Stark's War (14 page)

It was a very personal and complicated question, he realized, one he hadn't fully understood at the time and didn't even now. "I just did. Maybe it was the ultimate way to dis my old man. Didn't want to be a fish farmer, for damned sure."

"That the only reason?" Reynolds pressed, finishing her beer and looking for another. "If it was, you've changed a helluva lot."

"Well. . ." It had been a long time ago, but he remembered being alone. Community college had just been a large group of aimless teenagers looking for job skills and trying to postpone growing up for another two years. Grad night came, and he realized there wasn't a soul he felt really close to, a group he thought he belonged with. The mil seemed to offer that, though he couldn't remember now where he'd picked up the idea. Maybe in the real old war movies on the vid history channels, fighting on black-and-white battlefields where everyone seemed pretty sure of what they were doing and why.

Stark looked around as he thought, seeing the shabby club with a dozen other soldiers scattered at their own tables, outside its walls the dead Moon where every battle was still fought on black-and-white terrain, but out there was also his Squad and his Platoon and Company filled with people he knew who all followed the same rules and talked the same language. And who, if it came to that, would die alongside him. "Guess you could say I wanted to be part of something." He shrugged. "I found it, I guess."

"The mil?"

"Yeah. One big, happy family." He'd meant the words to come out tinged with sarcasm, but instead they fell out with flat sincerity.

Vic grinned. "A big family, anyway. Makes sense, Ethan. Most of us just come by that feeling naturally, because we're surrounded by it growing up in the mil, but I guess you had to look for it. I'm glad you found it."

"Thanks."

"But that's not the whole reason, is it?"

"Jeez, Vic, why you playing psych on me?" Stark grumbled.

"Because you do things that make me sure there's something else driving you."

Stark bit his lip, staring down at the battered tabletop. "I want to make a difference, Vic. I want it all to mean something."

"All what?" Vic demanded.

"Everything. Life. The universe. Getting up in the morning to get shot at. What the hell do you want?"

Vic shrugged. "At least you're ambitious. Gonna change the world all by yourself, huh?" Her beer came up in a mock toast. "Here's to heroes."

"I ain't no hero." Stark took another drink himself. "Don't aim to be one, don't intend getting myself killed being one, don't intend killing any of my people being one."

She nodded, grinning. "Good boy."

"Which part?"

"Not getting yourself killed, of course."

"Gee," Stark noted sarcastically, "I didn't know you cared."

Vic's grin widened. "Nah, I'm just selfish. Who would I get drunk with if you bought it?"

"You'd find some other stupid Sergeant."

"Probably," Vic agreed. She eyed her beer with a distasteful expression. "I guess the low bidder got the beer concession again."

Stark nodded. "Cheap beer that we pay primo prices for. Wouldn't be much sense in fighting if the corporations couldn't make enough money off the war. Of course, if the damn foreigners hadn't come up here in the first place we'd be fighting someplace where at least there's air."

"The foreigners had every right to come up here, Ethan."

"I know why they came," Stark protested. "All the stuff back on the World that's easy to get at is gone, and the U.S. of A. has got an effective monopoly on the tech that lets people get the hard-to-reach stuff, and we end up enforcing that damn monopoly in every country that tries to make a buck that our own corporations want in their own pockets."

"Good summation," Vic agreed.

"You remember what I said after we first landed. I'd probably have done the same thing they did. But we had these resources tied up, too. Not that I like the place, but what made the foreigners think they could just waltz up here and grab stuff?"

Vic shook her head. "You really don't know? It's because we
didn't
have the Moon's resources tied up."

"The hell," Stark objected. "We got here first. Back in, what was it, the 1940s or something?"

"Nineteen sixties," Vic corrected. "Whatever. We claimed it."

"No, we didn't." Vic smiled bitterly. "You're right, we got here first. But we didn't claim it, Ethan. I've been to the monument that's been built, out on the Trank Sea. It says we came 'for all mankind.' Something like that. Nothing about 'no trespassing.' "

"We planted a flag," Stark insisted stubbornly. "I've seen a picture. In my barracks, once, somewhere back on the World." A flag suspended stiffly, a figure in clumsy white space gear rendering a salute. The black and the white light, the barren rockscape, had been unfamiliar then.

