Stark’s Crusade

by John G. Hemry

  “Nah. I got work to do.”

  Part Two

  Friction

  Breaking news. The United Nations, no less, has declared Sergeant Ethan Stark and his followers to be international outlaws.” Stacey Yurivan grinned at the other members of Stark’s staff as she tapped the display before her. “All member states are authorized to use force against us.”

  Sergeant Gordasa scratched the side of his head. “They can do that?”

  “Apparently, especially if the U.S. of A. is leaning on everybody and promising them major goodies.” Yurivan smirked at Stark, who sat, arms crossed, leaning back in his chair with a deliberately detached expression. “I guess your noble initiative of hanging our asses out so we can inspire the citizens back home with our idealism hasn’t impressed the government.”

  “It’s impressed them enough to bring about this step,” Vic pointed out. “I can’t imagine what kind of effort it took to get the UN to come down on us.”

  Yurivan smiled a little wider. “Established governments anywhere don’t care much for revolutionaries, Reynolds. Especially revolutionaries with noble motives. That’s just the thing to scare professional politicians.”

  “Good. That’s the point. Anything that scares the system and attracts support for us from the little guys is a good thing.”

  “The problem with little guys is they don’t have enough big guns. Speaking of which, as I just reported, we’re now at war with every country on Earth. That must be some kind of record.”

  Bev Manley nodded agreement. “I for one am proud. And with Ethan Stark leading us, this might be just the beginning. We may yet encounter an alien species and end up at war with them, too.”

  Stark shook his head with feigned exasperation as his staff laughed. “With people like you working for me, any kind of disaster is possible! Now, if you apes are done with your stand-up routines, we got business.” He glowered at the table’s surface for a moment, his face settling into grim lines, before looking up again. “We’ve finally got some info on how the Pentagon plans on taking us down.”

  Manley cocked a questioning eyebrow. “They’ve figured out how to do that without enough trigger-pulling enlisted soldiers?” She glanced at Vic Reynolds for confirmation, but Vic shook her head to indicate lack of knowledge, then focused back on Stark.

  “Yeah. They think they’ve figured that out.”

  Lamont shrugged. “Why the gloom? I thought they were hiring foreign mercs for that. We can take them. We have taken them. Just like that raid on the power plant. Easy.”

  “There wasn’t a lot of ‘easy’ involved in stopping that raid. But, yeah, we’ve stopped everything they’ve thrown at us so far. I guess sometimes even the brass in the Pentagon can figure out something isn’t working if it fails often enough. After we trashed that last batch of mercs trying to set up shop nearby, they settled on another idea.” Stark held up a data coin, turning it slightly between thumb and forefinger. “I got this. Don’t ask how.” Yurivan’s smile vanished. “Don’t worry, Stace. I know covert collection is your job. I’m not bypassing you. Not on purpose. Somebody sent me this for their own reasons, and that’s all I know. Understand?” Everyone nodded, their expressions now a mix of curious and concerned. Stark popped the coin into his unit, holding it so no one else could see the screen even though it showed nothing but a shadowy figure.

  The figure on the screen began speaking as if the words were being reluctantly forced out, his or her voice concealed by security recording protocols that randomly shifted tone, timing, and accents. It protected the speaker from identification, but almost guaranteed a headache to anyone listening for long. “Ethan Stark, you’re doing too damn good up there. You’ve beat everything and everybody up real bad, and now the brass back here can’t even dream up fantasies on how to knock you apes down. So they’re doin’ somethin’ so stupid I had to warn you.” There was a deep breath, audible to the listeners, then the speaker continued. “They’re gonna employ metal-heads. The assembly lines are workin’ on ‘em right now. Officially the things are called Joint Autonomous Battle Robotic Weaponized Combatants. Even that name’s heavily classified, but we’re calling ‘em Jabberwocks, anyway. From JABRWCs, see? I guess that name fits ‘cause they gotta be ugly.”

