Stark's Crusade (29 page)

Vic had called up an internal battle armor diagram, studying it carefully. "You could, theoretically, seal off a section of battle armor. But it would have to go beyond just shutting off circuits and stopping the flow of fluids and gases. There'd have to be some way of physically blocking anything trying to crawl through any crack."

Sergeant Gordasa nodded. "Something real small trying to crawl through a real small crack. You'd have to, uh, do something like the blood does. Clot. Seal it off that way."

"Can we modify suits to do that?"

Lamont shook his head. "I guess I've got more experience with equipment than anyone here, but you've all done maintenance on your armor, right? The stuff we've got ain't designed for that kind of clotting system. It'll seal external penetrations okay, as long as they're small enough, but sealing off some internal section so nothing can get by? You'd need firewalls in there, to help isolate the sections. You'd need some mechanism for rapidly transporting whatever does the clotting, say special nanobots or just sticky foam. You'd need a detection system that could spot an infection and localize it darn near instantly so it could be sealed off."

Vic indicated the schematics before her. "None of that sounds impossible."

"It's not. I'm not sayin' you can't do it. What I'm sayin' is you'd need something designed to do all that. You can't shovel it inside the existing designs, not without completely rebuilding them. And if you're gonna do that, you might as well build a whole new battle armor designed from the ground up to handle that threat."

"He's right." Stacey Yurivan looked around the table triumphantly. "Something I picked up is finally making sense. I've heard some vague rumors about a crash program by the Pentagon to design new battle armor. Those rumors started soon after the Fifth Batt mutiny got put down."

Vic leaned over the table as she fixed Yurivan with a hard look. "Why didn't you mention that before?"

"Because, Reynolds, I've been trying to confirm it. I don't pass along every rumor that crosses my desk."

"So, how long have we got? When will this new battle armor be fielded?"

"Do I look like a Pentagon weapons geek? I predict the new armor will come on line years late and many millions, or billions, over budget. Beyond that, who knows?"

Stark waved one hand to interrupt the argument. "Stace, if that battle armor was anywhere near ready, wouldn't you have gotten some firmer word?"

"Yeah. I'm sure I would have. It won't show up tomorrow, or the next day, or the next week."

Lamont grunted as if a sudden thought had hit him. "The Jabberwocks. They'd want to do the same modifications on those. But that'd take time, too. They can't have been designed to handle the nano threat, any more than our armor was."

"Good point. Stace, have we seen anything to indicate retrofits to the Jabberwocks?"

"Nope." Yurivan twisted her face slightly as she considered the question. "That'd cause enough of a flap that we'd have heard something. I bet somebody's raised the question, but those Jabberwocks have got to be really complicated. A from-the-ground-up redesign to counter a nanobot threat would probably require basically scrapping them and rebuilding the things. Just like the battle armor."

Gordasa nodded again. "That would require new parts, new specifications, new training. Which would all take a lot of time, and a lot more money,
verdad?
Yet the authorities back home don't have much of either."

"Right, Gordo." Stark nodded in turn. "Campbell says the government figures they've got to win this campaign before the election or they'll lose their hold on power, and then a bunch of people eager to fix the system will start taking some long looks at stuff that's been kept hidden. There's no way the government could postpone action long enough to install the kind of fix we're talkin' about."

"Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" Vic remarked. "There's problems with the gear, but we've got to go ahead anyway. How many times did we get sent on that kind of op?"

"So, they'll do it again. And hope we don't have nano rounds to use against the Jabberwocks. Do they even know we know about the Jabberwocks?"

"They know we know they're working on them," Yurivan advised. "The politicians spilled that. But they don't know if we know they're operational and here to be used against us now."

"That helps. I guess. Well, at least this discussion solved the original question, even though we had to circle back to it. We figured out what kind of defense the Pentagon would have to use, then figured they probably can't use it in the time they've got."

Gordasa pointed at Private Mendoza. "But that still leaves another question he raised. Worst case, what if the nanos don't work? What will we do?"

