Stark's Crusade (2 page)

"We're gonna find out for sure any time now. One thing's for certain, we've generated so much 'noise' up here that anything being quiet is gonna be a lot harder to spot until it clears this area. Keep your fingers crossed."

Out of the confused tangle of dueling countermeasures and battle debris, four supply shuttles fell toward the lunar surface, broadcasting urgent pleas for sanctuary on the enemy landing field nearest their trajectories. One of Wiseman's armed shuttles made an abortive lunge in their direction, quickly shying off as enemy surface defenses locked on and prepared to engage once the armed shuttle came within range. The supply shuttles dropped swiftly, tracked by surface defenses that remained silent as the unarmed supply craft braked hard to make emergency landings on the field.

Lunar dust drifted in fine, slowly falling clouds across the spaceport. Landing fields were regularly swept for dust, but the fine particles always reappeared, drifting down from space or dislodged by the actions of humans nearby. Against the solid black shadows and glaring white of sunlight on the lunar surface, the gray shades of dust hung like a thin, pallid fog.

Now, as always, it hindered the vision of the multispectrum sensors trying to identify the supply shuttles. "Unidentified shuttles," someone called. "Provide your ship identification codes and landing field authorization."

"What?" The supply shuttle pilot responding had a ragged, frightened edge to his voice, speaking too rapidly as he continued. "Didn't copy. Say again. Who is this?"

"This is the landing field controller. I need your ship identification codes. Provide them immediately. Where was your scheduled landing destination?"

"Uh, uh . . . I think, uh, right here. Yeah. This field. We were supposed to land here."

"Negative, shuttle. We have no deliveries scheduled today. Identify yourself and your authorized destination immediately."

"Right here, I tell you! Hey, we almost got blown to pieces and just barely made it down, and you're giving us a hard time! Give us a break! Just let us off-load our cargo so we can get the hell out of this war zone and back to near-Earth orbit where it's safe!"

"Shuttle, do not off-load cargo onto this field without authorization. We have no heavy transport available to receive your loads."

"Don't need it, pal. Our cargo can move on its own. Beginning off-load now." Moments later, cargo bays gaped open on the shuttles and began disgorging armored figures.

"What's going on? Who are those people?"

"Our cargo, buddy! Like I told you."

"We have no . . . are those soldiers? Are you off-loading soldiers?"

"Yeah. That's our cargo. Deliver here. That's what my flight plan says." As the pilot and landing field controller debated, the soldiers swiftly formed into parade ranks and started marching across the field, their formations appearing almost tiny against the dead, gray expanse of the landing field. Almost unnoticed behind them, the shuttles began disgorging four huge black shapes.

"I don't have any delivery notification for soldiers! Get them back on those shuttles!"

"Uh-uh. No way. I almost got killed delivering them, and you want me to take them back? Look, my orders say to drop these military goons off for, uh, security duties here. You got something special worth guarding?"

"We have a considerable quantity of supplies the Americans are staging here for their offensive against their rebellious colony. But no one notified us they were sending . . . what is that?" The first of the black shapes swung majestically out from beneath the shuttle that had delivered it. Nonreflective surfaces only hinted at the massive armored shape as it surged forward across the field in the wake of the soldiers. "Is that a tank?"

"Uh, yeah, that's what the delivery order says."

Send some of my armor along, Sergeant Lamont had urged.

That's crazy, Sergeant Reynolds had rebutted him. You don't send heavy armor on raids.

Yeah. Everybody knows that. So nobody'll expect it, right? How much anti-armor weaponry is on ready-alert in a rear area? Most likely none. And if you're dropping big cargo shuttles on the field, they can each carry one of my hogs in their heavy lift slings. Total surprise. Bet ya I can raise a lot of hell before anybody can react.

It might work, Stark had admitted. But you're still crazy.

Nah. I'm a tanker.

"Stop them! Stop the tanks and the soldiers. Everybody cease movement. I need to clear this."

