Stark's Crusade (6 page)

"The Constitution is sort of silent on that."

" 'Provide for the general welfare,' " Vic recited. "I think that covers it. Fine. Let's assume these civs declare independence and form their own country and even adopt the exact same Constitution we're sworn to protect. How comfortable is everybody with that?"

There was a long silence, finally broken by grumbling from Manley. "We're Americans, damnit. I don't want to be anything else."

"Me, neither," Stark agreed. "But the people running our country don't like us much. We may not have any choice about becoming something else."

Yurivan looked up, grinning suddenly. "That's an angle. The government's been putting out word that we're all criminals and troublemakers, out for anything we can get."

"Good thing none of us fit that description, huh, Stace?"

"If I may finish without further heckling, we haven't had much propaganda of our own to counter that. But we can get word around back home that we're loyal and true-blue and one hundred percent and all, and the only reason we're in trouble is because the bosses don't want us because we kicked out other bosses who were idiots. It could stir up some trouble at home. Maybe get some pressure off us."

Reynolds smiled. "That's a good idea. The civs running the Colony tell us the two major political parties are really running scared that they'll be kicked out of power. If we get word out on what we really feel, that might help that thing happen."

"It might. But these other guys, these political parties that want to clean things up, might not like us any better than the current crop of crooks. Who knows?"

"Campbell might," Stark noted. "The Colony manager. Like I said, Vic and I have a meeting with him later. I'll sound him out on that. Are there any other issues we should deal with here?"

Lamont grinned. "Let's see, we've talked about what our main strategy should be, whether we want to belong to another country, and how good the food is lately. What's left?"

"Locating a replacement shuttle," Gordasa noted, then shook his head in mock despair. "I'll take care of that, and you guys can handle the easy stuff."

Stark laughed along with the others, motioning for everyone to leave, but paused himself as Vic placed a restraining hand on his arm. "Sergeant Milheim. He just made it in. You want him to hang around and provide you with individual feedback or just put it in a report?"

"If he puts it in a report, I'd never find time to read it. Besides, if I call somebody to see me, the least I can do is actually take some time for them once they get here. You can head out, though."

"No problem." Vic left, motioning Milheim in through the door.

"Sorry I didn't make the meeting," Milheim began.

"Don't worry about it," Stark waved away any further apology. "Your people did real good out there. Did you notice any problems with the operation?"

Milheim hesitated, frowning in thought. "No. Nothing comes to mind. I will tell you it was nice not having that damned time-line blinking at us."

"Yeah. I don't think we're gonna use them much anymore. Not to govern individual movements, anyway. You gotta have a coordinated timeline when you're working together, but having one just so people will jump through hoops when the planners wanted them to never did make all that much sense."

"That reminds me, speaking of the old days, it was also nice knowing our action wasn't being broadcast as a vid entertainment. We were all sick of that."

"Damn right," Stark agreed. When the Pentagon had needed to raise large sums of money to fund the lunar operation, some unsung SOB had realized they could use the audio and video feeds from soldiers' command and control equipment to fashion almost-real-time programs for commercial broadcast. Programs that quickly became popular enough to earn a good chunk of advertising revenue. For a time, the need for high vid ratings had played at least as large a role in military operations as the desire for victory. "That'll never happen again. Not if we have any say in it. What about us, though, back here? Were we on your shoulder too much? Was there something we shoulda been doin' that we didn't?"

Milheim shrugged. "You seemed pretty transparent, truth to tell. I kept looking over my own shoulder wondering what was missing, and realizing I didn't have some bozo back at headquarters telling me to take one step left instead of one step right. I liked you keeping an eye on the big picture. That was a good call focusing on the warehouses, and I appreciated being asked my opinion based on my feeling of the scene. No complaints, I guess."

Stark gazed at Milheim, chewing his lip while he chose the right words. "Look, no offense, but I don't know you very well. Good reputation and all that, and you handle your unit real well.

But I don't know if you're the kind of guy who'd tell me to my face if I'd screwed something up. Would you?"

Milheim didn't have to feign indignation. "I look out for my people. If you were doing something that'd mess them over, I'd let you know."