Vic nodded wearily. "Yeah, we planted a flag. But not to claim it, at least not then, not for a long time." Her eyes grew distant, pulling up memories. "We stopped coming, Ethan. I don't know why. Maybe it was just too hard back then. Hell, when you own Earth, why bother with this hunk of dead rock? But eventually, other people came up here serious. Like you said, they needed the resources. So they planted colonies, built some bases, started low-g manufacturing and pulling out ore. Big bucks."

"So I hear." Stark brooded over his beer for a moment. "And it didn't belong to our own corporations already?"

"Nope. Told you, we'd never claimed it. It was supposed to be international or something, belong to everyone."

Stark snorted with derision. "Right. Belonged to everyone. Sounds like one of those brainless peace ops we got sent to enforce back on the World."

"I'm not saying it was a smart arrangement, but I guess it surprised our corporations when other countries took it serious." Vic used a finger to doodle idly in the wet rings left by the beers on their table. "So our business tycoons ran to their hip-pocket Congress and told them to pass a law that said the Moon was ours, back to when we landed."

"So we got ordered here. Nice."

"Not right away. The President said, 'Great idea, give me some money to enforce it.' Congress said—"

"Let me guess," Stark interrupted. "They said they wouldn't raise taxes to cover it."

"Bingo. The President was kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. He didn't have the money to support a mil op to grab the Moon, but there was big public support for doing just that. After all, the law said Luna was ours, so we should kick off the foreigners, right? Made the civs feel real patriotic, not that they volunteered to come up here and do the job themselves."

"So what happened? Oh, hell," Stark added in disgust, "I know what happened."

"Sure, the mil got ordered up here and were told to do it without using any more money. Of course, the mil couldn't do it, couldn't find the money anywhere. Budgets had been too tight for too long, and all the surplus had gone to pay for more generals and for big, fancy weapons like those damned McClellan tanks."

"They're great tanks."

"Yeah, and each one costs so much they can't actually be risked in battle. Just like the F-38 Strato-Fighter. On second thought, at least the McClellans work, and from what I hear, the F-38 doesn't. Anyway, we can't afford to lose them, so we can't use them."

"You're preaching to the choir, Vic."

"I know." Vic glared at Stark, but her anger was focused elsewhere. "It looked like the brass would have to say 'Can't do it.' You know the brass hates to say 'Can't do it' to anyone who outranks them. So some unsung genius thought of another way to get money, maybe enough to cover starting the operation up here."

Stark nodded. "I thought that was where this was heading. You mean the vid programs, don't you? That's why they started showing us in combat for civ entertainment."

"Yeah." Vic spat it out. "The vid programs. We had all this great gear built in for command and control. Full-time comms and all-round vid so the officers could tell exactly what we were doing every minute and micromanage each and every grunt. It also provided great publicity footage after battles. Then somebody figured out they didn't have to give it away for free, that they could use it to make their own programs and sell the commercial time. Maybe even while the battles were still going on. Maybe even so close to real time that the civs would pay to watch."

Stark's face settled into grim lines of memory. Years ago, hitting the lunar surface for the first time and wondering why headquarters had been so worried about dramatic action. "Yeah. From all I hear, they were a real hit. Blood and guts live on vid. Somebody—Chen, I think—claims civ kids are tracking units and their wins and losses just like sports teams."

"I heard that, too. And you know what all the pro sports did, upping the violence in their own products to try to win back viewers. It must be a great time to be an adolescent back on the World, Ethan."

Stark laughed harshly. "Damn right. Old enough to get a kick out of blood but too damn young to think about how much it hurts the guy who's bleeding. But, hell, it worked, right? They made a lot of money, didn't they?"

"Worked great." Vic's bitter smile was back. "But it backfired."

"Let me guess."

"Yeah. You know this one, too, Ethan. Congress and the Pres figured out the mil had made a bundle from the ad revenue, so they cut the mil's budget. That made the mil dependent on the vid not just for start-up for this op, but also for day-to-day ops. It's been like that ever since." Vic shook her head in obvious disgust. "The bright kids at headquarters trapped themselves. Now they have to run ops to keep the ratings up, or the whole mil budget goes red. The bastards were just a little too clever, and they, or rather we, have been paying for it ever since."