"Hey." Sergeant Lamont, in the lead tank, joined the conversation. "I can't leave my gear just sitting out in the open." Stark, tracking the vehicle's progress through the command and control link, shifted his perspective to view the world through the tank commander's display, watching as the armored vehicle's sensors automatically located and tagged defenses and communications points around the landing field. Though Stark had never been inside a tank, he'd viewed the outside world many times from the inside of an Armored Personnel Carrier, and the smooth scrolling past of the barren landscape was just like that from an outside viewer on an APC. "My orders say to deploy my tanks around this field," Lamont continued.

"I've never seen such orders!"

"Well, then, you oughta check with the landing field controller."

"This
is
the landing field controller!"

"Then you must have a copy of our orders."

"There are no such orders on file. Who issued them?"

"They came from your boss."

"My—?" The controller hesitated as Lamont's tanks and the infantry moved closer to the edges of the landing field. "What's the Landing Authority Authorization Order Code?"

"The Landing Authority Authorization Order Code?"

"Yes. The LAAOC."

"Uh, lemme see. Where is that?"

"In the order header! If you military people don't stop moving immediately I'll. . . I'll tell our security forces to stop you!"

"Hey, hey, calm down."

Stark looked over at Reynolds, who was smiling in admiration despite the tension in her eyes. "Lamont can stall like nobody's business," Stark noted. "But he's pushing it, Vic. We need to shoot first or that infantry might get chewed up by the landing field defenses."

"You're right, especially with our troops marching in close order so nobody'll think they're attacking until it's too late. Do we tell Lamont to open fire?"

"I don't want to do that, Vic. The guy on the scene should have the discretion to decide. That's what we always said should happen, right?"

"It's hard to argue with that. We all got micromanaged too many times by people sitting a hundred klicks from the front. It's awfully tempting to try to run everything from here." She waved one hand around the headquarters command center, filled with displays and communications terminals from which officers had once tried to do just that. "This gear makes it real easy to think you're right there on the scene."

"Yeah. Only you're not, so you don't really know what's going down like the people who are there. We don't want to give dumb orders which kill people and lose battles. Which is what the officers we replaced used to do. But Lamont's too cocky. He's having too much fun playing with that enemy controller."

"I agree. He's too caught up in the deception game. Someone watching the bigger picture has to reign him in, Ethan."

"Okay. I get it. That someone would be me, right? I guess that's the right job for someone back here. Lamont, this is Stark."

"Hey, boss. We're doing great."

"Lamont, stop trying to string this guy. Open fire as soon as you're ready."

"You mean like now?"

"I mean like real soon. It's still your call. But don't let him get off the first shot, or I'll rip your head off when you get back here."

"Uh, roger that. Stand by for fireworks."

After several more verbal exchanges with Lamont, the increasingly frustrated and angry controller had apparently reached the end of his rope. "Stop all movement or I will activate our security forces!"

"Hold on. Did you say you needed our LAAOC?"

"Yes, you idiot!"

"Well, I got your LAAOC right here, pal." On Stark's display, he watched threat symbology detach itself from the tank as its main cannon swung and fired in one motion. An instant of shocked silence reigned, then the shell impacted on the main surface communications relay, hurling fragments of rock and metal in all directions. Lamont's other tanks opened fire, raking the landing field defenses even as those defenders frantically tried to bring to bear weapons designed to engage overhead targets, not forces deployed on the field itself.

The neat infantry formations dissolved, armored soldiers scattering into combat dispersal and engaging targets with deliberate skill. Stark switched displays to the camera mounted in an individual soldier's helmet, watching through the eyes of a squad leader as she led her troops into a defensive fortification. Symbology on the battle armor Heads-Up Displays painted lightning-quick detections of armored foes, HUD targeting systems highlighting kill-points as the squad swept forward, pausing only to fire their rifles as they picked off each target.
Wish I was doing that, instead of sitting here. Wish the other noncoms had chosen someone else to lead them so I could still be a squad leader. But I got another job to do now.