"Good. I knew you took care of your troops. That's why they put you in charge of your battalion, right? Because they trusted you."

"Yeah. Lucky me. At least I didn't get put in charge of the whole shebang like you did."

"Hey, it's not so bad." Stark grinned with obvious self-mockery. "Maybe someday you'll take it over from me."

"No, thanks."

"I'll buy you a beer."

Milheim laughed. "You couldn't get me drunk enough to say yes to that proposition."

"Now, that sounds familiar. I think I've heard it on every date I've ever been on."

Another laugh. "I didn't think you had to worry about dating. Everybody knows about you and
Vic
Reynolds."

Stark blew out his breath in exasperation. "Everybody but me and Reynolds, you mean. I wouldn't have made her my second in command if we were involved like that. That'd just have been asking for trouble. And it wouldn't have been right. We're tight, Milheim, but not that way."

"Really? How come?"

"I dunno. Just the way it works, I guess. You got a steady girl?"

Milheim smiled. "Nope. My wife would frown on that. Wives get touchy about that sorta thing."

"I'd heard that. Kids?"

"Yeah. They're all up here, thanks to that swap we worked out, trading our old officers for our family members. Come by the quarters sometime and I'll introduce you."

"How are those quarters, anyway?" With the arrival of military families, the Colony had voluntarily begun excavating a large bloc of new residential construction for the creation of an ad hoc 'fort.' "I haven't had much time to check on 'em, and I know they're being built without much in the way of frills."

"They're okay," Milheim temporized. "It doesn't take much to equal the sort of base housing we're used to, does it? But the kids love the low gravity. They're bouncing off the walls. Literally. Like I said, come by and see it sometime."

"Thanks. When I get the time, I'll be sure to take you up on that."

"When you get the time? I guess it'll be a while, then, won't it?" Milheim sobered abruptly, his mouth tight. "Damn."

"What's wrong?"

"Talking about family. It reminded me, I got to write some letters. You know. To the families of the soldiers we lost on the raid." Milheim closed his eyes for a moment. "One of them had her family up here. Guess I got to tell them personally."

"We got chaplains for that."

"I've still gotta go."

"I know, but you go along with a chaplain." Stark lowered his voice pitch slightly to emphasize his words. "That's an order. You don't need to take that kind of burden all on yourself."

"Umm, okay. Thanks."

"Don't thank me. I gave the orders that sent those soldiers on the raid. I oughta talk to a chaplain, too."
But I won't, because there's nobody to order me to do it, and I'm too damn stubborn.
"How about your wounded? Where're they located in medical?" Stark didn't bother asking if Milheim knew the locations of his casualties, or whether he'd already visited them. He already knew enough about the man to be certain of both items.

"They're in a couple of different bays. Eight Charlie and Ten Delta. Most of them got patched up and sent to their quarters already."

"Good. I'll drop by, too. You need any time off?"

"No. No. I'll do better if I'm working. Besides, I oughta be used to this by now, huh?"

"Milheim, I hope to God neither one of us ever gets used to it."

Colony Manager James Campbell and his executive director, Cheryl Sarafina, were already waiting when Stark and Reynolds arrived at the manager's office. Burrowed out of the lunar surface, like so much else of the Colony, it offered the comforting presence of solid rock walls on all sides and a very thick covering of metal, rock, and dust for a roof. On one wall, a vid screen displayed the view Campbell's office might have had were it located on the surface—black shadow, gray rock, and white light running off to a too-close horizon that gave way to the unending lunar night sky. Campbell had been frugal enough or politically astute enough to equip his office with standard lunar fixtures, lightweight metal desks, tables, and chairs. The office offered no luxury and, at the moment, little comfort for its occupants. "Thank you for coming here for this meeting," Campbell began. "I needed to stay close to the office today."

"That's okay," Stark replied. "Besides, it wouldn't be right for the civ bosses to come to the mil leaders all the time, would it? I work for you."

"Yes." Campbell shook his head, then laughed. "You hold the power to control this Colony, Sergeant. Tell me again why you work for me."