Stark grinned. "Then we fall back on the traditional means of dealing with hostile, armed individuals. Generous quantities of high-explosive and high-velocity metal, delivered with the necessary degree of accuracy."

"Now you're talkin'!" Lamont looked positively wistful. "Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the tried-and-true methods of destroying things. All these kinder and gentler means of fighting wars just waste time."

The alert came just after midnight a few days later. Stark had been lying in his bed, unsuccessfully courting sleep, when his comm unit beeped. "Commander Stark, this is the command center. Sensors facing the Mixing Bowl are detecting high levels of subsurface movement, including apparent excavation activity."

"Thanks. Notify Sergeant Reynolds. Activate the reserves and get 'em moving. Put all sectors on alert. Somebody else might try hitting us in another area while they think we're busy at the Mixing Bowl."

Stark was fastening the last seals on his battle armor when Vic called in. "Ethan? I'll join you in the command center."

"No, you won't. I'm taking the command APC out there so I can judge the situation in person."

"Ethan Stark, you never mentioned this plan before!"

"That's because I didn't want to argue about it and now we ain't got time. Look, Vic, I'll be a little ways back from the front, with the APC right there and the reserve combat units all around me:'

"You can command just as well from back here."

"No. Not with something new. I need to watch these Jabberwocks, get the full feel for their attack. I can't do that from far away." He grabbed his rifle, heading for the door. "I'm on my way."

Stark could hear Vic's sigh even over the circuit. "All right. Just try to keep your head down, soldier."

His APC was waiting. Stark entered through the side hatch, resolving for umpteenth time to get that hatch sealed so that the APC's armor and camouflage would once again be intact. Any general who couldn't climb through a standard belly access hatch didn't deserve the job of commander, in Stark's estimation. Strapping on his harness. Stark jacked into the APC's internal circuit. "Okay, driver. Let's go hunt some Jabberwocks."

"Yes, sir." The APC driver's reply lacked enthusiasm, either because of the late hour or because he didn't relish the thought of being close to combat. The vehicle surged into motion, the driver taking it through the fairly smooth surface areas of the Colony, then out into the rougher terrain beyond.

Stark studied the display before him, even though he'd already examined that stretch of the front so often he could see it in his sleep.
No actual Jabberwock detections yet. No tunnel entrances blown yet. Those apes from Second Division should have realized that needing to finish the tunnels at the last minute would provide us some extra warning time. Hell, they probably did realize it and got overruled by whatever Operations and Plans genius came up with the tunnel idea.

Stark had long ago selected a site for his mobile command post a little way back from the front, just behind a low ridge whose gentle curve betrayed its origin in a long-ago meteor impact. The APC came to rest, parked exactly on the designated spot, and Stark popped the hatch.

He scrambled cautiously up the slope, even though his command scan told him there were still no Jabberwock detections and no enemy fire was incoming.
Like we guessed. No artillery preparation or cover fire. They're probably counting on surprise. Not just surprise at the time of attack, but surprise at the Jabberwocks. Too bad for them.

"Ethan." Vic spoke calmly, just as she always had when commanding a squad on the front line.

Stark could see her in his mind's eye, standing in the command center before the huge display, analyzing the situation. The thought gave him considerable comfort. "Here. How's it look?"

"Like you see on your display. I'm not spotting anything unexpected as of yet. The reserve forces are moving up and should be in position within another few minutes."

Stark checked his scan, nodding with satisfaction as he watched the symbology representing four battalions of soldiers reaching their positions. It had been a risky decision, committing so many battalions right here, but guarding against a possible attack elsewhere around the perimeter seemed less important than maximizing the force available where they knew the attack was coming in. Stark took a moment to review the advancing forces, noting Fifth Battalion of Second Brigade among their number. They'd volunteered for the assignment, eager to prove themselves after the shame of the brief mutiny. He watched their movements a little longer, noting something unexpected. "One of those reserve outfits seems headed straight for me."

"That's right, Ethan. I'm positioning one of the reserve units near your location. Just in case you might need them."

"One of the reserve units? Which one?"

