whitened, drained of color by shock.

  Stark sat and waited, patiently. Sleep was important, more important than his words, so he waited until Gomez finally stirred, blinking up at the whiteness all around with a dazed expression.

  Gomez stared, unable to speak, until Stark finally quirked his lips in a small smile. "Guess I finally found out how to shut you up, eh, Anita?" He leaned forward to peer into her eyes. "You don't look too drugged up." Stark gestured toward her leg. "A heavy round went off right next to you, they tell me, close enough for the pressure wave to hit, but so close you were inside the shrapnel pattern. Concussion broke your leg and bruised the hell out you, but no suit penetration. Lucky."

  Gomez drew in a breath, half sigh and half sob as the gesture apparently brought pain. She used one hand to raise the sheet covering her, wincing at the sight of one side of her body painted in patterns of purplish-black, which seemed doubly awful amid the whiteness all around. "Damn. Thought I was dead." Gomez winced, looking embarrassed at speaking so frankly to her Sergeant.

  "We all ought to be," Stark agreed.

  "You told us to follow you," Gomez pointed out.

  "Yeah, I did. Damn fool stunt, but I didn't think we had any other choice."

  "Yeah, well, you did good, Sarge," Gomez offered. "Saved our butts."

  "For now, yeah, maybe I did."

  "What's going on out there right now?"

  "Digging in," Stark stated. "Everybody's going deep, laying minefields, building bunkers. There's talk of us trying to retake the areas we lost. Seems the civ politicians still want to claim the whole Moon. They got one helluva appetite for territory."

  "Great. What about the other side? They willing to let us?"

  "Nah. The enemy seems to still be interested in pushing us off the Moon completely. They're tired of getting kicked around. Fighting all-out back on Earth would be too dangerous, but up here they're willing to face off with us."

  "Man," Gomez noted ruefully, "looks like everybody's drawn a line in the dirt."

  "That's right, and we're sitting right on top of that line. Looks like it's going to be a long war."

  "Lucky us." Gomez grinned. "Hey, I'm alive."

  "Yeah, lucky." Stark took a deep breath, avoiding Gomez's eyes. "You've been doing good lately. Real good. Reliable. Sharp. Looking out for other grunts, not just yourself."

  She blushed and looked away, unable to deal with the praise. "Just doing what I'm supposed to. You always said we need to look out for each other, Sarge."

  Stark leaned back, now gazing at her steadily. "You've been field-promoted to Corporal. Congratulations."

  Gomez stared back at him, alarmed. "Corporal? Sarge, I'm happy as a Private. I'm no Corporal. No, thanks."

  "That wasn't an offer, so you don't get to refuse it. We need a new Corporal," Stark added bluntly, "and you'll be a good one."

  It took a moment to sink in, then Gomez's face fell as the meaning came clear. "Pablo? He was hit, too?"

  "Hit, yeah." Stark kept his face impassive, his words flat. "They were able to reconstruct what happened from the vid feed. One of the heavy rounds they were throwing at us, probably a two-hundred-millimeter, hit him dead on. You and I, we had good luck. He had bad. They found enough of him to do a DNA match, but not much more."

  "Damn," Gomez whispered, blinking rapidly. "Pablo, he always said he was scared of the body bags, scared of being fastened in one while he was still alive. Funny, huh? All the things we got to worry about, and that's what scared him. Now he won't need one, not scattered in a million pieces across . . . where was it? That last fight?"

  "The Sea of Tranquility," Stark replied. "Near it, anyway."

  Gomez nodded. "The tanks that saved us, came over the ridge, they also attracted the fire that killed Pablo?"

  "Probably. My fault. I should've realized quicker, gotten us moving faster."

  "Nah, Sarge. We needed those tanks, but nothing ever comes free or easy, right?"

  "Right."

  "We lose anybody else?"

  "Hector's gone, nailed during that barrage before we attacked, and Carter got her head blown off, maybe before the enemy weapon's pits got taken out. Chen's wounded, took a round in his left hip, but the docs have replaced the joint and he'll heal up fine." Funny thing, the battle armor protected pretty well, which meant that when something did get through, it was likely to be lethal. Fewer wounded. A higher percentage of dead. Sort of a good deal.

  Gomez nodded, face stricken. "Could've been worse. A lot worse."

  "Yeah, could've been." Stark stood, feeling heavily burdened despite the light pull of Luna. "I'll leave. You gotta rest. Just wanted to be here when you woke." He turned, then looked back before he left. "Real sorry about Juan Hector, and Susan Carter, and Pablo. I know you were friends. Pablo was my friend, too, and a damn fine Corporal. Would have made a good Sergeant someday." I should've done better. Somehow. He left the last unspoken, the thought lying across his shoulders like an invisible burden.

  Gomez nodded, wordless once more, as Stark left. The white ceilings, walls, and curtains spoke of peace and healing in the hushed silence of the medical ward, yet as Stark walked down the hall, the chaos of bygone battles raged in his mind, and pain filled him.

  PART TWO

  Where No Larks Fly

  The news swept through the front line, leaping from bunker to bunker like a swift, dark messenger heralding pain and loss. "Popularity ratings on the war are down, big time."

  Stark cursed softly, his face lit in sharp patterns of light and shadow by the glow of the comm screen in the darkened bunker. Predawn calls were never pleasant, but some were worse than others. "Five points down is one hell of a big drop."

  "Sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings." Vic Reynolds didn't look any happier than Stark felt.

  Stark shook his head tiredly, shaking off the last traces of sleep. Each of the past few years had seemed to add a double ration of age, as if the gravity up here were twice that of Earth instead of a small fraction. Earth. A place so physically and psychologically distant they simply called it "The World" now. "Real bad, Vic. Why hasn't word of this spread around official? Vid ratings aren't classified."

  "Because official ratings aren't out, but the brass got advance intelligence."

  "Good to know those apes in Intelligence do something with their time, even if it is just watching the vid." Stark closed his eyes briefly, thinking through the implications. "Thanks for spreading the word fast, Vic. There's only one way headquarters will think of for getting the ratings back up."

  Vic nodded, her expression now matching that of someone who had bitten into a very foul-tasting object. "Something dramatic." Her image glanced to the side as someone passed her cube over in the command bunker, a momentary shadow tending an unknown midnight errand, then focused back on Stark. "Brass likes to plan things to death, usually."

  "Uh-huh. And when the enemy sees the overnights they'll know we'll have to do something to try to boost the ratings, so
they'll go to full alert." Stark shook his head again, this time wearily. After years of military and diplomatic stalemate in the lunar war, the patterns of action were so well set that they almost matched the predictability of Earthrise. "Yeah, Vic, headquarters will grind out a plan just after the enemy goes to full alert, so anything we try will be real dramatic and real dangerous. Appreciate the heads-up, though. Maybe for once headquarters will give us a pleasant surprise."

  "Want to bet any money on that?"