Stark looked offended. "Sir. You're the elected representative of the people here. I work for the people. So I work for you. That's how it's supposed to work."

"So it is. Speaking of which . . ." Campbell nodded in the general direction of the enemy landing field Stark's troops had raided. "I assume the seismic event the Colony recently felt was related to the attack you had previously forewarned me of?"

"That's right."

"I'm afraid that seismic event caught us by surprise. We weren't expecting anything of that magnitude."

"Neither were we. They had more ammunition stockpiled there than we thought. A lot more."

Sarafina frowned. "Are you certain, Sergeant Stark, given the size of the explosive event, that it only involved conventional weaponry? Could any other weapons have been stored there?"

Stark frowned in turn, glancing at Vic, who shrugged as she answered. "I'd seriously doubt it. Mainly because the American authorities wouldn't be eager to leave weapons of mass destruction under the control of a foreign power. But it doesn't hurt to check." She hauled out her comm pad. "Command Center, this is Sergeant Reynolds. Have we done any analysis of the debris from the explosion we triggered?"

"The big one?" a watchstander replied. "Yes, Sergeant. That's standard procedure."

"Are there any indications anything other than conventional explosives were involved?"

"No. There's no fallout registering. We'd have been able to spot the presence of extraneous nuclear material if it'd been blown up with everything else. No null-particle transients detected, either. Everything's consistent with standard explosive and weapons composition, mixed in with a lot of pulverized lunar material, of course."

"Thanks." Reynolds pocketed the device. "Just standard explosives. Bad enough if you're close, but nothing worse than that."

"Good." Sarafina pointed upward. "Our spaceport tracked a great deal of activity during your . . . your . . . action. Warships and shuttles. We weren't expecting that."

Stark shifted in discomfort. "Yeah, well, that was part of our plan, but we didn't want to brief that part because if anything had gotten out, well. . ."

Campbell shook his head, his face stern. "I'm sorry, Sergeant, but in the future you must let us know that kind of detail. My civilians run the spaceport. I won't share anything with them that you tell me to hold in confidence, but I need to know what's happening when they report unusual activity so I can keep them from doing the wrong thing. Do you see that?"

"Yes. Yessir, I do. That makes sense."

"I understand why you didn't trust us with that information, Sergeant, but we need to overcome that legacy of distrust."

Even as Stark was nodding, Vic spoke up. "Speaking of distrust, our soldiers are wondering what the civilians in the Colony intend to do. We know sentiment is very much against the authorities back on Earth, but what are you planning on doing about it?"

Campbell sighed. "It increasingly appears we may have no alternative but to declare our independence. Make a clean break of it and establish our own country."

"As one of our soldiers asked, what kind of country?"

Campbell and Sarafina looked at each other, obviously startled by the question. "Why . . . I suppose the kind of country the United States is meant to be. A democracy. Freedom for individuals. And enough limits on sources of power, public and private, to ensure we retain freedom."

"So you're planning on adopting the U.S. Constitution as your governing document?"

"Ah . . ." Campbell glanced helplessly toward Sarafina, who spread her hands in an equally distressed gesture. "I suppose that would be the model. We might want to tinker with it, but, uh, to be perfectly honest, I don't think anyone's given much thought to that question as of yet."

"We have," Stark advised. "You're talking about the reason for us fighting. I'll tell you honestly, my people won't support a dictatorship, no matter how it's dressed up. They might accept a government built around the Constitution, but they're still not thrilled about it."

Campbell stared back as if now perplexed. "Then what do they want?"

Stark exhaled a brief, humorless laugh. "They want things the way they're supposed to be, with us taking orders from the Pentagon, which takes orders from the government, which takes orders from the people. But they know with the way things are, that's probably not going to happen."

"I see." Campbell held up a hand as Stark began to continue. "I do. Quite honestly. It was easy to think about and talk about independence when the concept was far off in time and practicality. But the closer we've come to being able to form our own country, the less happy I am. We ought to have an alternative, for heaven's sake. We ought to have a means to have our problems addressed by our government instead of being on the receiving end of constant threats and orders to do what we're told, or else."