"Bravo Company. Second Battalion. First Brigade. Lieutenant Conroy commanding. Sergeant Sanchez and the rest of the Battalion will be nearby. Happy?"

"Couldn't be happier." Stark had a feeling he knew which platoon of Bravo Company would end up camping on his doorstep. He relaxed, watching the front, imagining he could actually see the subsurface activity still being reported by their sensors.

"
Sargento
?"

Stark grinned. "Corporal Gomez. Damned glad to see you."

"Same here,
Sargento
. We got orders to stick to you tight as a whore's hot pants."

"Let me guess where those orders came from. Okay. If I gotta have a guard detail, you guys are who I want."

"Gracias, Sargento
."

Stark took a moment to check the status readouts of his old squad, enjoying the sensation of once again being just a squad leader checking on his peoples' status. "Murphy? Are you in shape for this?"

"Yeah, Sarge. I can handle it fine."

Stark started to move on to another soldier, then noticed something else tagged to Murphy's data. "Acting corporal? You're acting corporal for the squad, Murph?"

"That's right, Sarge. Corporal Gomez. she said she'd give me a chance."

"I hope you're doing your best at it."

"Sure thing, Sarge. Corporal Gomez says I been doing okay."

Stark barely repressed a surprised exclamation. Corporal Gomez's "okay" was equivalent to fulsome praise from others. "That's good to hear." He felt a sudden urgency and dropped plans to speak to each of the other soldiers from his old squad individually. "All you apes. I'm damned glad you're here with me. I don't know for sure all that's gonna happen, but I do know we're gonna kick some robot butt. Anita."

"
Sí
',
Sargento
."

"I may get awful busy, dealing with stuff all along the front.

Watch my back."

"You don't have to tell us that. That's why we're here. We'll watch your back, front, and flanks. Don't worry."

"I won't." A moment later his suit alarms announced activity not far from the entrance of the Mixing Bowl. Stark used his HUD's built-in view magnifier to zoom in, seeing geysers of lunar rock and dust flying skyward as the entrances to several tunnels blew open. He switched to the command circuit, speaking to every soldier along this part of the front. "Okay, you apes. It looks like they're coming. We're ready for them. I want your best from everybody out there. There ain't any soldiers anywhere as good as you apes, and there ain't any robots that can come close. Let's see what it takes to turn a Jabberwock into junk."

A brief period of silence and peace descended. The reverberating shockwaves from the explosions were masking any detections of Jabberwock ground movement, and the devices themselves were apparently too far away to be spotted by other means. Rocks and dust fell languidly back toward the moon's surface, their movement so slow as to seem grudging, as if the debris was annoyed at having its long rest on a dead world disturbed by human interlopers. Stark waited, aware of the presence on either hand of solid, veteran soldiers, drawing comfort and confidence from that knowledge to armor himself against fear of the unknown.

Tentative alerts began flickering on Stark's HUD as the Jabberwocks advanced, marking brief detections by sensors emplaced along the front. Here a ground vibration was noted, there a splash of infrared, in another place movement against a static backdrop. "Vic, how many do you think are coming?"

"Ethan, the detections are so fragmentary so far—"

"I know. But I'm feeling there's not a lot in this wave. The detections are too scattered for there to be a whole lot of those things coming."

Stark waited patiently for the few seconds it took for Vic to balance his impressions against her own. "I agree, Ethan. This looks like a probe, to find and fix our defenses for the main attack."

"Good. We'll nail these from the existing front and hold off on Papa Romeo." They were counting on Papa Romeo, the code word for the plan they'd cobbled together from guesstimates, assumptions, and their cumulative combat experience to counter the Jabberwocks. But they had to wait for the right moment to implement that plan.

"I concur."

Stark tried to relax, breathing evenly. Combat always brought tension, but fighting an unknown foe, an unknown and inhuman foe, had increased the level of stress. When he was sure his voice would be relaxed and confident, he keyed the command circuit again. "All personnel. This looks like a probe. Let's give it a bloody nose."