  Another deep breath. “I know, you figure you’ll take them out like usual by cutting the electronic umbilical, but like I said, the brass are being real stupid. I got it for certain that these metal-heads are designed to operate without a link. Think about that. Especially with all the civs you’re protecting up there. It stinks. I don’t want any part of it, even if sending you this warning means if I’m caught, we’ll get to share the same firing squad.” A brief pause, then the words came in a rush. “The shorter this is, the more likely it’ll get through. Besides, I don’t got much more detail. You’ll have to work with what you’ve got. Beat these things, Stark.” The screen blanked.

  “Who was that?” Gordasa asked in the hush that followed.

  “I’m not sure. Maybe a friend of mine,” Stark stated, removing the coin and repocketing it. “He or she took a helluva risk sending me this.”

  “Metal-heads.” Vic let the phrase hang alone for a long moment. “They’re actually constructing robotic combatants to attack us?”

  Stark nodded. “You heard what he said. Jabberwocks. What’s that mean?”

  “ ‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son,’ ” Bev Manley quoted, “ ‘the jaws that bite, the claws that snatch.’ It’s from one of the Alice stories. At least we apparently don’t have to worry about frumious bandersnatchi,” she added.

  Stark fixed her with a glare. “I got enough problems without adding new ones. Whatever the hell a bandersnatchi is.”

  “I think that should be ‘bandersnatchi are,’ ” Manley suggested, then winced as Stark’s glare intensified.

  Gordasa looked around as if seeking enlightenment. “I don’t understand. What was that talk about links and electronic umbilicals?”

  Vic moved her forefingers apart on the table surface. “Control mechanisms, Gordo. The bright boys and girls in combat systems development have been trying to build unmanned weapons for who knows how many decades. They never worked, though, because the unmanned weapons always needed a comm link for a human operator to provide the brains for the weapon.”

  “Artificial intelligence couldn’t handle it?”

  Stark snorted. “Hell, Gordo, AI still can’t even handle supply without human oversight, can it? The systems can never see past their programming. Combat’s too unpredictable, calls for too much imagination. It overloads any metal brains they’ve ever built. Besides, even when the weapon’s able to function on its own, you still need to monitor it, get status reports, and stop it from doing something stupid because its little metal brain misreads a line of code.”

  “Exactly,” Vic agreed. “So they’ve always needed a human calling the shots, or at least looking over the metal-head’s shoulder, which meant a comm link. Problem is, the enemy could just jam the link, and then you’ve got an unmanned weapon with a very limited brain, just sort of running amuck.”

  “Or,” Stacey Yurivan added, “if the enemy was really on the ball they’d copy the link and send in a stronger version.”

  Sergeant Gordasa nodded in understanding. “Which would allow them to take over the weapon and use it themselves, right? So why not just design a weapon that could fight along predictable lines without a link?”

  “Because,” Yurivan continued with a smile, “anything that can be programmed can be reprogrammed. Figure out how to insert the new programming, maybe over the air, maybe as a worm, and it takes over the metal-head. Bingo, the enemy’s got a bunch of new combat mechs and you’ve got a big problem, especially if you can’t reestablish control because there ain’t no link!”

  “So why not tell the metal-heads to ignore new programming?”

  Stacey’s grin seemed almost demonic. “Sure. You could do that. Design an AI that can reject its own program
ming. Then you arm it. Sound like a good idea to you?”

  Gordasa paled. “Dios. It could override all its inhibits. Kill anything and anybody. Is that what the Pentagon is doing now? No wonder Stark’s friend was worried about the civs up here.”

  “Yeah,” Stark agreed. “All the old attempts at building metal-heads at least had fail-safes that kept them from going crazy and slaughtering anything that moved or breathed. But if these, uh, Jabberwocks are made to work without links, we can’t count on any functional fail-safe mechanisms. And taking ‘em over or stopping ‘em won’t be as simple as messing with their links. So, people, what are we going to do about it? How we gonna beat these Jabberwocks? Any ideas?”

  Bev Manley scowled. “There’s always a back door, Ethan. I learned that in Administration. Some way to get into a system. I don’t care how they design it.”

  “Probably. I’m not a hacker, but I’ve worked with enough of ‘em. It sounds like they’re trying to lock that back door real tight, though.”