The squad Stark was observing overran the fortification, the remnants of the enemy weapon's crew hastily surrendering. On the squad leader's HUD, points for attaching demolition charges were now illuminated on the heavy surface defenses. The squad broke into fire teams, some guarding the prisoners while others placed the demolitions to ensure the weapons' destruction.
All happening perfect without me calling the shots. This is the way it ought to be. I know from lots of experience that the best thing leaders can usually do is keep their mouths shut and let their people do their jobs. As long as they ain't screwing up, anyway. But man, it's frustrating.

Something was missing, something that nagged at Stark, so that he automatically glanced toward one corner of the squad leader's HUD, looking for something that wasn't there. The timeline. It had become so routine, a readout linked to the operational plan that informed every individual soldier the second they began to fall behind the rigid schedules devised by planners who likely had never seen the battlefield. A happy green when the soldier was on timeline, most soldiers were used to seeing it in increasingly accusing shades of yellow, orange, and red. Being off timeline was a major distraction for a combat soldier, so Stark and his improvised staff had decided to see what would happen without one. So far, the world hadn't come to an end.

"I read all primary defenses eliminated," Lamont reported. "Whadayya think, Milheim?"

Sergeant Milheim, commanding the ground soldiers from Fourth Battalion on the landing field, took a moment to respond. "Yeah. We're not taking any fire, anyway."

"Well, then, let's start blowing things up!"

"Concur. Fourth Battalion, plant your charges on the targets specified in your Tacs. Keep an eye out for hostile visitors while you're at it." The soldiers of Fourth Battalion scattered even more, heading for locations where their Tactical Computer Systems indicated communications, weapons, and supply equipment should be.

Stark pulled his view back again, scanning the display for indications of an enemy response. Every soldier's suit, every tank, every shuttle contained sensors, and the inputs from those sources were all fed to places like this to be fused together into a single picture. Blue symbols marking Stark's troops swarmed over the field like ants at a picnic. Several small clusters of red enemy symbology sat motionless, tagged with extra symbols, indicating their status as prisoners. At a few sites along the edge of the field, green symbols indicated probable civilian employees of the landing field fleeing for their lives. Stark shook his head. "I don't see nothing."

Reynolds studied the display. "And that bothers you." It was a statement rather than a question.

"Damn right. There oughta be something else in place defending that field. Lamont! Milheim!"

"Yo."

"Roger."

"Listen up. There's something else out there. Keep your guard up."

"I don't see anything," Milheim offered.

"Neither do I. So where would a quick reaction defensive force be that we wouldn't see it?"

"Cargo warehouses," Lamont announced. "Nice, warm, and hidden until they're needed. You think?"

Vic Reynolds nodded and keyed her own response. "I think so. You're right. They'd be under cover and protected from immediate detection and attack."

"Sure they would. I'll swing a couple of my hogs that way. Milheim, I'd appreciate some of your boys and girls coming along."

"Roger," Milheim acknowledged. "I'm sending the two nearest platoons to link up with your armor."

Stark leaned back, nodding in approval as he watched the commands fly across the tactical display and units on the landing field begin the move in response. He hesitated, then glanced at Reynolds. "So did I just do something stupid? Get all nervous and jerk around the troops on the field for nothing?"

"No. Ethan, you may or may not be right about a reaction force being hidden there, but it makes sense. And thinking about that is exactly what you should be doing from back here. You know what it's like in combat. Too much going on too fast. I think the troops out there appreciate your thinking about things they don't have time to focus on."

"Maybe—" Stark began, whatever else he might have said choked off as alarms pulsed on the display.

Two armored cars shot onto the landing field, erupting from a depression near the known warehouse locations, spitting light-caliber shells as they came. Behind the armored cars, a couple of platoons of infantry came dashing out, firing rapidly. Instead of surprising a widely dispersed force, though, they ran head-on into the scratch force Lamont and Milheim had just assembled.

The light rounds from one of the armored cars glanced uselessly off the carapace of one of Lamont's tanks, which swung its turret and spat a single round at the attacking vehicle. The heavy shell decapitated the armored car, striking just beneath its weapon mount and blowing the entire top of the vehicle into a long, high parabola extended by the low lunar gravity.