Stark sat there, wondering what, if anything, to say.
They talk about ignorance being bliss, and I can see why. I don't know anyone who's any happier for knowing the answers to all this crap.
"You ever wonder, Vic, what would happen if we dropped it, if the mil finally said 'Can't do it'?"

That brought another sad smile from Vic. "You think our officers would ever do that?"

"No." Stark's teeth showed. "Congress won't take responsibility if things went to hell. They never do. Neither will the Pres. They tell us to guard their butts, and to go out to every bar fight in the world that threatens the profits of our all-American free-flippin'-enterprise corporations, and our officers say 'Yessir, yessir, three bags full,' because keeping the politicians happy is the path to four-star promotions and that seems to be all our officers care about anymore. Then we get told we don't need all the people and gear we've asked for, except the stuff that goes to buy mega-expensive weapons built by those same corporations and their civ workers who vote. And if the mil ever did cry that it's broke, the politicians and civs will just blame us for wasting money and having bad management, which has plenty enough truth to stick thanks to our officers who are too obsessed with sucking up to their bosses to ever try to fix problems themselves. Perfect world." Stark's teeth tightened, so that muscles stood out along his jaw. "As long as you happen to be in the White House, or Congress, or the Pentagon, and not up here."

"Congratulations." Vic hoisted another mock toast. "You are now educated."

"And ain't I the happy little bastard? If it wasn't for the damn oath . . ." Stark let his voice trail off.

"The oath?" Vic grimaced. "Yeah. The oath. 'I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic,' etc., etc., etc. I guess we're all suckers, Ethan. We break our backs for that oath, I bleed into vacuum for that oath, all to defend corporate profits and a bunch of civs who think personal sacrifice means having to fetch your own beer instead of having it brought to you."

"That's not the only reason, Vic." Stark reached out to grip her hand hard for a moment. "That oath is also to each other, isn't it? Personally, I sometimes can't figure out who the real enemy is. But I know who my friends are. They're the grunts standing beside me."

Vic smiled ruefully. "Most of them, anyway. I talk too much, Ethan."

"Nah. You know too much." Stark slid another beer across the table, watching as it slid much farther under the Moon's minuscule gravity than the slight push should have managed, so that Vic had to grab it just short of the table edge.

"You trying to get me drunk, soldier?" Vic demanded.

"I thought that was a decent objective for both of us tonight."

"Sounds good to me." Another six-pack disappeared, while silence stretched out, broken only by the digitally recorded chirps of phantom birds in the branches of the vid-projected trees on the ugly rock walls. Finally Vic raised her right hand, then slowly ran her fingers across the Silver Star ribbon, her eyes somewhere far away. "Ethan, I got something to tell you."

Stark focused on her, frowning as his eyes followed the movements of her hand. "What?"

"I got this medal because I shot a Lieutenant."

"You're kidding."

"No. We were being hit pretty hard. Real heavy jamming, too, so we lost comms with our higher-ups, and our Lieutenant panicked. Tried to order us to retreat through an enemy kill zone. We would have lost most of the unit."

"Jesus, Vic."

"So I shot him." Her eyes came back, oddly emotionless, gazing into Stark's. "We held in place until relief arrived. I got a medal for leading the defense and saving the position."

"Which you had to do after you shot the Lieutenant."

"Yeah." One side of Vic's mouth quirked in a humorless half smile. "Funny, huh?"

"Yeah. Funny."

"You'd have done the same thing, right, Ethan?" It seemed less a question than a plea.

"Yeah."
Guess I'm not the only one carrying around baggage.
"I'd have done the same thing. What happened to the Lieutenant?"

Vic looked away. "Dead."

"I guess that's how it had to happen. Who else knows about it?"

"I think some of the people in my old unit suspected. That's why I transferred and ended up in the same unit with you. As to who knows for sure, that's me, you, now, and the Big Guy upstairs. I'll have to answer to Him someday."