  Vic’s eyes narrowed. “If they’re really trying to cut the link, it means one of two things. Either they’re creating a Frankenstein’s monster and handing it heavy weaponry, or they’re building in fail-safe mechanisms.”

  “The link is the fail-safe,” Stark insisted. “Nothing else would ensure they could exercise direct control or disable the metal-heads if necessary, right?”

  Lamont raised a finger. “Unless the people building these things have convinced the brass they don’t need a link, that their latest software or hardwire AI inhibits can do the job. I’ve run into that with automated systems on my tanks. You don’t need a human in the loop, the weapon geeks tell me, because the system can think fine by itself. Only it never can, and we end up nurse-maiding it along with everything else.”

  “Exactly,” Vic agreed. “So why would the Pentagon believe it this time?”

  “Because they want to! Contractors are always telling the brass they’ve got a weapon that will cost a buck a copy, require zero maintenance, launch itself, and home in on evil. Then it ends up costing a buck an atom, breaks every time somebody looks at it, and has to be carried to the target by some ground ape. Anybody here think the Pentagon wouldn’t buy something that didn’t really work as advertised?”

  Silence settled around the table for a moment, then Vic nodded. “That’s a very good point.” She looked over at Stark. “We need to assume we have to develop an ability to kill these things fast and clean.”

  “Even though they’ll be fast and mean,” Lamont pointed out. “You know how hard it can be to nail an automated target. They’re just faster than us. And you gotta assume redundant critical functions, so one hit won’t take ‘em down.”

  “Depends what kind of hit it is, doesn’t it?” Yurivan questioned, smiling again.

  “You got an idea, Stace?” Stark demanded.

  “Maybe. I’m an expert on messing with people’s minds, right? So maybe I’m thinking of a new way to mess with a metal-head’s mind. Maybe. Gotta check with some people.”

  “Do it.” Stark glared around the table. “Do it careful. Nobody breathes a word about how we found this out.” He focused on Chief Wiseman, sitting silent so far. “Any chance at all we can intercept the shuttles carrying these things and knock ‘em out before they get here?”

  Wiseman made a face. “There’s always a chance. Decent chance? No, I don’t think so. There’s convoys coming in all the time. How do we know which one’s have the Jabberwocks? Even if we could find out which convoy to hit, priority cargo like that would be protected by so much firepower my shuttles would be vaporized before we got into range, so even a kamikaze mission wouldn’t likely succeed.” She glanced around at the other staff members, then back at Stark. “We could lob rocks at ‘em, of course. Crater the landing site.”

  “Rocks,” Vic stated. “You mean big rocks.”

  “Yeah. Flippin’ big rocks. Dig a few new craters and put on a fireworks show for the folks back on Earth.”

  Vic shook her head, looking to Stark for backup. “If we escalate to using weapons of mass destruction here, then the people we’re fighting may assume we’d use the same against Earth. And if they believe that, they’ll drop enough rocks, nukes, and null-bombs on us to turn this whole part of the Moon into a crater that’ll make Tycho look tiny.”

  Stark nodded. “And the rest of the world will cheer them on, because that’s the nightmare we’ve all managed to avoid so far, right? So, no rocks. Sorry, Chief.”

  “That’s okay. It’s not like I wanted to do it.”

  “Thanks for bringing up the possibility anyway. I need to know every option. Okay, that’s all I got. Looks like things may be coming to a head, military-wise.”

  “What do you mean?” Manley asked.

  “I mean either we beat these things or they’ll beat us. And robotic combatants cost big time, so the Pentagon must be putting everything it’s got into paying for ‘em. They won’t have anything left to throw at us after this.”

  Gordasa smiled. “So maybe the Lunar War will finally end?”

  “Maybe. Maybe just from mutual exhaustion, but I can live with that. Let’s hope when it does end we’re all still around.” Stark sat silent as his staff members rose and headed out, some talking quietly and the others silent with their thoughts, until only Chief Wiseman was left, hesitating near the door. “You got something else, Chief?”

  “Nah. I, uh…”

  Stark measured Wiseman’s uncertainty, then waved her back to a seat. “Why don’t you hang around for a minute? We don’t get much time to talk, and I’ve never gotten to know many sailors.”

  “Lucky you. Mind if I splice the main brace?”

  “If I knew what that meant I’d tell you if I minded.”

  She chuckled, waving toward the drink dispenser one of the previous commanding generals had ordered installed in the conference room. “It means having a drink. Booze.”

  “Sure. Have a beer. Get me one, too, if you don’t mind.”

  “No problem.”

  Stark stared quizzically at his beer after Wiseman brought it. “What’s having a drink have to do with… whatever you said?”

  “Splicing the main brace? Beats the hell out of me,” Wiseman admitted, taking a long drink. “It’s just traditional to call it that. Like, you know, announcing the smoking lamp is out at taps.”

  “Smoking lamp? What’s that, some kind of light?”

  “Beats me. But every night on every ship we announce the smoking lamp is out, and every morning we announce it’s lit.”

  “You don’t even know what the thing is and you’re turning it on and off every day?” Stark shook his head, taking a drink himself. “I’ll never understand sailors.”

  She grinned back, then turned suddenly somber. “It’s tradition, Stark. Don’t have to mean a damn thing, and probably doesn’t anymore, but it gives us structure. It says we’re a warship, says we do things our way, says some things never really change. Hopefully the good things, but you never know.” Wiseman stopped talking abruptly, then took another long drink. “Man, this is lousy beer.”

  “You don’t have to drink it.”

  “I didn’t say it was that lousy.” She sat silent for a moment, eyes suddenly shadowed.

  “What’s buggin’ you, Chief?” Stark asked. “Something’s got you unhappy. Anything I can help with?”

  “I doubt it.” Wiseman smiled crookedly, as if at an inner joke. “I’ve just been thinking how important tradition can be, even when it don’t make sense. You ever worry about that, Stark? That maybe we’re tossing out tradition and the whole shebang is going to blow up around us because of it?”

  “No. I don’t. Not for that reason, anyway. We didn’t choose to do this, Chief. We got forced into it.” He held up a hand as Wiseman started to speak. “Wait a sec. You’re worried about tradition. I understand that it is important. Damned important. But there’s two kinds of tradition. That’s what I think. There’s traditions that ho
ld you together, that make your unit or your service special in your mind, that keep you going when you ought to give up. Right? But there’s another kind of tradition, one that doesn’t care about looking out for each other or making things work well or helping you keep fighting when any fool would cut and run. No, that’s the kind of tradition that’s nothing but ‘we did, so you have to do it.’ Or ‘it’s always been that way.’ Or ‘you have to do it that way, because that’s how it’s always been done.’ Or ‘you don’t get any input on this because somebody a million miles away already decided it.’ You know what I mean. The traditions that bureaucrats in uniform and idiots and sadists use to justify doing stupid things to good people.”

  Wiseman’s smile grew a little crookeder. “I know a few of those.”

  “You mean the traditions or the idiots?”

  “Both.” The smile vanished, replaced by thoughtfulness. “You’re right. I never really thought about it that way, but that’s how it works, don’t it? Chief Gunners Mate Melendez, my second in command, he told me once about some old army, the Brits I think, who were trying to get their artillery to fire faster. So the Brits had some specialists come in to analyze how they fired the big guns, and after they’d watched a few firings the specialists said ‘how come those two guys on the gun team always stand over to the side at attention before the guns can fire?’ Nobody knew, they just knew you had to do that. They finally found some ancient retired gunner and asked him. Know what he said?”

  Stark shrugged. “Can’t imagine.”

  “He said those two guys were supposed to hold the horses,” Wiseman laughed. Stark stared back, obviously confused. “The guns used to be pulled into action by horses, and when the guns fired somebody had to hold the horses to keep the bang from scaring them off.” She smothered another laugh in a quick drink. “The horses were long gone, but every gun still had two guys ready to hold them.”

  “Man, that is dumb,” Stark laughed along this time. “You ever hear Stacey Yurivan’s story about some old Russian ruler? Catherine or Kate or something.”